Warning Shots Will Not Be Fired

Steve Barton of Newsalert has a link to a very troubling article.  The article is about an army field manual for US Army military police forces on how to respond to rioting.  First produced in 2006, CIVIL DISTURBANCE OPERATIONS, as a guide for MP's. 

What's troubling about the whole thing is that its to be used within the bounds of the United States...

The document (PDF), which is dated 2006 and was used for a self-learning course at the U.S. Army Military Police School at Fort McClellan, makes it clear that the operations described in the manual apply to both “CONUS and OCONUS,” meaning inside the Continental United States and outside the Continental United States.

...and therein lies the real problem.  Here's a quote from the course,

(2) Prior to committing any federal forces in the quailing of civil disturbance whether in CONUS or OCONUS commanders should train and continually brief the control force on the rule of engagement (ROE). The commander is responsible for drafting, interpreting, disseminating, and training the control force on the ROE. The staff Judge Advocate (SJA) should be included in the ROE development to ensure that it will not improperly constrain actions, but still will remain consistent with domestic international laws, polices, and orders of the chain of command.

Our military has never really been used to put down riots in any systematic way.  When I was a young Marine, back in the early '80's, I don't think that I would have been able to follow through with orders to fire into a crowd of American citizens...and I'm not sure if the men and women in the military today would either.  Here's one of the points that disturbs me,

(4) In addition, the following policies regarding the use of deadly force will be observed:

(a) Give an order to halt.
(b) Warning shot will not be fired; Because it purports to be, and prides itself to be, apolitical, the US Military being prepared to set interment camps to house political prisoners is...not good.

Furthermore, it gives instruction on setting up interment camps...

The manual also describes how prisoners will be processed through temporary internment camps under the guidance of U.S. Army FM 3-19.40 Internment/Resettlement Operations, which as we reported earlier this year, outlines how internees would be “re-educated” into developing an “appreciation of U.S. policies” while detained in prison camps inside the United States.

The only time those have been used was during WW2 when the Federal Government disgracefully, and illegally locked up US citizen of Japanese dissent...but to purposely set up camps in which US citizens will be help is, unconscionable.  The very idea that our government is getting ready to suppress dissent is, not very palatable to most Americans.  But, it is.

With many Americans now becoming “pre-revolutionary” as a result of their fury at the Obama administration and equally unpopular lawmakers in Washington, potential civil unrest could spring not just from a poverty-stricken underclass, but also the shrinking middle class.

Perhaps that’s why the Department of Homeland Security is increasingly focusing its anti-terror apparatus on white middle class Americans, portraying them as domestic terrorists in a series of PSA videos. In addition, ‘Occupy’ protesters are also now being characterized as terrorists.

That, I think, is the sign of a political class that has begun to lose their grip on reality.  But as the BlogFather, Glenn Reynolds has repeatedly said, we're being served by the worse political class in our history.

Via Newsalert