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This is yet one more of the hidden costs of the Afghan and Iraq wars. You have a large population of soldiers, many who come back home after their tours of dut

This is yet one more of the hidden costs of the Afghan and Iraq wars. You have a large population of soldiers, many who come back home after their tours of duty, where they were in effect an occupying force. And then they get a job in law enforcement. They are used too a certain way of doing things in Iraq and Afghanistan, and they bring that culture home with them. Even for those who didn't serve, as the article notes, this "warrior culture" has bled into police forces everywhere. In the military, they say "train as you fight." Well guess what they've been training to do? Hint: it's not the warm and cuddly community policing. When you're used to "fight or fight," in the military, and then you're put back in the civilian world, these issues come to the fore. Not to be mean or unfair, but some of these soldiers who come back have PTSD and other mental issues (not their fault), but I've wondered how much of that also plays a role in police violence and the way police officers handle themselves in stressful situations.

vollmond 11y ago
The other part is the excessive hero worship, also driven by the War on Terror. The "support the troops" conversation stopper has extended to law enforcement and any other public-facing service job, to the point where it's impossible to have a civil debate about the military, police, teachers, or anyone, without offending someone just for bringing up the topic.
- hga 11y ago
  And law enforcement weren't "heroes" before 9/11??? Now, I'm probably older than you, old enough to have watched the first run of hagiographic Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. F.B.I. TV series that ran until 1974, (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_F.B.I._(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_F.B.I._(TV_series) ), but I assure this is nothing new. E.g. I can remember more than a few debates I had with co-workers in the '90s on the War on Drugs, I said we could have that, or a free nation, but they were so petrified by the prospect of their children doing drugs that they preferred they'd live in an eventual police state. EDITED: added eventual, since this was in the context of where we were going, still a confirmed trend two decades later.
  - happyscrappy 11y ago
    Your definition of police state is an insult to people who have actually lived in one.
    - josai 11y ago
      Just because it's not yet the worst police state ever doesn't mean people can't voice concerns.
    - hga 11y ago
      You have a point due to my lack of clarity, which I've corrected above. This was in the context of the society they were helping to create for their children and grandchildren. We're not there yet, and the reaction to the gun grabbers of that time (Americans arming themselves like never before after 9/11 and its response told us we were own our own) suggests there's a strong and developing counter-force developing, but the potential is there. There are certainly too many politicians in high places and other influential members of our ruling class who'd like to institute a full blown police state. That's one reason I'm interested in Strange Loop controversy. ADDED: as for how things are today, since I can and do legally carry concealed almost every time I walk out the door, and how my police department has changed since back then, it's my considered opinion I am in more danger from the police than criminals. None of the latter have ever pretended to try to run me down with their car.
      - venomsnake 11y ago
        > There are certainly too many politicians in high places and other influential members of our ruling class who'd like to institute a full blown police state. That's one reason I'm interested in Strange Loop controversy. That is Orwellian state. In it the policing is internalized in the individual.
    - shit_parade2 11y ago
      By every measure the US has the most imprisonment. America is the première police state, how else would you measure it?
- beat 11y ago
  It doesn't extend to all public-facing government service jobs. A friend of mine is a social worker with the county, dealing with people's aid - food stamps, welfare, etc. He has to deny people benefits multiple times every day. This morning, one of his co-workers denied food stamps to someone. That person went outside, got a rock, came back in, and hit the social worker in the head with it, sending her to the hospital. Won't be seeing "Support our social workers!" stickers at the Wal-Mart anytime soon.
hga 11y ago
Sorry, but this trend seems to have started with changes in the War on Drugs in the '70s, and the popularization of SWAT teams. It was certainly very strong before 9/11.
- sgnelson 11y ago
  Sure, it started (slowly I would add) with the War on Drugs, but I do very much believe it escalated with 9/11, GWoT. If nothing else, look at where all the gear that the police use is coming from? It's surplus from the wars [0]. [0]http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/09/us/war-gear-flows-to-police-departments.html http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/09/us/war-gear-flows-to-polic...
carsongross 11y ago
The irony is that the only way to have had a shot at making the Afghan and Iraq campaigns successful would have been to use the old-fashioned beat-cop tactics: de-escalation, peace-keeping and what is now called "community outreach" (which used to just be "knowing folks"). Bill Lind has written extensively on this topic.
Semiapies 11y ago
The vast majority of these police have no military background. It's cargo-cult behavior, not experience.
- sgnelson 11y ago
  I honestly have no idea what the numbers are, it's one of those things I've been meaning to research, but have never gotten around too. But from my experience, a large number of troops coming back from the war enter law enforcement. But I also think (key word, think, it's a hypothesis, no current hard data to back this up at this point, see above paragraph on how I need to do this, but I've been too lazy/busy) this may be highly regional. In the sense that I live in a state with a large number of military bases/troops/persons who go into the military. They come back from their deployments, they go back home, they join the local PD. Some states have less of this than others. Further, others have made this point, and I guess I was not as clear as I should have been, but in part, you only need one officer who's a vet to come into the department and he says, "When I was in Iraq, this is how we did it..." I don't think that's a huge influence, but I do think it's part of spreading the military culture that the original article is talking about. Call it militarization of the police, hero worship, cargo-cult, whatever. I believe at the end of the day, the effect is the same, the GWoT has had negative impacts on how America has chosen to police itself.
  - Semiapies 11y ago
    You don't even need that one officer who's a MidEast veteran. Since the 1980s and 1990s, police have been militarizing. The only real change this century has been the explosion of surplus gear given to smaller police departments since 9/11. The mentality long predates that. These guys were gearing up - and psyching up - to fight the War on Drugs long before any War on Terror.
beat 11y ago
Another effect here is the paramilitarization of police equipment. Surplus equipment - armored vehicles, assault rifles, body armor, etc - is given away to police forces, leftovers from our overseas wars. This is why you see police in masks and camo that make no sense in an urban environment. Clothes help define our relationship to others. How much does it change the attitude of a policeman to be wearing body armor and riot gear rather than shirt sleeves?
Symmetry 11y ago
Is that really true though? I'd always heard that our military was a lot less trigger happy about arresting people - usually surrounding a house and demanding that the residents come out rather than battering down the door and rushing in with guns drawn.

vollmond 11y ago

The other part is the excessive hero worship, also driven by the War on Terror. The "support the troops" conversation stopper has extended to law enforcement and any other public-facing service job, to the point where it's impossible to have a civil debate about the military, police, teachers, or anyone, without offending someone just for bringing up the topic.

hga 11y ago
And law enforcement weren't "heroes" before 9/11??? Now, I'm probably older than you, old enough to have watched the first run of hagiographic Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. F.B.I. TV series that ran until 1974, (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_F.B.I._(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_F.B.I._(TV_series) ), but I assure this is nothing new. E.g. I can remember more than a few debates I had with co-workers in the '90s on the War on Drugs, I said we could have that, or a free nation, but they were so petrified by the prospect of their children doing drugs that they preferred they'd live in an eventual police state. EDITED: added eventual, since this was in the context of where we were going, still a confirmed trend two decades later.
- happyscrappy 11y ago
  Your definition of police state is an insult to people who have actually lived in one.
  - josai 11y ago
    Just because it's not yet the worst police state ever doesn't mean people can't voice concerns.
  - hga 11y ago
    You have a point due to my lack of clarity, which I've corrected above. This was in the context of the society they were helping to create for their children and grandchildren. We're not there yet, and the reaction to the gun grabbers of that time (Americans arming themselves like never before after 9/11 and its response told us we were own our own) suggests there's a strong and developing counter-force developing, but the potential is there. There are certainly too many politicians in high places and other influential members of our ruling class who'd like to institute a full blown police state. That's one reason I'm interested in Strange Loop controversy. ADDED: as for how things are today, since I can and do legally carry concealed almost every time I walk out the door, and how my police department has changed since back then, it's my considered opinion I am in more danger from the police than criminals. None of the latter have ever pretended to try to run me down with their car.
    - venomsnake 11y ago
      > There are certainly too many politicians in high places and other influential members of our ruling class who'd like to institute a full blown police state. That's one reason I'm interested in Strange Loop controversy. That is Orwellian state. In it the policing is internalized in the individual.
  - shit_parade2 11y ago
    By every measure the US has the most imprisonment. America is the première police state, how else would you measure it?
beat 11y ago
It doesn't extend to all public-facing government service jobs. A friend of mine is a social worker with the county, dealing with people's aid - food stamps, welfare, etc. He has to deny people benefits multiple times every day. This morning, one of his co-workers denied food stamps to someone. That person went outside, got a rock, came back in, and hit the social worker in the head with it, sending her to the hospital. Won't be seeing "Support our social workers!" stickers at the Wal-Mart anytime soon.

hga 11y ago

Sorry, but this trend seems to have started with changes in the War on Drugs in the '70s, and the popularization of SWAT teams. It was certainly very strong before 9/11.

sgnelson 11y ago
Sure, it started (slowly I would add) with the War on Drugs, but I do very much believe it escalated with 9/11, GWoT. If nothing else, look at where all the gear that the police use is coming from? It's surplus from the wars [0]. [0]http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/09/us/war-gear-flows-to-police-departments.html http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/09/us/war-gear-flows-to-polic...

carsongross 11y ago

The irony is that the only way to have had a shot at making the Afghan and Iraq campaigns successful would have been to use the old-fashioned beat-cop tactics: de-escalation, peace-keeping and what is now called "community outreach" (which used to just be "knowing folks"). Bill Lind has written extensively on this topic.

Semiapies 11y ago

The vast majority of these police have no military background. It's cargo-cult behavior, not experience.

sgnelson 11y ago
I honestly have no idea what the numbers are, it's one of those things I've been meaning to research, but have never gotten around too. But from my experience, a large number of troops coming back from the war enter law enforcement. But I also think (key word, think, it's a hypothesis, no current hard data to back this up at this point, see above paragraph on how I need to do this, but I've been too lazy/busy) this may be highly regional. In the sense that I live in a state with a large number of military bases/troops/persons who go into the military. They come back from their deployments, they go back home, they join the local PD. Some states have less of this than others. Further, others have made this point, and I guess I was not as clear as I should have been, but in part, you only need one officer who's a vet to come into the department and he says, "When I was in Iraq, this is how we did it..." I don't think that's a huge influence, but I do think it's part of spreading the military culture that the original article is talking about. Call it militarization of the police, hero worship, cargo-cult, whatever. I believe at the end of the day, the effect is the same, the GWoT has had negative impacts on how America has chosen to police itself.
- Semiapies 11y ago
  You don't even need that one officer who's a MidEast veteran. Since the 1980s and 1990s, police have been militarizing. The only real change this century has been the explosion of surplus gear given to smaller police departments since 9/11. The mentality long predates that. These guys were gearing up - and psyching up - to fight the War on Drugs long before any War on Terror.

beat 11y ago

Another effect here is the paramilitarization of police equipment. Surplus equipment - armored vehicles, assault rifles, body armor, etc - is given away to police forces, leftovers from our overseas wars. This is why you see police in masks and camo that make no sense in an urban environment. Clothes help define our relationship to others. How much does it change the attitude of a policeman to be wearing body armor and riot gear rather than shirt sleeves?

Symmetry 11y ago

Is that really true though? I'd always heard that our military was a lot less trigger happy about arresting people - usually surrounding a house and demanding that the residents come out rather than battering down the door and rushing in with guns drawn.