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mostlybrevity.bsky.social
@mostlybrevity.bsky.social
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ryanlcooper.com
I wrote this almost 11 years ago theweek.com/articles/444...
When heavy military equipment is taken from its original context and placed in the hands of a domestic law-enforcement agency with little training in wartime scenarios, it becomes nothing more than an instrument of intimidation. It simply has no other purpose. Wearing jungle camouflage in an urban setting, pointing guns at civilians, driving around pointlessly in an armored personnel carrier — all of these egregiously violate military best practices. This is playing soldier dress-up to scare the pants off the locals — except the guns are real. Notice also how many of these riot cops have their faces completely covered by gas masks and insect goggles. That is almost never seen in recent wars, because covering the face makes a soldier look less human, which is directly at odds with modern counterinsurgency thinking. But covering the face to dehumanize the enemy is a common feature in first-person shooter games (like Half Life 2 and the Killzone series), where the player often has to slaughter them by the score. Doing it to oneself is, I think, a deliberate effort to broaden the emotional distance between law enforcement and the people who are being forced into submission. It turns out that when you put normal cops into soldier gear, you don't get soldiers. You get paramilitary goons.
January 10, 2026 at 2:14 AM