U.S. Marines Create a Law Enforcement Battalion!

[Delta4Embassy]

II Marine Expeditionary Force > Units > 2nd Law Enforcement Battalion > Activation

Everything I've been able to find concerning this surprising innovation carefully suggests an almost benevolent purpose for assigning a fundamentally civilian purpose to what essentially and traditionally has been an amphibious military strike force the primary usefulness of which is efficiently aggressive and destructive homicidal violence.

Marine Corps "Law Enforcement Battalions?" I can't help thinking there is something suspiciously ominous about that designation. It's like advertising sterilized bayonets. First of all, the U.S. Army already fields MP companies which are perfectly suited to fulfilling the functions ascribed to these new Marine battalions -- allegedly for fulfillment in places like Afghanistan.

I am recalling the massacre of American civilians, including 21 innocent children, at Waco, Texas, which was carried out with military assistance -- which I choose to regard as participation.

I am an ex-Marine. Although I served back in the fifties the Corps as I remember it is in no way suitable for law enforcement purposes. Even though the National Guard is far more adaptable to such a relatively peaceful function, remember what they did at Kent State University.

Did they repeal Posse Comitatus when nobody was looking?

 

[Ringel05]

II Marine Expeditionary Force > Units > 2nd Law Enforcement Battalion > Activation

Everything I've been able to find concerning this surprising innovation carefully suggests an almost benevolent purpose for assigning a fundamentally civilian purpose to what essentially and traditionally has been an amphibious military strike force the primary usefulness of which is efficiently aggressive and destructive homicidal violence.

Marine Corps "Law Enforcement Battalions?" I can't help thinking there is something suspiciously ominous about that designation. It's like advertising sterilized bayonets. First of all, the U.S. Army already fields MP companies which are perfectly suited to fulfilling the functions ascribed to these new Marine battalions -- allegedly for fulfillment in places like Afghanistan.

I am recalling the massacre of American civilians, including 21 innocent children, at Waco, Texas, which was carried out with military assistance -- which I choose to regard as participation.

I am an ex-Marine. Although I served back in the fifties the Corps as I remember it is in no way suitable for law enforcement purposes. Even though the National Guard is far more adaptable to such a relatively peaceful function, remember what they did at Kent State University.

Did they repeal Posse Comitatus when nobody was looking?

No application as nowhere in the release does it mention the unit is to be used to enforce military or non-military law against non-military US citizens.

 

[Delta4Embassy]

Wouldn't have thought so.

 

[MikeK]

I got two things out of that release, first the Marines saw a specific need the Navy SPs (plus all the Marine specialties) weren't completely fulfilling and second the primary function of every Marine is basically as a grunt. This provides civilian transferable skills to grunts who otherwise might not have those opportunities after leaving military service.
Nothing nefarious about it except in the minds of the paranoid.........

Some level of paranoia in today's political atmosphere is an important survival mechanism. Without it one is as vulnerable as a naïve maiden in a maximum security cellblock.

 

[MikeK]

II Marine Expeditionary Force > Units > 2nd Law Enforcement Battalion > Activation

Everything I've been able to find concerning this surprising innovation carefully suggests an almost benevolent purpose for assigning a fundamentally civilian purpose to what essentially and traditionally has been an amphibious military strike force the primary usefulness of which is efficiently aggressive and destructive homicidal violence.

Marine Corps "Law Enforcement Battalions?" I can't help thinking there is something suspiciously ominous about that designation. It's like advertising sterilized bayonets. First of all, the U.S. Army already fields MP companies which are perfectly suited to fulfilling the functions ascribed to these new Marine battalions -- allegedly for fulfillment in places like Afghanistan.

I am recalling the massacre of American civilians, including 21 innocent children, at Waco, Texas, which was carried out with military assistance -- which I choose to regard as participation.

I am an ex-Marine. Although I served back in the fifties the Corps as I remember it is in no way suitable for law enforcement purposes. Even though the National Guard is far more adaptable to such a relatively peaceful function, remember what they did at Kent State University.

Did they repeal Posse Comitatus when nobody was looking?

No application as nowhere in the release does it mention the unit is to be used to enforce military or non-military law against non-military US citizens.

No. And we Americans may rest assured our government would never stoop to the level of such a deceptive practice as turning our military against a protesting civilian body. To even think they might consider doing such a thing is as paranoid as believing militarization of our civilian police agencies would ever take place.

How could we be so paranoid?

 

[MikeK]

This makes perfect sense.....a rarity with my jar-headed friends...

"Traditionally, each element of the Marine Air Ground Task Force (2nd Marine Division, 2nd Marine Logistics Group and 2nd Marine Air Wing) would employ a company of their own military policemen. With the consolidation of all military policemen into a battalion, the battalion staff can focus on training the MP’s to specific standards based on the mission requirements of a requesting unit.

“The consolidation of law enforcement Marines will ensure the battalion is focusing on missions that require the skill set of these Marines,” said Capt. Mark Bailey, 2nd LEB’s operations officer."

"The structuring of Marine Corps military police into battalions first occurred during World War II, in which the provost marshal of the Far East Command realized that as operations pushed further into the Pacific Theater, transporting prisoners of war through friendly lines would no longer be a feasible option."
2nd Law Enforcement Battalion activated at Camp Lejeune > II Marine Expeditionary Force > News Article

There always has been such a thing in the Marine Corps (and other branches of the military) as Military Police. But the point you are missing is this revelation refers to a "law enforcement" function, which is a civilian activity. MPs are not law enforcement officers. Law enforcement officers are not Military Police personnel. The difference between the two is critically important, as determined by the Posse Comitatus Act.

This Marine Corps "law enforcement" innovation is worth paying close attention to -- especially in view of the progressively advancing authoritarian nature of our government.

 

[Ringel05]

Did they repeal Posse Comitatus when nobody was looking?

No application as nowhere in the release does it mention the unit is to be used to enforce military or non-military law against non-military US citizens.

No. And we Americans may rest assured our government would never stoop to the level of such a deceptive practice as turning our military against a protesting civilian body. To even think they might consider doing such a thing is as paranoid as believing militarization of our civilian police agencies would ever take place.

How could we be so paranoid?

Casuistric extrapolation aside..... Have you considered clozapine, loxapine, olanzapine or quetiapine to help you with your paranoia?

 

[MikeK]

No application as nowhere in the release does it mention the unit is to be used to enforce military or non-military law against non-military US citizens.

No. And we Americans may rest assured our government would never stoop to the level of such a deceptive practice as turning our military against a protesting civilian body. To even think they might consider doing such a thing is as paranoid as believing militarization of our civilian police agencies would ever take place.

How could we be so paranoid?

Casuistric extrapolation aside..... Have you considered clozapine, loxapine, olanzapine or quetiapine to help you with your paranoia?

Careful -- you're becoming cunty now.

 

[Ringel05]

No. And we Americans may rest assured our government would never stoop to the level of such a deceptive practice as turning our military against a protesting civilian body. To even think they might consider doing such a thing is as paranoid as believing militarization of our civilian police agencies would ever take place.

How could we be so paranoid?

Casuistric extrapolation aside..... Have you considered clozapine, loxapine, olanzapine or quetiapine to help you with your paranoia?

Careful -- you're becoming cunty now.

What's your excuse? Oh yeah, paranoia.

 

[MikeK]

Examine all the facts and draw your own conclusions.

Overkill: The Rise of Paramilitary Police Raids in America | Cato Institute

 

[MikeK]

(Excerpt)

But beyond such symbolic and formal similarities, American law and tradition have tried to draw a clear line between police and military forces. To cast the roles of the two too closely, those in and out of law enforcement say, is to mistake the mission of each. Soldiers, after all, go to war to destroy, and kill the enemy. The police, who are supposed to maintain the peace, “are the citizens, and the citizens are the police,” according to Chief Walter A. McNeil of Quincy, Fla., the president of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, citing the words of Sir Robert Peel, the father of modern-day policing.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/04/s...e-become-militarized.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

(Close)

 

[Ringel05]

Examine all the facts and draw your own conclusions.

Overkill: The Rise of Paramilitary Police Raids in America | Cato Institute

Radely Balko? You do know he was named a finalist for “Opinion Columnist of the Year" In 2011 by The Week? Speaks volumes...........
I don't have a problem with people asking legitimate (reasonable and rational) questions but classifying SWAT a truly "paramilitary" organization, secretly being used to subdue the American people is paranoia at it's worst.
Occasionally their expertise is questionably applied and on rare occasions someone needs to be taken to task for obviously misusing SWAT but they were and are a direct outgrowth of the increased deadly violence used by criminal organizations who became paramilitary organizations in their own right.
What you paranoid partisans are all freaked out over in this instance (the OP) is a name, a label and you're reading all sorts of nefarious agendas into it.

 

[MikeK]

Examine all the facts and draw your own conclusions.

Overkill: The Rise of Paramilitary Police Raids in America | Cato Institute

Radely Balko? You do know he was named a finalist for “Opinion Columnist of the Year" In 2011 by The Week? Speaks volumes...........

Yes. Where are your opinions published?

I don't have a problem with people asking legitimate (reasonable and rational) questions but classifying SWAT a truly "paramilitary" organization, secretly being used to subdue the American people is paranoia at it's worst. Occasionally their expertise is questionably applied and on rare occasions someone needs to be taken to task for obviously misusing SWAT but they were and are a direct outgrowth of the increased deadly violence used by criminal organizations who became paramilitary organizations in their own right.

For example?

What you paranoid partisans are all freaked out over in this instance (the OP) is a name, a label and you're reading all sorts of nefarious agendas into it.

As I said, draw your own conclusions, as you obviously have done. Maybe the difference between us is I am old enough to remember a time, within our lifetimes, when America was a very different place but you have no such reference.

 

[MikeK]

More:

(Excerpt)

Getting back to the question of who’s to blame for Battlefield America, as we are coming to know it, whether it’s militarized police or a militarized culture, it’s a little like the chicken and the egg debate. Whichever way you look at it, whichever one came first, the end product remains the same. Clearly, the American homeland is now ruled by a military empire. Everything our founding fathers warned against—a standing army that would see American citizens as combatants—is now the new norm. In other words, it looks like the police state is here to stay.

Who's to Blame for Battlefield America? Is It Militarized Police or the Militarized Culture?

(Close)

 

[MikeK]

Still more:

(Excerpt)

American neighborhoods are increasingly being policed by cops armed with the weapons and tactics of war. Federal funding in the billions of dollars has allowed state and local police departments to gain access to weapons and tactics created for overseas combat theaters – and yet very little is known about exactly how many police departments have military weapons and training, how militarized the police have become, and how extensively federal money is incentivizing this trend. It’s time to understand the true scope of the militarization of policing in America and the impact it is having in our neighborhoods. Since March 6th, ACLU affiliates in 25 states filed over 260 public records requests with law enforcement agencies and National Guard offices to determine the extent to which federal funding and support has fueled the militarization of state and local police departments. Stay tuned as this project develops.

https://www.aclu.org/militarization

(Close)

With America's civilian police agencies moving more and more closely toward militarization, and the military moving more closely toward the practice of civilian law enforcement activities, what will be the effect when the two entities finally meet somewhere in the middle?

 

[MikeK]

Another Balko article, Ringel. But please note that his opinion is supported by lots of verifiable facts:

(Excerpt)

In 2004, for example, law enforcement officials in the New York counties of Oswego and Cayuga defended their new SWAT teams as a necessary precaution in a post–September 11 world. “We’re in a new era, a new time," here,” one sheriff told the Syracuse Post Standard. “The bad guys are a little different than they used to be, so we’re just trying to keep up with the needs for today and hope we never have to use it.” The same sheriff said later in the same article that he'd use his new SWAT team “for a lot of other purposes, too ... just a multitude of other things." In 2002, the seven police officers who serve the town of Jasper, Florida -- which had all of 2,000 people and hadn’t had a murder in more than a decade -- were each given a military-grade M-16 machine gun from the Pentagon transfer program, leading one Florida paper to run the headline, “Three Stoplights, Seven M-16s.”

A Decade After 9/11, Police Departments Are Increasingly Militarized

(Close)

 

[Ringel05]

Examine all the facts and draw your own conclusions.

Overkill: The Rise of Paramilitary Police Raids in America | Cato Institute

Radely Balko? You do know he was named a finalist for “Opinion Columnist of the Year" In 2011 by The Week? Speaks volumes...........

Yes. Where are your opinions published?

I don't have a problem with people asking legitimate (reasonable and rational) questions but classifying SWAT a truly "paramilitary" organization, secretly being used to subdue the American people is paranoia at it's worst. Occasionally their expertise is questionably applied and on rare occasions someone needs to be taken to task for obviously misusing SWAT but they were and are a direct outgrowth of the increased deadly violence used by criminal organizations who became paramilitary organizations in their own right.

For example?

What you paranoid partisans are all freaked out over in this instance (the OP) is a name, a label and you're reading all sorts of nefarious agendas into it.

As I said, draw your own conclusions, as you obviously have done. Maybe the difference between us is I am old enough to remember a time, within our lifetimes, when America was a very different place but you have no such reference.

Yeah, I remember those times also, police continuously violating peoples rights, which lead to needed changes, politicians as corrupt as they are today, segregation, few labor safety regulations, ineffective food safety enforcement, criminals who didn't outgun the police, McCarthyism (a little before my time), etc, etc, etc. Shall I go on?
Unlike you I didn't live in some all white time vacuum, being raised a military brat I was all over the country.
Has the government gone a little overboard in some areas? Of course they have but unlike you I don't see far right or far left conspiracies in everything they do.

 

[MikeK]

And more:

(Excerpt)

Steve Ward is a retired Marine colonel and former Colorado state senator who sends me an e-mail when he spots a story about an MRAP — that would be a Mine-Resistant Ambush-Protected vehicle — being transferred to a civilian police force.

"I ran the forward operations of the MRAP in the Middle East, Iraq and Afghanistan a few years ago," Ward explains. "Pushed about 1,400 MaxxPro's [which is Navistar's brand] into Afghanistan. MRAPs simply have no place in the inventory of civilian law enforcement agencies. None. It is inappropriate."

Ward is by no means the only person unsettled by the militarization of civilian police, but it's time more of us took notice. As ABC News reported last month, "The hulking [MRAP] vehicles, built for about $500,000 each at the height of the war, are among the biggest pieces of equipment that the Defense Department is giving to law enforcement agencies under a national military surplus program."

So far, ABC said, police and sheriff departments have "scooped up" 165 of them "since they became available this summer" — apparently because "the price and ability to deliver shock and awe while serving warrants or dealing with hostage standoffs was just too good to pass up."


Read more: Carroll: Just what your local police don't need — an MRAP - The Denver Post Carroll: Just what your local police don't need ? an MRAP - The Denver Post


(Close)

 

[Connery]

This makes perfect sense.....a rarity with my jar-headed friends...

"Traditionally, each element of the Marine Air Ground Task Force (2nd Marine Division, 2nd Marine Logistics Group and 2nd Marine Air Wing) would employ a company of their own military policemen. With the consolidation of all military policemen into a battalion, the battalion staff can focus on training the MP’s to specific standards based on the mission requirements of a requesting unit.

“The consolidation of law enforcement Marines will ensure the battalion is focusing on missions that require the skill set of these Marines,” said Capt. Mark Bailey, 2nd LEB’s operations officer."

"The structuring of Marine Corps military police into battalions first occurred during World War II, in which the provost marshal of the Far East Command realized that as operations pushed further into the Pacific Theater, transporting prisoners of war through friendly lines would no longer be a feasible option."
2nd Law Enforcement Battalion activated at Camp Lejeune > II Marine Expeditionary Force > News Article

There always has been such a thing in the Marine Corps (and other branches of the military) as Military Police. But the point you are missing is this revelation refers to a "law enforcement" function, which is a civilian activity. MPs are not law enforcement officers. Law enforcement officers are not Military Police personnel. The difference between the two is critically important, as determined by the Posse Comitatus Act.

This Marine Corps "law enforcement" innovation is worth paying close attention to -- especially in view of the progressively advancing authoritarian nature of our government.

Look at the mission not the name.

 

[MikeK]

Yeah, I remember those times also, police continuously violating peoples rights, which lead to needed changes, politicians as corrupt as they are today, segregation, few labor safety regulations, ineffective food safety enforcement, criminals who didn't outgun the police, McCarthyism (a little before my time), etc, etc, etc. Shall I go on?

Back in 1952 I happened to be sitting in a place where I watched three men wearing fedoras enter a building across the street while two uniformed NYPD patrolmen sat in a marked police car outside. About five minutes later the men in fedoras, who were NYPD detectives came out of the building leading a handcuffed man in shirtsleeves. They placed the man in a black 1950 Ford sedan and drove off, followed by the uniformed cops.

While we had absolutely no idea at the time, the fellow in shirtsleeves was Willie Sutton, a notorious bank robber and Public Enemy Number One at the time (Google Willie Sutton for more info on him). Willie had been living in that rooming house for two years when someone thought they recognized him and called the police. The 78 Precinct dispatched three detectives and two uniforms to follow up on the tip.

The point I am making is that just five cops were dispatched to possibly encounter a notorious bank robber who was known to have a Thompson submachine gun as well as an automatic handgun. Can you imagine what kind of a response that tip would have gotten today? I'm sure at least two dozen masked, helmeted SWAT cops with machine guns, tasers and flash-bang grenades, and wearing special boots and gloves, would have arrived in armored cars, along with ambulances, fire trucks, two dozen police cars with flashing lights -- and at least one helicopter.

Unlike you I didn't live in some all white time vacuum, being raised a military brat I was all over the country.

There are a few Blacks living in my time vacuum -- if that has anything to do with the discussion.

Has the government gone a little overboard in some areas? Of course they have but unlike you I don't see far right or far left conspiracies in everything they do.

A "little" overboard? Come on now. As I said, you have a relatively limited frame of reference, so you really shouldn't be talking about others living in a vacuum.

Today there are eight-man SWAT teams kicking down doors at 3AM on the mere suspicion that someone inside might be selling dime bags of marijuana. It's happening all over America tens of thousands of times each year.

Don't believe it? Go here: Botched Paramilitary Police Raids | Cato Institute