José Luís Magana/AFP/Getty Images
Military choppers and drones flying overhead. Tanks on the streets. Chemical weapons deployed on civilians. SWAT vehicles and K-9 units hiding just around the corner. In these last few weeks, cities across the United States have looked like war zones, especially the capital.
Police threatening communities across the US is, of course, not a new phenomenon. But this time, the scale of mobilization and the sheer brutality does signal an escalation.
We are witnessing an acceleration in the authoritarian direction. A heightened police state. And all of this happening in the context of a pandemic. A pandemic in which the government couldn’t find enough resources to provide for the people - but certainly found enough resources to go to war with them when they called for justice.
The domestic consequences of U.S. foreign policy can be seen clearly in police department militarization and the erosion of our civil liberties.
The Pentagon’s 1033 program, which has transferred military grade equipment to U.S. police departments since the 1990s, has made police forces more deadly to civilians. When police are equipped with military grade equipment and trained like soldiers, the consequence is that they act like an occupying army.
The erosion of our civil liberties has continued and in fact has heightened recently. From NSA spying, to the renewal of provisions of the Patriot Act, to a bill just passed by the U.S. Senate which allows the FBI and CIA to access your browser history without a warrant.
The struggle Americans face against this violent and violating system is interconnected to the struggle of Afghans, Palestinians, Somalis and others abroad.
Our fate, and our liberation, is tied together. No one of us can be free until all of us are free.
The “war on terror” has always cast a long and dark shadow on Americans’ civil rights and liberties. Particularly for black, brown, undocumented and Muslim Americans who are assumed guilty until proven innocent.
With the recent escalation of police brutality, the threat of military force by the commander in chief in response to protests, and the most senior military officer seen observing protesters, it's official:
The “war on terror” has come home. In fact, it was always here.
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