Armageddon Scenarios

Obama Legacy: Demoralized Military – Militarized Federal Agencies

Yet the very same president who has torn down our military has simultaneously built up a militarized police force among federal agencies.

Contributing Author

Published on

February 16, 2016

By Valerie Love

This headline was in the news today: Americans No Longer Believe the US Military is Leading the World:

“According to a new poll from Gallup, for the first time since 1994, Americans are less likely to see the U.S. as the world’s number one military power.”

“In a question which asked if America is “No. 1” or just one of a number of world powers, only 49% of respondents put the U.S. at the top. The percentage is a significant drop from 64% in 2010, and equal to the number of respondents who listed America as just one of several countries.”

Is there any wonder that Americans’ confidence in the military has slipped with a commander-in-chief who has decimated the military and destroyed the military from within? His reckless leadership has demoralized the U.S. military.

Even the Stars and Stripes are reporting: Russia hit 1,888 targets in Syria in a week; US count? Just 16.

Russia made it clear they will ignore Obama and keep bombing the “moderate rebels” Obama has supplied with weapons. What kind of leader supplies terrorists with weapons under the guise of calling them “moderate rebels”? He is a joke, an embarrassment.

Yet the very same president who has torn down our military has simultaneously built up a militarized police force among federal agencies.

An April 28, 2014 article: The United States of SWAT? indicated:

“Military-style units from government agencies are wreaking havoc on non-violent citizens.”

“Regardless of how people feel about Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy’s standoff with the federal Bureau of Land Management over his cattle’s grazing rights, a lot of Americans were surprised to see TV images of an armed-to-the-teeth paramilitary wing of the BLM deployed around Bundy’s ranch.”

“They shouldn’t have been. Dozens of federal agencies now have Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) teams to further an expanding definition of their missions. It’s not controversial that the Secret Service and the Bureau of Prisons have them. But what about the Department of Agriculture, the Railroad Retirement Board, the Tennessee Valley Authority, the Office of Personnel Management, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service? All of these have their own SWAT units and are part of a worrying trend towards the militarization of federal agencies — not to mention local police forces.”

“Law-enforcement agencies across the U.S., at every level of government, have been blurring the line between police officer and soldier,” journalist Radley Balko writes in his 2013 book Rise of the Warrior Cop. “The war on drugs and, more recently, post-9/11 antiterrorism efforts have created a new figure on the U.S. scene: the warrior cop — armed to the teeth, ready to deal harshly with targeted wrongdoers, and a growing threat to familiar American liberties.” The proliferation of paramilitary federal SWAT teams inevitably brings abuses that have nothing to do with either drugs or terrorism. Many of the raids they conduct are against harmless, often innocent, Americans who typically are accused of non-violent civil or administrative violations.”

The Wisconsin Supreme Court just dealt a death blow to the Fourth Amendment:

If this can happen with the police force, it can happen with a federal agency.

“Once SWAT teams are created, they will be used. Nationwide, they are used for standoffs, often serious ones, with bad guys. But at other times they’ve been used for crimes that hardly warrant military-style raids. Examples include angry dogs, domestic disputes, and misdemeanor marijuana possession.” – National Review Online

America now has at least 73 federal agencies that employ armed personnel. For example, the EPA spends $75 million each year for criminal enforcement:

“The Environmental Protection Agency has spent millions of dollars over the last decade on military-style weapons to arm its 200 “special agents” to fight environmental crime.”

“Among the weapons purchased are guns, body armor, camouflage equipment, unmanned aircraft, amphibious assault ships, radar and night-vision gear and other military-style weaponry and surveillance activities, according to a new report by the watchdog group Open the Books.” …

“The agency spends nearly $75 million each year for criminal enforcement, including money for a small militia of 200 “special agents” charged with fighting environmental crime.”

According to this article: EPA spends $75 Million Building Militarized Police Force: Over 70 Federal Agencies now Armed:

“While the politicians in Washington work to disarm the American public, they are arming themselves at a record levels. We now have 73 federal agencies that employ armed personnel, with 24 of those agencies employing more than 25o full-time armed officers with arrest authority.”

Federal agencies with more than 250 full-time personnel with arrest and firearm authority: