Obama now has something like 1,000 American military personnel “on the ground”, as they say, in Iraq. The situation for the Yazidi families, while serious, was not as dire as the government had suggested apparently, as thousands had been escaping their mountaintop exile every night, according to the NY Times. Just yesterday, NBC’s Brian Williams characterized their plight as “a modern Exodus,” though I don’t recall him using that terminology to describe the thousands upon thousands of Palestinians driven from their homes in northern Gaza under withering Israeli fire (that would have been all his job is worth).

Still, the U.S. military action will continue in Iraq, sans dramatic justification. Neatly done. And we will continue to provide arms to the people fighting those other people we provided arms to. There’s a foreign policy for you. What’s even more worrying than that, though, is the degree to which our military have been providing arms, armored vehicles, and advanced tactical gear to police departments across the country, like the one in Ferguson, Missouri. In the wake of the seemingly arbitrary police killing of teenager Michael Brown, this mostly African-American community looks reminiscent of Soweto, South Africa, during the bad old days of Apartheid.

This is not limited to one small Missouri town. Police tactics with regard to young Black men appear uniformly driven by aggression and the presumption of guilt, even in the absence of any definable criminal transgression. Michael Brown was walking up a street with his friend. Eric Garner, in New York, was selling individual cigarettes. Ezell Ford, in Los Angeles, was lying on the ground, under arrest, when he was shot in the back by the police. We have seen this movie before, right? Only now, it seems, the tactics and firepower of the U.S. Military are being brought to bear to confront communities justifiably outraged by these killings. What are these police departments so afraid of? Why do they always turn the amp up to 11 when it comes to Black people?

There are many answers to that question, and they’re all pretty ugly. Suffice to say that there’s a culture of discrimination in law enforcement in the United States. After over a century of deliberately criminalizing Black life, it’s a hard habit for them to break. But we must break it … peacefully … with our collective resistance.

luv u,

jp