Video Rebel’s BlogI am a Constitutional lawyer. Barack Obama 2008
What Obama didn’t say was that he had a part-time job at night school teaching law to George W Bush’s Department of Justice staff. You know. The guys who said kidnap and torture of children was OK. Anonymous Wag 2014
Seriously, the United States Army released a new Army manual: U.S. Army Techniques Publication 3-39.33: Civil Disturbances. It was originally published April 21, 2014 but was not released publicly until now. It might have been made public as part of an intimidation tactic to prevent people from attending protests. There is more Security Theater than anything else in Washington.
ATP 3-39.33 allows field commanders to use their discretion to decide if they need to use snipers to kill peaceful protesters. It has a picture of a man front and back with arrows pointing at places where the proper blow or bullet can just hurt the protester or maybe maim him or kill him. I use the word him because the person they depict is a male. (see below.) To avoid criticism from certain people the Army uses no nudity in these photos.
What I will do here is to list verbatim points from this Army manual. It is telling soldiers how to treat you if you go to a protest rally. I will include page numbers. The PDF file link is below.
ATP 3-39.33 provides discussion and techniques about civil disturbances and crowd control operations that occur in the continental United States (Yes. That means you and not just Iraq) Page 7
ATP 3-39.33 applies to Active Army, Army National Guard/Army National Guard of the United States, and U.S. Army Reserve unless otherwise stated. (Whoa! That means the National Guard can pull another May 4, 1970 Kent State shooting and kill innocent students. What happens if a lieutenant in the National Guard translates this manual down to ‘The Prez says its OK if we kill some of those guys with the signs?’) Page 7.
Public disturbance. During a public disturbance, there is turmoil on top of the initial disruption. Individuals and groups assemble often and begin chanting, yelling, singing, and voicing individual or collective opinions. (You might need to know that chanting, singing and voicing your opinion is regarded by the US Army as a public disturbance.) Page 14
Individuals in a mob may attempt to leave the area,and then they may find that there are no escape routes and the roads are blocked. This can often lead to violent physical attacks. Page 14
(Wait a minute. The Ferguson Police Department attacked the reporters hundreds of yards (meters) from the peaceful protests. They said, “Stop filming.” They slammed a reporter against a wall in the McDonalds. They used flash bang grenades and tear gas to make escape impossible for film crews in cars and vans because the reporters could not see to drive. When they got out of their cars, the police fired rubber bullets at them. Some reporters were helped by local residents. The police threw tear gas into yards after the fleeing newshounds. This endangered innocent people in their homes who never went to the protest. Tear gas canisters can start fires. It seems the police might have read this manual and used it as a How to Guide. One reporter was cut off from his crew and ran 5 miles to safety. He had to walk back into town to meet up with his people to get back to reporting.)
Along with information on the situation itself, commanders and staffs need to know what they are authorized and prohibited from doing legally. (This sounds good until you realize what this manual does authorize them to do to you.) Page 21
However, some groups may have more demanding goals, for example the
demonstrators in Seattle who sought to stop the World Trade Organization. Goals that cannot be accommodated make confrontation very likely. (This section advises a commander how to determine the Rules of Engagement and the Rules for the Use of Force. What the manual is saying quite clearly is that people who make demands like fair treatment of workers by US Trade Treaties or the end to a war are more likely to become victims of force. Why? Because the government has determined that these demands are unreasonable and can never be met.) Page 24
Recovery, apprehension, and extraction teams should be established before deployment. Team members should be equipped with personal protective equipment, a sidearm, nonlethal munitions and weapons, and disposable restraints. They should have some training in open-hand control, pain compliance,and handcuffing techniques. (Did you notice the words pain compliance? That has become standard in US police practices. It began with anti-abortion protesters who were an unpopular group. The police were trained to use pain compliance which initially involved twisting arms and evolved into breaking arms. It is now a recognized practice by the US Army. In days gone by torture was forbidden by the Eighth Amendment.) Page 27
Lethal overwatch, in the form of a designated marksman (DM), always covers the control force. During an engagement, the use of a DM provides confidence and safety to those facing a riot. The DM in an overwatch position scans the crowd to identify threat s and designates personnel for recovery, as well as firing lethal rounds (if a lethal threat is presented). They are ideally suited for flank security and countersniper operations. Now we see the role of the sniper. (The sniper is the one to identify a threat and take it out kill. This is not the commander’s decision. Now we are down to enlisted men making life and death decisions.) Page 27
Military working dog (MWD) teams may be employed with a control force formation as a method of deterring the crowd from approaching or engaging the formation. The teams should be in the rear of the formation in plain sight of the crowd, but in front of the command element. The MWD teams work back and forth behind the formation as an intimidation measure. The presence of the MWD may produce a profound psychological effect on the crowd. These teams may also be used to help control individuals who are under the control of apprehension teams by acting as a deterrent to unlawful acts. See ATTP 3-39.34 for additional information on MWD. (If you see military dogs at a demonstration, then you know the commander is behind the dogs. Might be good to know.) Page 27
CAUTION: Do not unleash an MWD on a crowd. (Nice to know. But wait a minute! That sniper is OK. The Army is only worried about bad publicity.) Page 28
Video and still camera men should make a photographic record of the civil disturbance scene, and especially individuals in the crowd who are leaders and instigators. Events must be documented to hold personnel, factions, gangs, or groups accountable for acts that violate law, destroy property, or cause physical harm. Electronically recording these events aids in the prosecution of such cases. Cameras also act as a deterrent since most individuals will not act in certain ways if they know they are being recorded. Page 28
(This sounds OK but wait a minute. Amy Goodman of Democracy Now had a show on a Secret Government’s Core list of 8 million people to be disappeared in case of a National Emergency. How many of those people on the Core list do you think got there because they were photographed at a peaceful protest? Some people have religious or moral objections to killing essentially unarmed people in a foreign land. Does that give the government the right to disappear them into a secret prison, to torture them and then to kill them without trial? If you read the NDAA, then you know it does.)
From the Lethal Response – Sniper Response Chart page 30. Ensure that target leaders or troublemakers are targeted. Use the minimum response necessary. Exploit the psychological effect of an attack. (The use of snipers is going beyond police practices known to us in days gone by.) Page 30
On this same Lethal Response Chart there is a section entitled Small Arms Direct Fire. Determine that sniper response is insufficient. Consider demonstrating capabilities. Exploit the psychological effect of a lethal response. Escalate gradually, starting with a small caliber,single round and work up to a large caliber, automatic.
(Now we are escalating up to a single death used to shock the crowd and then on to automatic weapons used on demonstrators. Suppose the Army is called out to stop a Food Riot after the Dollar Dies. Do we use automatic weapons on a crowd of starving Americans because the government cannot meet the demand for food?) Page 30
DANGER: If NLW (Non-Lethal Weapons) are fired outside their parameters, they may cause serious injury or death. (This should be taught to US police forces. Some American police officers have been trained by the Israelis in their techniques of crowd control. They aim non-lethal bean bag rounds at the head or eyes of peaceful protesters. One man on a picket line in Oakland was hit in the head by a non-lethal round and he went into a coma. The cops had been trained in Israel.) Page 33
The mix of NLW within the control force formation is based on METT-TC. For example, the first rank of the formation will have riot shields, riot batons, and their personal weapon (slung across their back [left to right] with the butt up and muzzle down or holstered). The second row will have a mix of shotguns and grenade launchers. Shotguns and grenade launchers may be used as area denial or point target weapons depending on the specific munitions used. The shotgun provides cover for the slower loading grenade launcher. The commander may move these weapons within the formation to meet the needs of the mission and to create distance between the formation and the crowd. Page 34
(Shotguns and grenade launchers? I realize this manual covers overseas crowd control but I do expect Nationwide Food Riots the Day After the Dollar Dies. If the Petrodollar (pricing of OPEC oil in dollars) came to an end in 2015, then the dollar would be dumped by foreign holders and devaluation would double prices overnight. Then prices would double again. And that would cause Nationwide Food Riots. So I ask you now if there is a better way to handle starvation than shotguns and grenades?)
Target Areas of the Human Body
The target areas of the human body are divided into three areas that represent the primary, secondary,and final target areas. These target areas (shown in figure 3-4, page 3-4) are represented in gray (primary),white (secondary), and patterned gray (final).
(Notice the words escalation of trauma. The manual is prepared to have soldiers go from pain infliction gradually up to maiming with a riot baton. The sniper has the shoot to kill authority. Might I remind you that 3 million Americans died of starvation in the 1930s.)
The final target areas are those areas which, when struck with a riot baton, cause serious trauma that tends to be fatal or critical. However, there are some areas that (when used for restraining only), will not cause death or serious injury. Some final targets of the body include—Front and back of the head (eye, ear, nose, upper lip, and hollow behind the ear). Neck and throat. Upper chest. Xiphoid process (lowest segment of the human sternum). Spinal column. Groin area. (Notice how they point out the lethal and maiming points of the human body.) Page 46
Chapter 5 begins on page 101 and deals with Confinement Facilities. This is a long section and deals with the possibility of riots at the temporary prison. No mention of long term detention facilities.
Conclusions: The most disturbing thing about this is that the military did not write separate manuals for overseas and for the US. The manual covers an escalation in riot control. That is good but there needs to be a clear line US forces cannot cross. One that was crossed some time ago is the use of Army and Marine troops to patrol events and to set up road blocks. We are not supposed to use troops to act as local police officers. But the second line is the use of deadly force against peaceful protesters.
There is a phenomenon known as Security Theater. The police might take my picture so I could wind up on that list of 8 million people to be Disappeared. That number might have passed 10 million by today. But who cares? Americans have 300 million guns. The federal government cannot arrest even just 4 or 5 million people without warrant or trial. I repeat: Americans have 300 million guns.
This manual is in part just more Security Theater. The TSA gropes genitals at airports. That teaches us that we are debt slaves owned by the Too Big To Jail Banks. The Bankers stole $40 trillion from you and now just sit down and shut up. That is not likely to work much longer.
As I have said before, Security Theater and these wars for Israel will be coming to an end rather soon. The Day the Dollar Dies will be our time of Liberation.
http://vidrebel.wordpress.com/2014/08/19/obamas-army-manual-its-cool-to-shoot-peaceful-protesters/
https://info.publicintelligence.net/USArmy-CivilDisturbances-2014.pdf
Thanks for the link, JENO — that’s exactly what people need to do; read it for themselves. There are too many people peddling fear these days to trust a headline like this.
“The most disturbing thing about this is that the military did not write separate manuals for overseas and for the US. ”
Well is there any way we know it was ever intended for use in the U.S. outside of Dave Hodges’ fear mongering campaign?
“ATP 3-39.33 provides discussion and techniques about civil disturbances and crowd control operations that occur in the continental United States”
Long after the scary headline, we see that they have a separate discussion of techniques to be used in the US, which would only exist because it differs from their crowd control operations elsewhere (this of course, is ignoring the fact that the military shouldn’t be operating in the US at all), so you should read the manual yourself if you want real answers, and ignore everyone who is trying to scare you with threats of snipers blowing away protesters.
If the US rules do in fact allow for snipers to blow away protesters, you’re just going to have to change your protest tactics to employ snipers of your own.