More about St. Paul

[pecunium]

The RNC has been delayed, but the police presence seems to be more than one might have expected, even looking at the arrests this weekend.

Beginning last night, St. Paul was the most militarized I have ever seen an American city be, even more so than Manhattan in the week of 9/11 -- with troops of federal, state and local law enforcement agents marching around with riot gear, machine guns, and tear gas cannisters, shouting military chants and marching in military formations. Humvees and law enforcement officers with rifles were posted on various buildings and balconies.

That's bad enough (and puts to shame the insult to the body politic of the "Freedom Cage" in Denver).

But listen to this. It's the arrest of Amy Goodman, of Democracy Now. The charge... that previously unused, "conspiracy to commit riot," which was the justification for some of the raids/arrests over the weekend.

What was she doing? Apparently the police decided to detain some of her staff. When she went to talk to the cops, trying to get her people released (or at, I assume, at the very least get some idea what her people were being charged with) they arrested her.

There are more reports that rubber bullets and tear gas are being used.

It ain't Tiananmen, but it ain't the America I grew up in neither.

Comments

[ithiliana.livejournal.com]

I remember Kent State and the Chicago convention -- so this IS sort of the America I grew up in, coming back and even worse.

Depressing as all fucking hell. *sigh*

[holyoutlaw.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I remember the Chicago 1968 Democratic convention. And when MLK was assassinated, my neighborhood was placed under martial law, with tanks and National Guard and jeeps in the street.

But this feels worse to me. In 1968, there were riots happening. This is preemptive.

[glinda-w.livejournal.com]

But this feels worse to me. In 1968, there were riots happening. This is preemptive.

Yes, that. I'm not so sure that this *isn't* the US version of Tianamen.

[pdlloyd.livejournal.com]

I agree.

[swingland.livejournal.com]

i think were it tianamen square, there wouldn't be any doubt.

they're still using rubber bullets and tear gas.

when big brother uses a rubber mallet to slam your face, be thankful it's not the baton, the hammer, or the wrench.

[editrx.livejournal.com]

Yes, I was living in DC when the race riots happened -- tanks and National Guard with loaded weapons in our streets, even in NW DC (the rich, white area), pointing the guns at us children and telling us to get in our houses or else face being rounded up.

But there were riots happening only a mile away.

This is before anything has happened at all, if anything were to happen.

I have a harder and harder time explaining why I live here to my friends who live outside the US (or who are ex-pats not for political reasons but because of marriage, job, etc.).

[swingland.livejournal.com]

you live here because the paperwork process to live somewhere else is long and bureaucratic.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

Don't be an ass.

[swingland.livejournal.com]

I'm not trying to be. I'm in the same boat, too.

[editrx.livejournal.com]

I used to have to do a lot of paperwork for the Navy. I'm used to long and bureaucratic. I teethed on the stuff. :)

I expect

[dragonet2.livejournal.com]

if Mr. mc wins, we'll have more of the same.

But I'm still cynical enough that I'm not certain that there will be a fake "terrorist' action and Mr. Bush et al will declare that the election is postponed until the 'crisis' is over. For their value of 'over.'

I hates them.

[dsgood.livejournal.com]

This is the America I grew up in; the one which put Japanese-Americans in concentration camps.

[stillnotbored.livejournal.com]

A friend of mine lives in the St. Paul area. He's been collecting links on his LJ, some of them local. You may have seen all of this, but just in case you can find all his info here.

http://mmerriam.livejournal.com/tag/politics

He is, to say the least, royally pissed this is happening in his home town.

Audio

[royeh.livejournal.com]

http://election411.org/files/election411audio/AuraBogado-interviews-AmyGoodman-after-arrest.mp3

[swingland.livejournal.com]

in urban warfare, military casualties are expected to rise to an acceptable level of 70%. held back from being able to use artillery and air strikes, having to clear out, say, an inner city block, building by building, could prove to be an actual level playing field.

oh! my toaster strudel is done! tally-ho!

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

I have no idea what point your attempt at with is trying to makem but you've not done much fighting have you?

Because, wherever you got that idea, it's nonsense. Unit's can't sustatain the sorts of casualty rate you describe (when one see that line units had casualty rates of 70-120 percent, they did it over a lot of time... with the exception of rare events like the Somme, Passchendaele and some other disasters of WW1. Then again, those units were lost. Destroyed, and had to be retired, or completely rebuilt. A days work and out)

When the inference (that this might happen in the course of suppressing a riot/insurrection) is added, it ain't gonna happen. In the first place; abssent an all out civil war, the troops won't be that brutal.

In the second, even with the advantages of urban terrain, the civilian population won't take the casualties. The riot/insurrection will collapse. It might spark more, in other places, but for the moment; in that place, quiet will be the order of the day.

[swingland.livejournal.com]

Sometimes I get a bit too sarcastic for my own good and I truly do apologize for that.

I was in the Marines for about 5 years, but that is NOT a justification. Let's just call it a day.

[swingland.livejournal.com]

you can say that about american law enforcement and troops. they are definitely OF the people.

casualty rates of 70% are not completely unheard of. Vietnam era statistics were often skewed for political reasons, and so on the battalion level (where such statistics are taken), casualties remained at 20-30%. if you went down to the line companies, platoons, and squads, casualty rates of 70% were not uncommon. not every casualty is a death. anything that takes a soldier, marine, or sailor off the line is a casualty. so, fungal toe infection could be a casualty just as easily as a bullet. and in cases like you specified in WWI, infection and disease were often more deadly than bullets.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

Troops (in my 16 years in the army, and around a lot of other services) don't suffer from that so much (though in the States the idea that, "liberals" aren't really citizens is more common in the services than I would like, it's still not to the level of pervasive, and not yet to the level of dogma. You might want to read, "Making the Corps" for an analysis of how it might come to pass, but I digress).

They see themselves as members of the polity, irreducible from it. They may seem themselves as special; because they defend it, but they don't see themselves apart from it.

Cops on the other hand really aren't, of the people. They are from the people. It's one of the problems with police. Over time (and not a very long one) they stop seeing the people, at large, as being the same as they are.

Some are law abiding, some are perps, and most are potenitial perps. (I know a lot of cops, my dad's a cop, a lot of the guys in my unit are/were cops).

Add the ability to step outside the law, and it can get ugly.

As to casualty rates, yes, one can get to 70 percent, over years In really bad actions, maybe months. The German Units at Stalingrad (where replacements weren't possible) had 30-40 percent casualty rates (and I know casualty /= dead, it's wounded in such a way as to remove the troop from the line. I was a casualty in OIF-1, I am not dead, yet).

Hit a unit with more than 15-20 percent in a single action and it breaks. Hit it with more than 25-40 percent and it routs. Cut it off, and do that and it either surrenders, or dies in place. It doesn't continue offensive action.

But your presentation of, "Urban combat leads to casualty rates of 70 percent" wasn't offering a vision of sprained ankles and immersion foot. It was rather implying bodies under rubble, and a dedicated resistance making those bodies.

1: There ain't a city in the world with a population capable of doing that. The most disciplined of civilians don't have the training, the tactics or the willingness to take casualties to do that. For a recent example, look at Fallujah. We didn't take so much as 10 percent casualties, and we made it about as perfect a place for the inhabitants to wage an urban fight as was possible (tell everyone they had to leave, then refuse to let the men of "military age" out, then say everyone who was still in town was an insurgent and declare the place a free-fire zone).

Where armies fail at that is in running out of troops to pour into the fight. If they can keep it up, they will win. But there won't be any unit taking 70 percent, not unless that unit is 1: in the line a long time, and 2: the fight is really long, and 3: they can be pulled out to have losses replaced, and some pretense of integrated into the reconstituted unit.

[swingland.livejournal.com]

just as a point of reference: did you guys ever do the MOUT city training? i remember in the briefing that during the course of taking a city, casualty levels are expected to be up to 70-75%. i remember a couple years later working as OP-FORCE and the unit that came down into the city suffered near 85% losses. i would love to brag it was because of our super wonder powers, but i think it's more accurately attributable to lack of fire support, no air cover, no grenades. maybe i had my training figures and my real figures messed up. but i swear i remember in the C3 brief (human dimensions to warfare), the S-3 guy doing the briefing was telling us that in the event of urban operations, a fairly large percentage of us were not expected to come back out. maybe it was just the unit i was in and they wanted us to be ready for the worst, or there was some merit to it, or the guy doing the brief made up his statistics. in any case, i apologize for being massively wrong in my understanding.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

I've done MOUT (done it at range 13, Cp. Pendleton, even). Casualties are high. But MOUT is artificial. The terrain is limited (the old MOUT range at Ft. Ord was the best I ever saw, multi-storied, with sewers, etc.), the area is small, and the defenders have a much better edge than the 3-1 ratio demanded by doctrine, because the lines of approach are so limited.

At Ft. Ord the attackers took, about 50 percent.

But that's training. People are a lot more aggressive in training, and unit cohesion lasts a lot longer than it does in comabat; when losses mount. The big problem at Ft. Polk (and at Ord, when it was still in business) was comms. The casualties start passing 25 percent and getting reports up, and orders down became a hurdle, which increased casualties.

Looking at unit histories, the numbers for urban combat are higher. They run to 20-30 percent. At which point keeping that unit in the fight stops being useful/productive.

[urox.livejournal.com]

This is America as early as 1999.

People protested peacefully at the WTO conference in Seattle. A *tiny* group of people were up to no good and were committing crimes in the name of anarchy (and they were from Oregon, not even locals..). The protesters even surrounded and detained the mischief makers, but the police wouldn't pick them up.

Eventually, *everyone* was deemed a troublemaker and was pepper sprayed, hit with rubber bullets, and eventually a nightly curfew was instigated in downtown Seattle.

They were kept in busses for hours without access to restroom facilities and I think they weren't even given water. They were not given due process nor released within 24 hours.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/special/wto/