From the Daily Times Herald, in Carroll, Iowa…

The Carroll National Guard unit will train on urban military operations by holding a four-day exercise at Arcadia.

The purpose of the April 2-5 drill will be to gather intelligence, then search for and apprehend a suspected weapons dealer, according to Sgt. Mike Kots, readiness NCO for Alpha Company.

Citizens, law enforcement, media and other supporters will participate.

Troops will spend Thursday, April 2, staging at a forward operations base at Carroll. The next day company leaders will conduct reconnaissance and begin patrolling the streets of Arcadia to identify possible locations of the weapons dealer.

The primary phase will be done Saturday, April 4, when convoys will be deployed from Carroll to Arcadia. Pictures of the arms dealer will be shown in Arcadia, and soldiers will go door to door asking if residents have seen the suspect.

Soldiers will knock only at households that have agreed to participate in the drill, Kots noted.

“Once credible intelligence has been gathered,” said Kots, “portions of the town will be road-blocked and more in-depth searches of homes and vehicles will be conducted in accordance with the residents’ wishes.

“One of the techniques we use in today’s political environment is cordon and knock,” Kots explained. “We ask for the head of the household, get permission to search, then have them open doors and cupboards. The homeowner maintains control. We peer over their shoulder, and the soldier uses the homeowner’s body language and position to protect him.”

During this phase of the operation, troops will interact with residents and media while implementing crowd-control measures and possibly treating and evacuating injured persons.

The unit will use a Blackhawk helicopter for overhead command and control, and to simulate medevacs.

The drill will culminate in the apprehension of the suspected arms dealer.

Alpha Company will conduct a review of the drill on Sunday, April 5.

A meeting to give residents more information and accept volunteers will be held 7 p.m. Monday, March 2, in the Arcadia American Legion hall.

Kots said the exercise will replace Alpha Company’s weekend drill for April.

“We have a lot of extended drills this coming year,” he added.

In addition to surveillance, searching and apprehension, the exercise will also give the troops valuable experience in stability, support, patrol, traffic control, vehicle searches and other skills needed for deployment in an urban environment.

“This exercise will improve the real-life operational skills of the unit,” said Kots. “And it will hopefully improve the public’s understanding of military operations.”

The pre-drill work with residents is as important at the drill itself.

“It will be important for us to gain the trust and confidence of the residents of Arcadia,” said Kots. “We will need to identify individuals that are willing to assist us in training by allowing us to search their homes and vehicles and to participate in role-playing.”

“We really want to get as much information out there as possible, because this operation could be pretty intrusive to the people of Arcadia.”

Emphasis mine.  Does this remind anyone of the door-to-door searches that our armed forces performed not too long ago in Iraq?  I wonder if the training includes any volunteers who might want to simulate an uncooperative head of household?  Or vice versa, what if a guardsman gets trigger happy and simulates shooting a pet or even worse, a child?  You have to wonder if the intent of this drill is to practice the guardsmen or the public.

http://lawfuel.com/show-release.asp?ID=19970

The Colorado National Guard, for the first time ever, received an asset forfeiture sharing check this afternoon at a ceremony that took place inside the State Capitol. The check was a result of a Western Slope marijuana investigation, involving the Guard as well as a number of federal agencies. Agencies participating in the ceremony included the United States Attorney, and representatives from the Bureau of Land Management Enforcement Division, the IRS-Criminal Investigation, and the Colorado National Guard.

Major General H. Michael Edwards, the Adjutant General of Colorado, was presented a $93,701 check for the National Guard’s role in the “Topliss” marijuana investigation, which included asset forfeiture. Beth and Alfred Topliss were arrested for growing marijuana on their property in rural Mesa County. A search warrant executed on the property resulted in a bizarre stand-off, where Mr. Topliss put a gun to his head and said, “I’ll kill the hostage if you don’t back-off.” The hostage was Mr. Topliss himself. The subject was disarmed, and ultimately he and his wife were convicted on state felony charges of possession of marijuana.

Under federal law, property involved in various crimes, including drug cultivation, may be seized and forfeited. In this case, the IRS was the seizing agency, at the request of the Mesa County Drug Task Force. The United States Attorney’s Office filed a forfeiture action against the Topliss’ property in U.S. District Court in Denver. As a result of the case, a court order was issued, forfeiting $375,000, which was the property’s value. Under federal law, the funds go to agencies involved in the investigation, for programs that aid law enforcement in apprehending criminals as well as to youth drug prevention programs. The Mesa County Drug Task Force also received a check during the event for $112,441.

A new Colorado law, Colorado Revised Statutes (CRS) 16-13-601 and 28-3-1303 (2) designate the Colorado National Guard as a law enforcement agency for the limited purpose of participating in the Federal Asset Forfeiture Program. This new law allows the Guard to receive forfeiture sharing monies from cases in which they play a direct role in investigating. The statutes do not expand the law enforcement authority in relation to other types of operations.

“No one should profit from crime,” said United States Attorney Troy Eid. “Besides facing prison and fines, drug-traffickers risk forfeiting their ill-gotten gains.”

No one should profit from crime… except those in government apparently. Asset forfeiture is bad enough already… this is only going to make it worse.

And really… “ill-gotten gains?” Providing customers with products and services you don’t like are ill-gotten? Well I guess when you have the guns and the aura of legitimacy with regard to violence… I suppose it’s whatever Troy says.

http://www.airforcetimes.com/…

Republicans receive the largest slice of presidential campaign contributions made by military members and their spouses, but leading anti-war candidates are getting a substantial cut, too, according to an independent analysis of political contributions.

From January 2007 through March of this year, service members or civilian employees of the military donated at least $766,000 to presidential candidates, according to data made available April 20 and provided by the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonprofit research group in Washington.

The analysis included donations of at least $200 made by individuals who listed their employer as one of the four branches of the military – Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps – or the Coast Guard, National Guard, Army Air Force Exchange Service, armed forces or military.

These donors gave the largest amounts to Rep. Ron Paul, the long-shot Republican candidate from Texas who has acknowledged defeat in the nomination process but continues to campaign, and Sen. Barack Obama, the Democrat from Illinois.

During the reporting period, Paul – a former Air Force surgeon who broke with his party to vote against the Iraq war – received the most military contributions, with $201,271.

That’s significantly more than the presumptive Republican nominee, Sen. John McCain from Arizona, who received $132,133 from military donors, according to CRP.

“I think that our fighting men and women want to protect America, defend our Constitution and defend our borders,” said Jesse Benton, a spokesman for Rep. Paul’s campaign. “I think they’re sick and tired of being sent overseas on these police actions and getting caught in the middle of these civil wars, and want someone like Ron Paul speaking sense.

“They signed up to defend our country, not police the world,” Benton said, “and I think they’re hungry for leaders who do that.”

Obama, meanwhile, whose opposition to invading Iraq has been a centerpiece of his campaign, has received $178,456 in military contributions, compared to Sen. Hillary Clinton’s $85,000, the analysis shows.

“To see two anti-war candidates getting more money from the people fighting the war or providing support for the war effort was surprising to us,” said Massie Ritsch, communications director for the Center for Responsive Politics.

However, the donations cannot be considered representative of military employees’ political preferences as a whole because the analysis does not include donations of less than $200, the point at which campaign finance law requires campaigns to disclose the name of a donor and contribution amount. Thus, individuals who give less than $200 aren’t counted.

“The picture could be completely different if you were able to look at smaller donors,” Ritsch said. “You’re looking at a tiny slice of the military who have enough disposable income to donate to a candidate.”

Overall, military donors still favor Republicans to Democrats, 62 percent to 38 percent, according to CRP. But Ritsch said at the beginning of the war, three-quarters of military donors favored GOP candidates.

And you can bet this won’t get much MSM coverage.

http://www.azcentral.com/…

Police departments at Arizona’s three universities plan to arm their officers with military-style assault rifles within the next year, officials said Tuesday.

The new rifles would give campus police officers long-range shooting capabilities, allowing them to hit targets at the end of long hallways or atop tall buildings, officials said.

Arizona State University will be the first of the three schools to use the weapons. Officers there will be trained to use the rifles in the next few months, said ASU police spokesman Cmdr. Jim Hardina.

Officers will undergo 40 hours of training before using the weapons.

“We don’t want to just throw rifles out there,” Hardina said.

Eight officers at the University of Arizona will get similar training before a rifle program launches there in four to five months, officials said. Northern Arizona University officials said a rifle program was in the works, although a specific start date was not immediately available.

ASU has bought four of the new rifles at $700 each, and is looking to find money to purchase four more. One challenge the department is facing: finding ammunition for the rifles. Increased military operations mean that the police department and the armed forces were competing for the same ammo, Hardina said.

First they militarized the militias turning them into the National Guard, then they militarized the city police creating to deal with drug prohibition later creating SWATs, then they moved on to smaller cities and towns teaching their police how to handle military grade weapons and now they are turning school police into soldiers. No need to worry about the Posse Comitatus Act when you’ve turned the “peace” officers into secondary military agents. Not that that matters after the John Warner National Defense Authorization Act of 2007.

I like how the faculty member says effectively that if the guns are out of sight than they are out of mind and therefore alright to have. That’s some logic there. Who wants to be that students and faculty aren’t allowed to carry on campus?

http://www.canada.com/…

Canada and the U.S. have signed an agreement that paves the way for the militaries from either nation to send troops across each other’s borders during an emergency, but some are questioning why the Harper government has kept silent on the deal.Neither the Canadian government nor the Canadian Forces announced the new agreement, which was signed Feb. 14 in Texas.

The U.S. military’s Northern Command, however, publicized the agreement with a statement outlining how its top officer, Gen. Gene Renuart, and Canadian Lt.-Gen. Marc Dumais, head of Canada Command, signed the plan, which allows the military from one nation to support the armed forces of the other nation during a civil emergency.

The new agreement has been greeted with suspicion by the left wing in Canada and the right wing in the U.S.

The left-leaning Council of Canadians, which is campaigning against what it calls the increasing integration of the U.S. and Canadian militaries, is raising concerns about the deal.

“It’s kind of a trend when it comes to issues of Canada-U.S. relations and contentious issues like military integration. We see that this government is reluctant to disclose information to Canadians that is readily available on American and Mexican websites,” said Stuart Trew, a researcher with the Council of Canadians.

Trew said there is potential for the agreement to militarize civilian responses to emergency incidents. He noted that work is also underway for the two nations to put in place a joint plan to protect common infrastructure such as roadways and oil pipelines.

Actually sounds more like Canada is becoming officially the 51st state. Sounds like their military will be like one of the state’s National Guard.

They will:

• Occasionally get lucky and catch someone. Only because the net is thrown so wide and is constantly running.
• Continue to infringe on our rights. Our right to be secure in our persons and effects, our privacy. Our right to property.
• Push people, who may have otherwise not have, over the edge because of their infringements.
• Continue psyops, in airports, in cities, through the media
• Possibly perform false flag actions to ‘prove’ their effectiveness.

In the NYC Port Authority Bus Terminal on the way to the subway there are a set of glass doors. In between is just 20 or so feet of nothing except to one side an exit to 8th Ave. This morning for the first time that I’ve seen since I started taking the train every day was two tables with 10 or so cops standing around them in between those sets of doors. Half were sitting down and half leaning against the wall. Not a one was searching any of the hundreds passing by them every minute. They weren’t even paying attention as far as I could tell. Just hanging out, relaxing, talking to each other. There was no dog to sniff for explosives. The only thing missing in this mesh of blue uniforms and cream plastic tables was a bright pink box of donuts.
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