The new Washington war machine

The Daily Iowan






I mean if the police were realistic, they could come up with actual reasons to use their MRAP/machine of doom. Drunken high-school house parties could be broken up by ramming the MRAP into the side of the building. Clearly, people who have been trying to curtail underage drinking have not seriously considered the serious deterrents to slamming down a few Hamms in your parents’ house caused by a soulless war machine demolishing your kitchen.

In all seriousness however (and it is hard to be serious about a situation so absurd) this little anecdote does highlight several disturbing trends in the American cultural landscape. Most blatantly, the collective paranoia that’s gripped post-9/11 America so tightly that small-town Iowa police officers are convinced that, any minute, the whole state could become engulfed in some Red Dawn-style conflict that would require the use of a device such as the MRAP.

But, a little more subtly, this incident reflects the out-of-control militarization of the police that’s been occurring across small towns and big cities from Los Angeles to Waterville, Maine.



But hey, the sheriff gets to ride around in a sweet new MRAP and pretend he’s Rambo so, you know, let’s call it a draw.

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