Thanks for that, Duelist. I recognized a certain slant in the descriptions as well. Having ZERO background on the actual Arabic language means I have a large learning curve to follow if I wanted to get deeper into it. And I agree and thoroughly believe there are good Muslims who are also good Americans, just as I know every religion has it's "strong outliers." Most people just want to live their happy (or miserable?) lives, free from oppressive intervention by government or criminal activity. Leave me alone on my little plot of dirt and I'll do the same for you. For me I guess it comes down to Sharia... you can't be an an American and support it. I'm a fairly tolerant person, but I'd have to be intolerant towards someone who wants to enact Sharia law in my community or at any level of government in the United States.
I don't know. That is, I have mixed feelings about it.
The cops on this board are exceptions, in my experience. They prove that through the self selection of being here.
Most cops are not into guns, not into tactics, not into training, and didn't take the job to fight terrorists. There isn't even a legal requirement that they protect anyone. I find it hard to work with those people.
Some took the job because they applied to fire and sanitation and the PD called them first. I don't like working with those.
The guys I like working with are the tac guys. So, maybe 1% of all cops. If your agency doesn't have a tac team but you are on here, you probably qualify in my mind, though guns are one thing, physical fitness and tactics are another.
Then there is the whole "you get the policing you deserve." That has been thrown around on here quite a bit lately. As a libertarian and an American, I think your safety really is up to you, and I don't expect the cops to look after me or mine. Not because I wouldn't appreciate it, because I would. Rather, because that's just not the real world. As everyone here knows.
So, should we force a policy change? I don't think so.
I think we should force a hiring standards change. And a training standards change. And a "taking responsibility and backing your guys up" change. Most LE management sucks.
When you combine all these issues, I don't think it is reasonable to expect the thin blue line to act as a front line counter terrorist force. As I said before, running into a school, looking for a kid who isn't looking for you is one thing. It's another to make a deliberate or hasty assault, when none of your training or experience tells you or shows you how to do that.
Some rise to the occasion. Most don't.
As a matter of fact, that is exactly who they wish us to emulate. PERF brought out the Chief of the Scottish Police Service, and he gave a lecture and showed videos to our commissioned officers. It was not well received. Their tactics for dealing with edged weapons evolved in a place where the officers are unarmed by law, where self-defense is illegal, and where the legal system places criminals on the same "value plane" as everyone else. And all of the videos were of simulated training exercises. No actual deployments of the nonsense they were recommending. When this was pointed out to them, the Chief and Chuckie Wexler became incensed.
So does the FBI initially releasing the transcripts of the 911 calls cleansed of the references to Islamic terrorists give an indication of a pc policy at large in that agency?