Think things are getting bad with the economy in the United States? So does the Iowa National Guard – it plans to train on urban military operations by holding a four-day exercise at Arcadia, Iowa, on April 2-5.
According the Daily Times Herald, "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."
But it gets even better.
"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."
But it gets even better.
According to the Daily Times Herald:
"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."
"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."
And then this:
"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."
The militarization of the United States and the attempts at exposing and acclimating United States citizens to martial law rule continues.