Hey, at least they haven’t put out an RFP for brown shirts – yet:
ICE Is Building A 'State-Of-The-Art' 'Urban Warfare' Training Facility That Will Include 'Hyper-Realistic' Simulations Of Homes In Chicago And Arizona
The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency is looking to build a "state-of-the-art" "urban warfare" training facility that will include "hyper-realistic" simulations of homes, hotels and commercial buildings in Chicago and Arizona.
In an acquisition form for the procurement of "hyper-realistic training devices" for a new training facility for its expanding Special Response Team (SRT) program, ICE outlined the details of plans for its new training center in a document published on the U.S. Federal Business Opportunities website.
Because nothing says, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free” like training for urban combat in U.S. cities.
And, in case anyone missed the point, ICE specified that it wanted its stormtroopers – erm, agents – to receive training that was “hyper-realistic.” Why? Well, it seems that scooping up undesirables can be emotionally and psychically challenging. The ICE specifications state, “Hyper-realistic is defined as 'such a high degree of fidelity in the replication of battlefield conditions in the training environment that participants so willingly suspend disbelief that they become totally immersed and eventually stress inoculated.”
In other words, “We need to desensitize our stormtroopers to the point that they can destroy families and round up Untermenschen without feeling anything.”
Oh, and who knew that ICE stormtroopers – erm, agents – had to prepare for “battlefield conditions”??
No, really.
The story originally was broken by Darwin Bond Graham on Twitter. It appears that ICE subsequently attempted to redact a portion of the posting on fbo.gov, in order not to reveal the intended location of the proposed facility, but Newsweek was able to download an unredacted version and deduce that the facility would be located at Fort Benning in Georgia.
The specifications continue: so-called “hyper-realism” is
a critical component to this acquisition as the details provide essential information that must be acknowledged, processed and acted upon to minimize risk to our Special Agents, Deportation Officers and SRT [“Special Response Team”] operators during high-risk search and arrest warrants, fugitive operations, undercover operations, hostage rescue, gang operations, etc. . . . details like the number of dishes left on the table, toys in the yard, lighting, furniture, etc. all provide clues that allow our agents and officers to infer vital information that directly affects their safety and the potential resolution or outcome in the scenario . . .
Learning to process this information quickly to identify whether there are children present, or how many people are currently in the structure is a necessary skill developed in training . . .
A Defense Science Board task force found that the probability of being a causualty [sic] decreases significantly after the first few “decisive combats” . . . These hyper-realistic devices will allow the teams to have those experiences in real-world conditions without the real-world casualties.
Kristallnacht II, the Sequel.
