Militarized Federal Troops in U.S. Cities Sent by Trump Administration Deploy Private Drug-War Contractors, Flown from Mexico Border
Flight records, a former chief-of-staff of Homeland Security and a former DEA agent are among sources that confirm their origin
President Donald Trump’s deployment of U.S. military troops on June 1 against peaceful protesters in Washington, D.C., included his announcement that he would send U.S. Armed Forces into American cities to, he said, “dominate the streets.” In the days that followed, members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and top Pentagon officials publicly rebuked the president and rejected his plan.
The heavily-armed, camouflaged and undercover SWAT-like forces with cloaked identities that have appeared recently in Portland, Oregon, and other U.S. cities have used military tactics against peaceful protesters, but they are not members of the Armed Forces. They have refused daily requests by local officials and news media reporters to identify their agency or origin, as they have unleashed a wave of violent attacks to provoke largely peaceful protesters. Their presence has itself provoked larger and more confrontational protests than those they were purportedly sent to control.
According to public documents, flight plans and former federal law enforcement officials, the mysterious militarized forces include Federal Protective Service (FPS) agents tapped from private security companies that provide the agency with thousands of private contractors normally employed to protect federal buildings. Those private security companies include international operators such as Blackwater corporate descendent Triple Canopy. Within their ranks are a hodge-podge of previously foreign-deployed mercenary soldiers in U.S. drug war operations in Mexico and Latin America, as well as private contractors that are part of the controversial Homeland Security tactics used along the U.S.-Mexico border that have recently converted private hotels to imprison detained undocumented immigrant children.
“This is too similar to things that happened before [in the Iran/Contra era],” says Baruch Vega, a former CIA asset with decades of experience working in Latin America…
