American riders have sights set on Tour de France

Hey France ...here we come !       LOVE  the tour  :O

By DAVE SKRETTA (AP Sports Writer) June 28, 2014  AP - Sports

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KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) -- Five years ago, while Alberto Contador was riding to victory in the Tour de France, Andrew Talansky was a vagabond cyclist scratching out a living in races across the United States.

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/american-riders-sights-set-tour-171003211--spt.html

He had returned from Europe disenchanted by an experience with a low-level team. He wasn't sure what his future held, but he knew he still loved to ride. So with few other options and the support of his family, he loaded up his belongings and spent the summer living out of his car.

''I made absolutely zero dollars that year,'' Talansky said, laughing. ''I still own the car. It's a Honda Fit. It's a great car, man. Lives up to its name. You can fit a surprising amount of things in it - time trial bike, road bike, wheels, trainer, food, bags. Whatever you need.''
Back then, though, what Talansky really needed was a chance.

When he finally got one with a proper team, he was able to parlay it into a career that's been on a steady climb. And now, after a stunning victory over Contador and fellow Tour favorites Chris Froome and Vincenzo Nibali in the recent Criterium du Dauphine, the 25-year-old Talansky is poised to lead a new era of American cyclists in pursuit of the yellow jersey.

''When you look at the last five years, it's pretty incredible what's happened, every aspect of my life,'' Talansky said in a phone interview from his training base in Girona, Spain, where he was getting in his last workouts before the Tour's rolling start July 5 in Leeds, England.

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ADVANCE FOR WEEKEND EDITIONS, JUNE 28-29 - FILE - In this June 15, 2014 file photo, Garmin's And …

''Every now and then you look at the whole thing and say, 'Wow.' But honestly? I always dreamed I'd be doing what I'm doing now,'' he said. ''I never dreamed of just scraping by.''
Those are the same dreams that drove Tejay van Garderen, Peter Stetina and countless other young American riders to not only try a largely European sport but also thrive in it.

Many of them grew up idolizing Lance Armstrong and Levi Leipheimer, and then stuck with the embattled sport through each wave of doping allegations that shook it to its very core. Now that Armstrong has acknowledged doping, and his seven titles have been stricken from the books, Greg LeMond stands as the only rider from the U.S. to have legitimately won the Tour.

''We're all very supportive of what we're trying to do,'' Talansky explained of the American contingent, ''and that's to be a credible new generation that promotes the sport in a good way and brings fans back to the sport, fans who have maybe been disillusioned by the past.''

The best way to do that, of course, is by winning.

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ADVANCE FOR WEEKEND EDITIONS, JUNE 28-29 - FILE - In this March 3, 2013 file photo, Andrew Talansky  …

Van Garderen, who will lead the BMC Racing Team at the Tour, may be the most accomplished of the new generation. He stunned the cycling world two years ago when, at the age of 23, he finished fifth overall while helping teammate Cadel Evans capture victory on the Champs-Elysees.
Van Garderen had a disappointing showing in France last year, but rebounded to win the USA Pro Cycling Challenge. He's battled injuries this year but has been rounding into form.
''I'm definitely confident in my ability to be a contender at the Tour,'' van Garderen said. ''Obviously, Froome is the No. 1 guy, the defending Tour champion. Contador has had a stellar season. He's barely lost any race he's started. They're the two five-star favorites. But behind them you have a lot of guys who have a chance.''

Van Garderen will be helped over the 21 stages, 3,656 kilometers and the harrowing climbs of the Alps and Pyrenees, by the 26-year-old Stetina, who will be making his Tour debut.

''Tejay is our guy,'' BMC Racing president Jim Ochowicz said. ''He's going in there alone to be our leader, and we'll have eight strong guys around him to make sure that job gets done.''

Meanwhile, Talansky has been designated the leader of Garmin-Sharp.

''We've all been building the team for the Tour de France around Andrew from Day 1,'' said Jonathan Vaughters, the team's chief executive. ''A lot of people earlier this year thought that was a little crazy, but we decided to take that approach.''

Nobody thinks he's crazy anymore.

Starting the final stage of the Criterium du Dauphine, a major Tour warm-up, Talansky slipped into an early breakaway that Froome and Contador both missed. When he crossed the finish line, he realized he had wiped out his 39-second deficit and won the biggest race of his career.

Stamped himself as one of the Tour favorites, too.

''It's good to have expectations, it's good to have goals, but I'm a very big believer in realistic goals,'' Talansky said. ''The goal is to really improve on last season's result. I ended up 10th last year. Go ride consistently, safely, strongly for three weeks, and if I do that the result will significantly improve.''

DNA from GMOs can pass directly into humans, study confirms

  June 24, 2014

By Jonathan Benson | Natural News

(Photo Credit: National Institutes of Health |Public Domain)

(NaturalNews) The idea that DNA from genetically modified organisms (GMOs) is broken down in the digestive tract and rendered innocuous, a common industry claim, is patently false. A recent study published in the scientific journal PLOS ONE found that large, meal-derived DNA fragments from GMOs are fully capable of transferring their genes directly into the bloodstream, deconstructing the myth that transgenic foods act on the body in the same way as natural foods.
A combined analysis of four other independent studies involving more than 1,000 human samples and a team of researchers from universities in Hungary, Denmark and the U.S. looked at the assimilation process for GMOs as they are currently consumed throughout the world. This includes derivatives of GM crops such as high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) from GM corn, for instance, and soy protein from GM soybeans, as well as meat derived from animals fed a GM-based diet.
After looking at the data on how the human body processes these and other forms of GMOs, the team discovered that DNA from GMOs is not completely broken down by the body during the digestion process. What would normally be degraded into smaller constituents like amino acids and nucleic acids was found to remain whole. Not only this, but these larger DNA fragments were found to pass directly into the circulatory system, sometimes at a level higher than actual human DNA.
“[B]ased on the analysis of over 1000 human samples from four independent studies, we report evidence that meal-derived DNA fragments which are large enough to carry complete genes can avoid degradation and through an unknown mechanism enter the human circulation system,” explained the authors in their study abstract.

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“In one of the blood samples the relative concentration of plant DNA is higher than the human DNA.”

Genes from GMOs transfer into small intestine, alter composition of beneficial bacteria

This is an astounding discovery that proves false claims made by Monsanto and others that GMOs are no different from non-GMOs as far as the body is concerned. Monsanto even claims on its “Food Safety” page for GMOs that the DNA from GMOs is “extensively digested” and “present[s] no hazards,” both of which have now been shown to be lies.
Based on this latest analysis of how food genes are transferred from the digestive tract into the bloodstream, it is now apparent that the genes of GMOs pass into the bloodstream whole. Their presence is also associated with major inflammatory conditions such as inflammatory bowel disease, adenoma and colorectal cancer.
The presence of transgenic genes in the small intestine was also found to affect the composition of beneficial bacteria, which are responsible for protecting the gut against foreign invaders and helping the body absorb nutrients from food. Individuals with ileostomies, or perforations in their abdominal walls as a result of surgery, were found to literally be harboring full DNA sequences from GMOs in their intestinal tracts.
None of this is really all that surprising, of course, as the biological activities behind how GMOs are processed by the human body have never been legitimately studied. Biotechnology companies have always just claimed that GMOs are the same as real food, without any evidence to back this up, and this has been enough for the government to keep them on the market for nearly 20 years.
“One small mutation in a human being can determine so much, the point is when you move a gene, one gene, one tiny gene out of an organism into a different one you completely change its context,” said David Suzuki, co-founder of the David Suzuki Foundation. “There is no way to predict how it’s going to behave and what the outcome will be.”
This article was originally posted on | Natural News

Weather Warfare: Beware the US Military’s Experiments with Climatic Warfare

‘Climatic warfare’ has been excluded from the agenda on climate change.

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky

Global Research, June 29, 2014

The Ecologist, December 2007, Global Research 7 December 2007

Theme: Environment, Militarization and WMD

In-depth Report: Climate Change

This article was first published on Global Research on December 12, 2007.
“HAARP is a weapon of mass destruction, capable of destabilising agricultural and ecological systems globally.”

“‘Climatic warfare’ potentially threatens the future of humanity, but has casually been excluded from the reports for which the IPCC received the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize.”

Pdf version of article on Weather Warfare by Michel Chossudovsky, The Ecologist, December 2007 (pdf)
Rarely acknowledged in the debate on global climate change, the world’s weather can now be modified as part of a new generation of sophisticated electromagnetic weapons. Both the US and Russia have developed capabilities to manipulate the climate for military use.
Environmental modification techniques have been applied by the US military for more than half a century. US mathematician John von Neumann, in liaison with the US Department of Defense, started his research on weather modification in the late 1940s at the height of the Cold War and foresaw ‘forms of climatic warfare as yet unimagined’. During the Vietnam war, cloud-seeding techniques were used, starting in 1967 under Project Popeye, the objective of which was to prolong the monsoon season and block enemy supply routes along the Ho Chi Minh Trail.
The US military has developed advanced capabilities that enable it selectively to alter weather patterns. The technology, which is being perfected under the High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP), is an appendage of the Strategic Defense Initiative – ‘Star Wars’. From a military standpoint, HAARP is a weapon of mass destruction, operating from the outer atmosphere and capable of destabilising agricultural and ecological systems around the world.
Weather-modification, according to the US Air Force document AF 2025 Final Report, ‘offers the war fighter a wide range of possible options to defeat or coerce an adversary’, capabilities, it says, extend to the triggering of floods, hurricanes, droughts and earthquakes: ‘Weather modification will become a part of domestic and international security and could be done unilaterally… It could have offensive and defensive applications and even be used for deterrence purposes. The ability to generate precipitation, fog and storms on earth or to modify space weather… and the production of artificial weather all are a part of an integrated set of [military] technologies.’
In 1977, an international Convention was ratified by the UN General Assembly which banned ‘military or other hostile use of environmental modification techniques having widespread, long-lasting or severe effects.’ It defined ‘environmental modification techniques’ as ‘any technique for changing –through the deliberate manipulation of natural processes – the dynamics, composition or structure of the earth, including its biota, lithosphere, hydrosphere and atmosphere, or of outer space.’
While the substance of the 1977 Convention was reasserted in the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) signed at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio, debate on weather modification for military use has become a scientific taboo.
Military analysts are mute on the subject. Meteorologists are not investigating the matter and environmentalists are focused on greenhouse gas emissions under the Kyoto Protocol. Neither is the possibility of climatic or environmental manipulations as part of a military and intelligence agenda, while tacitly acknowledged, part of the broader debate on climate change under UN auspices.
The HAARP Programme
Established in 1992, HAARP, based in Gokona, Alaska, is an array of high-powered antennas that transmit, through high-frequency radio waves, massive amounts of energy into the ionosphere (the upper layer of the atmosphere). Their construction was funded by the US Air Force, the US Navy and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). Operated jointly by the Air Force Research Laboratory and the Office of Naval Research, HAARP constitutes a system of powerful antennas capable of creating ‘controlled local modifications of the ionosphere’. According to its official website, www.haarp.alaska.edu , HAARP will be used ‘to induce a small, localized change in ionospheric temperature so physical reactions can be studied by other instruments located either at or close to the HAARP site’.

HAARP Program, Alaska


HAARP array of antennas
But Rosalie Bertell, president of the International Institute of Concern for Public Health, says HAARP operates as ‘a gigantic heater that can cause major disruptions in the ionosphere, creating not just holes, but long incisions in the protective layer that keeps deadly radiation from bombarding the planet’.
Physicist Dr Bernard Eastlund called it ‘the largest ionospheric heater ever built’. HAARP is presented by the US Air Force as a research programme, but military documents confirm its main objective is to ‘induce ionospheric modifications’ with a view to altering weather patterns and disrupting communications and radar.
According to a report by the Russian State Duma: ‘The US plans to carry out large-scale experiments under the HAARP programme [and] create weapons capable of breaking radio communication lines and equipment installed on spaceships and rockets, provoke serious accidents in electricity networks and in oil and gas pipelines, and have a negative impact on the mental health of entire regions.’*
An analysis of statements emanating from the US Air Force points to the unthinkable: the covert manipulation of weather patterns, communications and electric power systems as a weapon of global warfare, enabling the US to disrupt and dominate entire regions. Weather manipulation is the pre-emptive weapon par excellence. It can be directed against enemy countries or ‘friendly nations’ without their knowledge, used to destabilise economies, ecosystems and agriculture. It can also trigger havoc in financial and commodity markets. The disruption in agriculture creates a greater dependency on food aid and imported grain staples from the US and other Western countries.
HAARP was developed as part of an Anglo-American partnership between Raytheon Corporation, which owns the HAARP patents, the US Air Force and British Aerospace Systems (BAES).
The HAARP project is one among several collaborative ventures in advanced weapons systems between the two defence giants. The HAARP project was initiated in 1992 by Advanced Power Technologies, Inc. (APTI), a subsidiary of Atlantic Richfield Corporation (ARCO). APTI (including the HAARP patents) was sold by ARCO to E-Systems Inc, in 1994. E-Systems, on contract to the CIA and US Department of Defense, outfitted the ‘Doomsday Plan’, which ‘allows the President to manage a nuclear war’.Subsequently acquired by Raytheon Corporation, it is among the largest intelligence contractors in the World. BAES was involved in the development of the advanced stage of the HAARP antenna array under a 2004 contract with the Office of Naval Research.
The installation of 132 high frequency transmitters was entrusted by BAES to its US subsidiary, BAE Systems Inc. The project, according to a July report in Defense News, was undertaken by BAES’s Electronic Warfare division. In September it received DARPA’s top award for technical achievement for the design, construction and activation of the HAARP array of antennas.
The HAARP system is fully operational and in many regards dwarfs existing conventional and strategic weapons systems. While there is no firm evidence of its use for military purposes, Air Force documents suggest HAARP is an integral part of the militarisation of space. One would expect the antennas already to have been subjected to routine testing.
Under the UNFCCC, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has a mandate ‘to assess scientific, technical and socioeconomic information relevant for the understanding of climate change’. This mandate includes environmental warfare. ‘Geo-engineering’ is acknowledged, but the underlying military applications are neither the object of policy analysis or scientific research in the thousands of pages of IPCC reports and supporting documents, based on the expertise and input of some 2,500 scientists, policymakers and environmentalists. ‘Climatic warfare’ potentially threatens the future of humanity, but has casually been excluded from the reports for which the IPCC received the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize.
Archive of Global Research articles on Weather Warfare
www.globalresearch.ca/weather-warfare-beware-the-us-military-s-experiments-with-climatic-warfare/7561" data-title="Weather Warfare: Beware the US Military’s Experiments with Climatic Warfare">

THE USS DONALD COOK INCIDENT, & INDIA’S NEW GOVERNMENT, AND SOME GEOPOLITICAL SPECULATIONS

Posted on June 27, 2014 by Joseph P. Farrell • Filed Under: News • http://gizadeathstar.com/2014/06/uss-donald-cook-incident-indias-new-government-geopolitical-speculations/

This article was sent to me by a regular reader here in India, Mr. K.B., and this one, folks, I have to share, for it presages the type of geopolitical reassessments that must be taking place in the wake of the USS Donald Cook incident in the Black Sea. Briefly, for those who do not know of this incident, a Russian Sukhoi fighter bomber, which was unarmed,  flew in a mock attack run at the one of the US Navy’s Aegis class missile frigates that had been deployed to the Black Sea in the wake of the Ukrainian crisis. According to the story, the Sukhoi approached, was seen on the Donald Cook’s radar, when suddenly, the entire system went “down,” and the Russian aircraft was no longer seen on the ship’s radar. The Donald Cook quickly retired to a port in Romania, which we assume may have been Constanza.
Now, apparently, there is some fallout in India from this incident, as the following analysis from an Indian website outlines:
Will Modi Look at Russia with New Eyes? An Analsis
The article spells out the incident, then goes on to note that the incident was flagged to bring to the attention of India’s top leadership. Note also the article’s attention to the fact that by concentrating on trying to design an all-in-one stealth jet fighter, that many think America is losing its technological edge in air power. And, as the article also indicates, the new Russian Su35 outperformed its American counterpart at the recent Paris air show, and there is no doubt that Russia was sending another message by unveiling the aircraft.
The real consequence of all of this however, is the growing perception by many western leaders that America’s technological edge may be slipping, and with it, its geopolitical influence; the view from India is quite clear:

To cut a long point short, policy makers around the world tuned to geopolitical shifts have been aware of this changing equation. The French decision, for instance, to militarily cooperate with Russia by supplying it with Mistral class amphibious assault ships, as the strategic Russian decision to first unveil (the) Su-35S in Paris, is a concrete reformulation of policy at the ground level aligning with the new geopolitical realities. The Indian policy makers, more than the others, have been actually aware of it, having seen how upgraded MiG-21 Bisons and Su-30MKIs performed against American machines in the various Cope India exercises.

In other words, India’s defense experts are simply not impressed with America’s air technology, and the Donald Cook incident only emphasized the fact.
What disturbs here is the implications, for inspite of billions of dollars poured into such projects, Russia, which spends nowhere near the same amount on defense, appears to be able to design conventional systems that are both cheaper, and better. And that has to have them thinking their long-term strategic interests in Berlin, Paris, London, Rome, and Madrid, though they will never announce those concerns… at least, not yet.
That’s the problem with creating huge hidden systems of finance to finance your special black projects: the return on the dollar declines significantly, as corruption inevitably enters the system.
Oh…and by the way, in case you missed it, India recently overtook Japan as the world’s third largest economy(World Bank: India Overtakes Japan as World’s Third Largest Economy). Yes, that’s right, India, after China, is now the big player in Asia, and its economy is larger than Russia’s, and it’s looking at that interesting Russian technology.
My bet is, New Delhi and Moscow have lots to talk about, and they won’t be inviting Christine Lagard, or Barack Obama.

Battlefield USA: American police ‘excessively militarized’ – ACLU study

when did the American People ..become the enemy ? when did that shit happen ...well nazi's b'ing nazi's huh... a long ,long "time" ago t'nother  "group" thought "they" could just knock in doors & shoot American cit's  at will ... til We The People said ...enough   huh  We The People "learned"   REAL good from Our Native American ,brothers  lol  fucking nazi's 

Posted on June 26, 2014 by RT.com

AFP Photo / Timothy A. Clary

Inheriting both the weapons and the mindset of the US military, police are becoming militarized and ‘hyper aggressive’ in their approach to maintaining security on the streets of America. A new study calls on police not to treat people as ‘wartime enemies’.

The tragic story of Jose Guerena, 26, who served as a Marine in the Iraq War, only to be killed by ‘friendly fire’ at his home in Tucson, Arizona, is becoming a disturbingly familiar one across the country.
On the morning of May 5, 2011, Guerena’s wife alerted him when she heard strange sounds and the silhouette of a man standing outside their home. Guerena got his wife and child into a closet, grabbed his rifle, and went to investigate. This proved to be a deadly mistake. A SWAT team opened fire on Guerena, who died on his kitchen floor with multiple wounds and without medical attention.

As it later emerged, the SWAT unit raided a number of residences in the neighborhood, turning up nothing more than a small bag of marijuana. No drugs were found in the Guerena’s home.

Created in the late 1960s as “quasi-militaristic” units designed to handle emergency situations such as riots, hostage scenarios, and active shooter situations, the number of SWAT squads have since surged, and are “used with greater frequency and, increasingly, for purposes for which they were not originally intended—overwhelmingly to serve search warrants in drug investigations,” according to an ACLU report, entitled ‘War Comes Home: The Excessive Militarization of American Policing.’

The report examines 818 SWAT operations from July 2010 to last October, which were conducted by more than 20 law enforcement agencies in 11 states.

Today, paramilitary squads are better equipped to fight terrorists in foreign lands than serve and protect US civilians at home, and are becoming a dark chapter to America’s newfound capacity for “needless violence” and treating its citizens like “wartime enemies,” it said.

The 98-page document details the militarization of state and local law enforcement agencies, courtesy of expensive federal programs, which are dispensing “weapons and tactics of war, with almost no public discussion or oversight.” Although explicitly aimed at fighting drugs, the strategy is backfiring, sowing fear and discord among citizens, many of whom are starting to fear police as much as criminals.

As the United States winds down its military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, local police forces are getting the used ‘hand-me-downs’ from the US military. This makes some American communities resemble the latest occupied zones with police dressed in combat fatigues and driving MRAPs and carrying AR-15s down Main Street.

“Using these federal funds, state and local law enforcement agencies have amassed military arsenals purportedly to wage the failed War on Drugs…But these arsenals are by no means free of cost for communities. Instead, the use of hyper aggressive tools and tactics results in tragedy for civilians and police officers, escalates the risk of needless violence, destroys property, and undermines individual liberties,” according to the report.

Kevork Djansezian / Getty Images / AFP

One bit of curious hardware being distributed to local police forces from the government’s military closet is the MRAP (Mine Resistant Ambush Protected) vehicle, which gives troops protection from improvised explosive devices (IEDs). Using media sources, ACLU put the number of towns that now possess the armored carriers at around 500. Among the lucky recipients, Dallas, Texas, has one, as does Salinas, California and even the Utah Highway Patrol.

The report noted that even Ohio State University Police owns one of the MRAPs in order to give a sense of “presence” on big football game days.

The results of the report revealed a worrying trend: “If the federal government gives the police a huge cache of military-style weaponry, they are highly likely to use it, even if they do not really need to.”

Case in point: Gwinnett County, Georgia, which received at least 57 semi-automatic rifles, mostly M-16s and M-14s. One-third of the county’s SWAT deployments dealt with drug investigations; in half of them, the SWAT team broke down the door to get inside, “and there was no record in any of the reports that weapons were found.”

Other examples were provided in Concord, Keene, and Manchester, quaint New Hampshire towns in close proximity to each other, yet each took advantage of DHS grants to buy the military-grade armored BearCat (the amount of grants received by these agencies ranged from $215,000 to $286,000). Justifications for the need to acquire such vehicles pointed to weapons of mass destruction and the threat of terrorism.

The Keene police department, for example, cites in its application (which trumps Ohio State University’s need for armored vehicles to provide “presence” at big football games), the annual pumpkin festival as a potential terrorism target that requires the assistance of an APC.

Military-style mentality invades police

Another leftover from America’s military adventures abroad is the peculiar military mindset that allows US personnel to survive in hostile lands. Equally unsettling as spotting armored vehicles winding through the tree-lined streets of otherwise quiet American neighborhoods is the spectacle of local police officers receiving military-style combat training.

Kevork Djansezian / Getty Images / AFP

The US Department of Justice described the boot-camp conditions being used to train new police recruits.
According to a Bureau of Justice Report, “the majority of police recruits receive their training in academies with a stress-based military orientation. This begs the question: is this military model—designed to prepare young recruits for combat—the appropriate mechanism for teaching our police trainees how to garner community trust and partner with citizens to solve crime and public order problems?”

As a result, a so-called “warrior” mentality inside local police forces is “pervasive and extends well beyond hostage situations and school shootings, seeping into officers’ everyday interactions with their communities,” the report said.
The report describes a PowerPoint presentation that was delivered to Cary, North Carolina, SWAT team members entitled “Warrior Mindset/Chemical Munitions” for all Emergency Response Team personnel.

image from www.aclu.org

The National Tactical Officers Association (according to its website, the NTOA “strives to provide our members with the tools they need to protect an increasingly dangerous society”) urges trainees to “Steel Your Battlemind” and defines“battlemind” as “a warrior’s inner strength to face fear and adversity during combat with courage. It is the will to persevere and win. It is resilience.”

The question, however, is whether such an approach to policing is conducive to creating peace on the streets of America? An escalation of police operations going awry are growing cause for concern among civil rights groups.

In early June, for example, a toddler was severely burned and left unable to breathe on his own when a Georgia SWAT team tossed a flashbang grenade in his crib during a drug raid – over a single meth sale of $50. Bounkham “Bou Bou” Phonesavanh, a 19-month-old, was asleep in his portable crib in the same room as his parents and three older sisters, when police opened the door to the converted garage and threw the stun grenade in.

In the ACLU’s study, SWAT units forced entry into a person’s home using a battering ram or other breaching device in 65 percent of drug searches.

As the report emphasizes, the training documents do not suggest that SWAT teams “should constrain their soldier-like tactics to terrorism situations.”Moreover, the majority of SWAT raids examined for the report “took place in the context of serving search warrants at people’s homes—not in response to school shootings or bombings.”

‘It’s a war zone in the US’ – Interview with Indiana sheriff

The survey discovered that 62 percent of SWAT missions were for drug searches. Some 79 percent involved raids on private homes, and a similar proportion were carried out with warrants authorizing searches. However, just 7 percent of the incidents fell into those categories for which SWAT was originally designed to handle, such as hostage situations or shootings.

It is this type of military mindset, compounded with excessive firepower, which is turning many American communities into veritable tinderboxes, which only requires the slightest provocation to spiral into senseless violence and death.

The survey, which provided a small picture of the overall trend, reported seven cases where civilians died in connection with the deployment of SWAT units, two of which appeared to be suicides. Another 46 individuals were injured, often as the result of physical force by officers.

Courtesy of RT.com