“I was in cities, you know, of, you know, fifty to a hundred thousand in Iraq surrounded by insurgents. And we Marines, well trained Marines, did not act the way that they’re doing, the way they’re treating other fellow Americans right now.”
“They’re using tactics that, you know, we didn’t even use in Iraq in urban areas to basically suppress and make the people feel like they’re under attack.” ~ Arizona Senator Ruben Gallego, who deployed to Iraq with Lima Company, 3rd Battalion, 25th Marines.
Most Americans have seen it played out in one form or another. Whether it was in photos, news footage, or in a documentary, Americans have seen United States soldiers in tactical gear poised in front of a door in an Iraqi city. The names are etched in America’s bloody history; Baghdad (Sadr City), Ramadi, Fallujah, Mosul. One man in front, tense and primed to break down the door, his team crouched behind, weapons at the ready. The door is breached, and the soldiers burst through the entrance in a lethal dance, every move choreographed hundreds of times in training and actual combat. The inhabitants either act with deadly resistance or in overwhelmed terror. The scenes were played out over and over again, a loop of America’s endless, senseless war in Iraq. The operative word is
war.
With the dawning of 2026 a horrified nation is once again watching Americans in tactical gear, carrying long guns breaching doors and waging war. Only this time it isn’t in some obscure city in the Middle East. This time the city under siege is Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States of America. The regime calls it law enforcement but make no mistake, the operative work is
war.
on its own citizens.
In theory, the American military’s mission in Iraq was not just counterinsurgency but an effort to win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people and to help install a democratic form of government. Maybe it was aspirational. Or maybe it was just patent bullshit to satisfy the American conscience.
The siege of Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States of America is, according to the, in over her head, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, tied to fraud cases in Minnesota involving federal aid programs. And so instead of dispatching teams of lawyers and accountants armed with computers and pencils to investigate fraud, the regime has dispatched thousands of poorly trained, armed thugs to harass citizens and individuals who are in the United States legally. The assaults are being carried out, not in the offices of suspected fraudsters, but in restaurants, at gas stations and in Target stores, and the attacks all seem to be carried out in a completely haphazard fashion.
Unlike in war torn Iraq, there is no goal to win over the hearts, minds, and support of the populace. Just the opposite, in the beset city of Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States of America, the explicit goals are fear, subjugation, and unquestioned obedience. Schools and businesses are closed and people of color are hunkered down. The actions of the United States Government are not in support of democracy but in defiance of democracy.
And so it came as no surprise when, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States of America, intimidation escalated into what was during the before times considered to be the unthinkable. Renee Good, a 37 year old mom, and a U.S. citizen, was needlessly shot three times by DHS agent Jonathan Ross. It wasn’t war, it was murder.
Since the day of Ms. Good’s execution, the brutality has only increased and notice has been served; don’t fuck with us, because if you do we’re going to fuck you up. The message was made word when, in the brief aftermath of Renee Good’s death, a DHS goon warned a protester, ‘Have y’all not learned.’
In the days immediately following the shooting, the world saw the escalation. Agents in tactical gear stopping citizens to ask for their papers, or in a stacked formation in front of a citizen’s front door. Carrying weapons of war they stroll casually through restaurants, eyeballing patrons and staff. But for the lack of an SS death’s head on their lapels it could be Poland in 1939. Pushing, shoving, and physical intimidation have become common scenes on the nightly news.
In Iraq, commanders in the field were continuously reminded by JAG (Judge Advocate General) officers of the rules of engagement. Proportionality of force and distinction between combatants and non-combatants were the guidelines. Commanders knew that anything that smacked of a war crime might result in a visit by a JAG officer, and subsequent disciplinary action that could end with criminal prosecution. The legality of an operation was often vetted by a JAG officer beforehand.
In Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States of America, the rules of engagement might just as well have been pulled from a Punisher comic book; go out there, kick some ass and scare the shit out of the populace.
Law enforcement experts have almost unanimously agreed that federal agents broke numerous protocols immediately before the shooting, during the few seconds of the shooting itself, and afterwards. From start to finish there was little if anything of law enforcement about the incident, which smacks more of a crime of passion as, after the shooting, one of the agents is heard to say, “Fucking bitch.” A physician on scene was barred from checking on Ms. Good and the 9-1-1 call was made with no visible sense of urgency. Instead of securing the area as a crime scene Ross and his accomplices piled into a vehicle and fled the scene like mob hitmen. One wonders if they took the cannoli?
The entire civilized and rational world was aghast and disgusted. The exceptions were the regime and MAGA-land, which have over the course of ten years, proven to be neither civilized nor rational. They offered a “tsktsk, she should’ve complied” which elicits the two word response, Ashli Babbitt.
As the feds were making the unprecedented, yet unsurprising, decision to bar local law enforcement from accessing evidence, thus hamstringing an investigation, the regime was in full disinformation mode. Just hours after the shooting and without any evidence to back her statements, Kristi Noem, in full cosplay, looking comical in an oversize cowboy hat, branded Renee Good a “domestic terrorist.” Since the officers under her command are acting like drunken, outlaw cowboys, the cowboy hat seems appropriate. Just rename ICE the Wild Bunch.
Playing his usual role as the regime’s attack dog J.D. Vance blamed Ms. Good (also calling her a “domestic terrorist”) and the usual mysterious left wing network for the tragedy. “There’s an entire network – and, frankly, some of the media are participating in it – that is trying to incite violence against our law enforcement officers,” he snarled. “It’s ridiculous. It’s preposterous. And part of our investigatory work is getting to the bottom of it.”
Vance invoked all of the right wing authoritarian boilerplate; ‘leftists’, a ‘subversive secret anti-government network’, ‘unjustified violence against the state’.
The regime is making it plain as day that it is waging war on its own citizens; at least those citizens who would have the temerity to practice it’s First Amendment right of dissent – or have dark skin or an accent. A day after the shooting of Renee Good, Noem stood in front of a lectern that bore the slogan, “One of ours. All of yours.” Social media erupted with the false claim that this was a slogan used by the Nazis after an SS officer was killed in a Czech village, and the entire population of the village was executed in reprisal. That the Facebook post was false doesn’t detract from the ominous tone of the clear us versus them slogan that Noem chose to display just a day after a citizen was shot by a federal agent.
Look for words of solace and pleas for calm out of the regime, from the president on down, and you’ll find none. Instead the regime has dispatched hundreds more DHS agents to Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States of America and ratcheted up the violent and threatening rhetoric.
As far as the “investigatory work” described by Vance goes, that was quickly taken off the menu when Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche (and Trump’s personal attorney) announced that there is “no basis” for the Civil Rights Division of the DOJ to investigate the shooting. Instead, the regime is launching an investigation into the wife of Ms. Good.
During a press briefing Kristi Noem made the jaw dropping assertion that Americans should be carrying proof of citizenship on their person. That Noem isn’t up to speed on the Fourth Amendment should come as no surprise since she swung and missed at the definition of the right of habeas corpus during a Senate hearing. And now my wife, a naturalized citizen of more than forty years carries copies of her U.S. passport and her naturalization papers because she has an accent. As does
the First Lady. Go figure.
With the summary dropping of charges against Ross, the implied “get out of jail free” card issued by a pardon-happy president, and the false assertion by the vice-president that federal agents have “absolute immunity,” the message has been sent to DHS agents and the American public that nothing is off the table.
It’s going to get worse before it gets better (if it ever does get better) because the sociopaths are running the asylum. Consider the triumvirate in charge.
The constitutionally illiterate Kristi Noem, whose temperament and compassion can be measured by the incident in which she not only dragged her dog into a gravel pit and shot it, but subsequently bragged about the act in her book. That she has shortened the training period for ICE agents from 16-weeks plus a 5-week Spanish language course, to 47 days (in honor of the 47th president) shows just what an unserious and incompetent sycophant she is.
Stephen Miller, the unabashed white nationalist who has been the chief architect of the deportation program.
And then there’s Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino who sports a Hitler Youth haircut, and proudly wears a long jacket that looks like it was taken from the closet of an SS General. Bovino praised Renee Good’s executioner with a “hat’s off” comment.
“But the thing that’s just been bothering the hell outta me is the fact that these guys (ICE agents) are wearing masks with no identification whatsoever. And they are thugs. They are thugs. And I’ll add to that, cowards. You give me any one of those guys without a weapon and without a badge and without, without an association to, you know, the, the federal forces and they would be a nobody.” ~ Lieutenant General (Ret) Mark Hertling.
Meanwhile back at home
On January 1st I woke up to a rainbow sunrise of hope. MAGA seemed to be fracturing, the regime’s polls were tanking and the president himself seemed to be, as the saying goes, “losing his fastball.”
It took only a few days for a series of unprecedented events to dampen the hope. Less than a month in and the horizon has once again been darkened by the clouds of an authoritarianism that isn’t just coming – it’s arrived.
But a faint glow on the darkened horizon still peeks through. The excesses and brutality of DHS are awakening a previously somnambulated America. And while that awakening is something that I’ve been waiting impatiently and angrily for I now feel a new apprehension.
Here at home, in our small community, I’ve been helping to organize protests that have generally been friendly, if frustratingly small (30 – 40 protesters). I’ve made friends with many of the regulars; the two retired nurses, the woman who brings loaner signs for those who didn’t bring one, and the cookie lady who dispenses fresh baked cookies and smiles to the crowd. Our protests have been cathartic, characterized by a general feeling of community and shared goals. Frustration cleansed by community and anger left at home.
Last weekend, in the wake of the murder of Renee Good, the crowd size had increased by at least three fold, and, for a change, there were sightings of people not yet old enough for Medicare. Those are good things. For nearly a year I’ve been frustrated by the small numbers and protests that look for all the world like a Saturday outing for the local retirement home.
But I also sensed something different and discomforting. Underneath the usual joy and camaraderie of the crowd, I discerned a new tension. During our most recent protest, it was clear that some had brought their anger with them and they meant to display it. Catharsis seemed to be the last thing they were looking for.
I recently spoke with an organizer of the much larger protests in nearby Walnut Creek and she concurred. She told me that after the shooting of Renee Good, the number of protesters nationwide had spiked. And while that’s a good thing she too had noticed the darker angrier mood.
While few of us don’t do a secret fist pump when seeing scenes of ICE agents retreating after being pelted by snowballs, I fear the day when a federal agent busts down a door and a man with a shotgun is waiting on the other side.
The regime is turning Minneapolis into a tinder box and if it goes up, the rest of the country won’t be far behind. In our mostly untouched community, nearly a nation’s distance from Minneapolis there’s a new, palpable edginess.
The leadership of our little protest group has been awakened to the fact that we have to better prepare ourselves. As the numbers at our protests increase the sense of community will most certainly become diluted. As the national tension tightens the individual anger will bubble closer to the surface.
For months we never seriously considered the hazard of partisan agitators. Since April I’d been mostly concerned with the hecklers and counter protesters. Now my greater concern is over partisan agitators. For nearly a year I found the “8647,” “Fuck Trump” and “Chinga tu Migra” (Fuck immigration) signs to be amusing. Now those signs have lost their appeal.
There’s little doubt that the regime is trying to instigate a bigger, more deadly and more widespread fight, it’s own version of the Reichstag fire, so that Trump can invoke the Insurrection Act.
I keep thinking back to Dirty Harry as he pointed his .44 magnum at the perp’s head, “Go ahead, make my day.”
The Life in My Years 
I just don’t know what to write here Paul. My sadness is overwhelming. Just keep posting the truth, and thank you for getting out there to protest.
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