How to Create Insurgents

We need police. Because we have criminals. So I'm generally a law-an-order type of guy. But police who forget that they aren't an occupying army are not policing.

Via Instapundit, this is a disturbing account of a man who called 911 in response to coming across an accident scene and wound up in jail, treated like a criminal by police who had no restraints--for a time--on their actions.

Our Army and Marines practiced counter-insurgency tactics in Iraq that pushed us to carefully handle those arrested in order to avoid creating an insurgent from somebody who was not an insurgent--possibly a neutral or even pro-government, or even just mildly pro-insurgent but not interested in getting involved.

How the police handled this man--and others without the ability to publicize their plight--does not indict all or even most police.

The night shift at the county jail was the problem in this case--as it was at Abu Ghraib, Iraq, where soldiers humiliated (but not tortured) Iraqi prisoners.

We are not insurgents. We are citizens.