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The 'Cops' State
...One night, several of us were watching the latest installment of a feature about patrolling with US forces in Iraq on CNN International. For several days, CNN had been broadcasting video of American soldiers banging down doors, yelling at Iraqis, forcing people on the ground and rifling through homes in pursuit of resistance fighters and supporters. Not the same video, but the same technique, applied over and over again, at house after house.

"Have you ever seen anything like that?" Shaadi asked, visibly angry at the way the Americans treated the Iraqis.

Yes, actually, I have, I told him. This is like watching an episode of Cops. Only the video and audio are worse.

"What's that?"

I had a hard time believing Fox never packaged one of its earliest hits for broadcast abroad – especially in the Middle East, where American pop culture is consumed so eagerly. So I explained it – a video crew wanders around with a police officer or two, records everything, and then neatly edits the presentable bits together into a half-hour long show. And based on what we were watching, I explained that what were seeing was fairly typical of American police techniques, although the soldiers are a little more intense. This busting into an Iraqi villa, this is little different than what American cops would do in any American city. And little different than what we'd see in the final edit.

Shaadi shook his head and laughed.

"You people are f****d up!"

The statement was so obviously true on the face of it, I never bothered to ask Shaadi what he meant. ...

...The show's narrative also implies – something too easily assumed by those for whom political and social power is generally wielded – that folks who get themselves chased, arrested, and detained generally deserve it.

Don't want trouble with the police? Then don't cause any. Don't want to get bombed and invaded by America? Then do what it says....