by Prof. Tomás Madrigal, UCSB Chicana/o Studies
Since the recession of 2007, Latino communities have been under siege. We witnessed this much in Santa Barbara, where a campaign for a gang injunction continues [fought against by PODER Santa Barbara], in Oxnard where Todo Poder Al Pueblo has fought against police brutality, in Salinas where this counter-insurgency approach to law enforcement was well entrenched:
Calif. city tries counterinsurgency to stem gang problem
Since February, combat veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan have been advising Salinas police on counterinsurgency strategy, bringing lessons from the battlefield to the meanest streets in an American city.
“This is our surge,” said Donohue, who solicited the assistance from the elite Naval Postgraduate School, 20 miles and a world away in Monterey. “When the public heard about this, they thought we were going to send the Navy SEALs into Salinas.”
In fact, the cavalry arrived in civvies, carrying laptops rather than M-16s and software instead of mortars. In this case, the most valuable military asset turned out to be an idea: Change the dynamic in the community and victory can follow.
“…Salinas officials are trying something new. This latest strategy has been honed in other desert towns tens of thousands of miles away – in the outskirts of Iraq and Afghanistan. The police in Salinas reached out to the military to help combat gangs using counterinsurgency tactics.”
In a peer reviewed exposé of the history and the consequences of Counterinsurgency as a law enforcement model in Salinas, California, Kristian Williams documented the extent of cooperation between the military and local law enforcement to wage a low intensity war against the Latino community of Salinas, California.
The other side of the COIN: counterinsurgency and community policing
By Kristian Williams
Abstract
This essay outlines the current counterinsurgency model, with an emphasis on its domestic application in the United States. It shows that many contemporary counterinsurgency practices were developed by police agencies inside the U.S., and illustrates the transfer of theory, strategy, and technique from domestic police to the military – and back. The essay also examines the state’s use of non- governmental or nonprofit agencies, as one element of counterinsurgency strategy, to channel and control political opposition. The conclusion briefly considers the strategic implications for social movements, especially as we learn to recognize and respond to political repression.
Read the Full Essay, featuring Salinas, by Kristian Williams (.pdf)
The murder that recently took the life of a farm worker in Salinas is not the exception, but the normal law enforcement model that is a direct consequence of the stripping of citizen’s rights by the Patriot Act of 2001 that has been extended long after the War on Terror and built upon the outdated War on Drugs.
Even as far as the Northern Border and in rural Forks, Washington this siege of Latino communities has extended its reach. Community to Community Development‘s Campaign to End Racial Profiling is fighting these very conditions in solidarity with Forks, Oxnard, Santa Barbara, San Bernadino, Santa Ana, Salinas and all of the other less than urban Latino communities who have seen an increase in this type of low intensity war to break the fabric of Community.
Dolor y Rabia is not limited to our Brothers and Sisters in the South. We make our stand where we live in Solidarity.
Todos Presentes!
“Can counter insurgency strategies be used to fight urban gangs? This question was discussed in a conversation between the Mayor of Salinas, the Provost of the Naval Postgraduate School and Representative Sam Farr. It became apparent during that discussion that there were many similarities between insurgent behavior and gang behavior—similarities that would make a more rigorous analysis worthwhile.
With this theme in mind, the faculty of the Defense Analysis Department at the Naval Postgraduate School, experts in counterinsurgency operations, were enlisted to address these similarities and to share their theories, models, and ideas from their own disciplines of political science, sociology, anthropology, international relations, and more. This collection of short papers is the result.”
Colectivo Todo Poder al Pueblo 
Before any effective remedial strategy can be successfully implemented the labor of education into the cultural traits, habits and idiosyncracies of the targetted group must be thoroughly studied and learned. This has never been done thoroughly because those charged with creating and establishing new reform techniques are no willing to invest in leanring about cultural deterrants and cultural differences that may otherwise be ignored and consequentl, prevent successful new programs and attitudes.
For example: The Gang Injunctions never successfully took into consideration the extend of dysfunction in the “farm worker” family and the difficulties in addressing education problems. Farm worker parents very rarely have the education and sophistication, themselves to be effective parents and apply parenting techniques natural born residents have. Parents cannot engage in their children’s education, participate in parent-tacher conferences and make adjustments at home necessary to facilitate their childre’s academic experience.
Without parent particiipation sons and daughter, simply, cannot progress in their education experience and there is no one to take their place. The alternative to education for these children is likely to be delinquent social substitutes where they are taught anti-social behaviors, like it or not.
Until society gets this message there cannot be any remedies.