This is my surprised face.

May 27, 2017 5:59 AM

“an ideologically driven insurgency with a strong religious component”
A mercenary and security firm known as TigerSwan targeted the movement opposed to the Dakota Access Pipeline with military-style counterterrorism measures.
posted by adamvasco (15 comments total)

As I've been saying for years now, the war on terror won't be over until we're all terrorists.
posted by Naberius at 6:56 AM on May 27, 2017 [14 favorites]

And the pipeline is already leaking
posted by robbyrobs at 7:57 AM on May 27, 2017 [5 favorites]

So, sort of like Pinkerton's union busting. Corporations have been hiring private security firms to do their dirty work for a century and a half.
posted by Grumpy old geek at 8:33 AM on May 27, 2017 [6 favorites]

Longer, if you count the British East India Company
posted by GenjiandProust at 8:37 AM on May 27, 2017 [5 favorites]

Internal TigerSwan communications describe the movement as “an ideologically driven insurgency with a strong religious component” and compare the anti-pipeline water protectors to jihadist fighters.

"Well what you've got here is a big ol' nail! Lucky thing you called us here at Hammer, Inc. to take care of it."
posted by PlusDistance at 10:31 AM on May 27, 2017 [4 favorites]

“While we can expect to see the continued spread of the anti-DAPL diaspora … aggressive intelligence preparation of the battlefield and active coordination between intelligence and security elements are now a proven method of defeating pipeline insurgencies.”

This is such corporate cargo panted machismo bullshit. The DAPL protesters were not defeated by a counterinsurgency effort*. The DAPL protestors won. They were defeated by Trump winning the election.

[*Unless the coordination they are mentioning includes Russian intelligence agencies and presdential campaign.]
posted by srboisvert at 10:57 AM on May 27, 2017 [3 favorites]

aggressive intelligence preparation of the battlefield

All the world's a battlefield, and all the men and women merely corpses
posted by clockzero at 11:18 AM on May 27, 2017 [5 favorites]

"“Everyone must be concerned of the lone wolf. Should we slip from that conscience, we may all be amiss. I cannot afford this in my duties, nor will We/I allow or accept this. I cannot thank everyone for enough for their support during this entire process, However, the movement continues, and We/I will not stop. That’s not in my vocabulary. We will always over-watch as the protectors what is in the best interest for ETP, as we are the guardians.” - hey, American MeFites, does that read like credible mercenary/security vernacular to you? For me, there's something eerie in it, as if it were written by someone not quite human.
posted by holist at 12:10 PM on May 27, 2017 [4 favorites]

Corporations have been hiring private security firms to do their dirty work for a century and a half.

Which is odd, considering how eagerly the police and military will do it.
posted by klanawa at 12:25 PM on May 27, 2017 [2 favorites]

This is such corporate cargo panted machismo bullshit. The DAPL protesters were not defeated by a counterinsurgency effort*. The DAPL protestors won. They were defeated by Trump winning the election.

[*Unless the coordination they are mentioning includes Russian intelligence agencies and presdential campaign.]

Not really clear why you think it would have been any different under a Hillary administration. One of the last outrages I remember before the election involved her staff having security kick indigenous protestors out of her headquarters in Brooklyn rather than have someone meet with them. She put out a mealy mouthed statement that included a call to let pipeline workers do their work peacefully and without violence. Obama didn't take any action over private security forces and state police harassing, beating and siccing dogs on indigenous protesters. There really is bipartisan consensus on steamrolling indigenous peoples when they get in the way of oil interests.
posted by indubitable at 4:52 PM on May 27, 2017 [7 favorites]

Of oil interests, Uranium interests, water interests, grazing interests, farming interests, mining interests....
posted by Oyéah at 7:24 PM on May 29, 2017

TigerSwan

Really? Now they aren't even trying with these PMC names. What's next? DangerWall? SpikyBarrier? LionDog? PitbullBite?
posted by theorique at 11:32 AM on May 30, 2017

As Dakota Access Pipeline Leaks, Native Artists Examine Contested Landscapes: In My Country Tis of Thy People, You’re Dying, artists grapple with forcible resource extraction on indigenous lands.
posted by homunculus at 1:04 PM on May 30, 2017 [1 favorite]

hey, American MeFites, does that read like credible mercenary/security vernacular to you?

No. It reads like output from a Markov generator, or, somewhat more charitably, someone trying too hard to ape a style that they're not familiar with (possibly in addition to English not being their first language).

The "We/I" thing is particularly weird. That's not a normal construct that you see in military-industrial complex output. (Unless the context makes it possible that the document is a draft that's intended for later editing, and the "We/I" is meant to signal a decision to be made later.) Also, "over-watch" doesn't typically have a hyphen in it, which makes its inclusion weird: it's something of a term of art to a military or military-adjacent audience, but kinda outs you as not knowing what you're talking about if you can't spell it.

Overall guess: they're Mall Cops, applying the tools and aping the techniques of the state as part of their sales strategy, aimed at people who they think will be impressed by it. Doesn't mean they're not dangerous, though.
posted by Kadin2048 at 11:20 AM on May 31, 2017

Antonia Juhasz: Paramilitary security tracked and targeted DAPL opponents as “jihadists,” docs show

Democracy Now: As Oil Starts to Flow Through Dakota Access Pipeline, Resistance Faces Paramilitary Security Force
posted by homunculus at 1:42 PM on June 2, 2017