Below is the concluding passage from Lyndon LaRouche’s August 28, 1980 EIR article “Poland: A Trotskyite Insurrection?”, which deals with the foreign-manipulated aspects of the worker riots in Poland. In it, the author lays out the principled reason why every effort must be made to avoid sending in military troops in order to deal with domestic riot situations.
“Currently, the new series of ghetto riots being run with cooperation of the U.S. Department of Justice is intended, according to documented proof, to eliminate the last vestiges of intelligence capability by local law enforcement agencies. The current series of ghetto riots is being launched to the purpose of discrediting local law enforcement agencies, including the Los Angeles Police Department. However, real estate interests’ desire for arson is not being overlooked. Both are orchestrated by branches of British secret intelligence. The ability of such intelligence operations to direct strikes in Poland or a ghetto riot in the United States also depends upon exploiting very real, very heated existing grievances within the population being manipulated.
“Exemplary of the method I have adopted is the case of the 1977 ‘Blackout Riots’ in New York City. In this instance, my associates provided intelligence and related assistance to the city’s law enforcement agencies. The Mayor and the New York City Police Department performed with memorable excellence.
“Under very mysterious circumstances, the city’s power grid went down. Immediately, known operatives deployed a series of lootings of stores around the city, using the slogan ‘God Gave Us This Day’ (to steal from stores under cover of darkness), while certain dubious characters ‘above suspicion’ demanded that the Mayor call in the National Guard to control the rioters.
“Putting the military up against a rioting ghetto population is the worst possible initial approach to an eruption of such forms of rioting: Local law enforcement officers, experienced in distinguishing between a menacing appearance of things and an actual shooting combat situation, are trained not to shoot into crowds at the mere appearance of a provocation. In a similar situation, military units operating under martial law, most military commanders will panic and order fire where law enforcement professionals will use more effective means.
“If a crowd is looting a store, the military commander will tend to shoot under license of martial law. The law enforcement professional will tend to avoid firing, or even drawing his weapon. The store is doomed anyway. Shooting into a crowd of temporarily crazed looters will transform a riot into virtual insurrection.
“Law enforcement will concentrate, as did the New York officials in 1977, on pre-identifying and surveilling the known provocateurs, taking them out of the situation by arrest and detention. Without the provocateurs, the ordinary citizens whipped up temporarily into an orgy of looting will tire themselves out, and the situation thus be brought under control. Our concern in that situation was to identify the agents to be selectively detained in the situation.
“In general, in such a riot, use force to contain and separate groups of rioters from one another and from uninvolved areas of the population. Isolate and neutralize the agents-provocateurs as inconspicuously and quickly as possible, and let the dupes tire themselves back into a normal state of mind. The slogans for law enforcement in such a situation are ‘sophistication’ and ‘patience.'
“This approach demands remedies for those legitimate grievances which created popular susceptibility to manipulation by the provocateurs. This willingness to acknowledge legitimate grievances helps to soothe the innocents drawn into the riot, and reinforces support of law enforcement agencies by non-involved portions of the population. Popular hostility to the effects of the continued riot (or general strike) not only brings popular support for the actions of law enforcement agencies, but that mood of popular support from non-involved portions of the population affects the honest citizens involved in the action.
“There is no more effective balm for the rage of a frustrated population than that population’s perception that it is being offered true justice. The receipt of justice from a hand reacting to riotous action with resolute firmness and compassionate patience is the policy which enrages, because it frustrates, the agents-provocateurs.
“When the provocateurs begin to declaim noisily against the ‘danger of selling out the struggle,’ law enforcement knows it has begun to win.”
