However, this practical step only scratches the surface. Few have dared ask the much more uncomfortable question: why have a shockingly high number of American police departments felt entitled to stockpile and even unleash weapons of war upon their own communities?

The answer is staring us directly in the face. Even as President Obama continues to expand American military operations in the Middle East to confront ISIL, almost no one is talking about the intrinsic connection between police militarization and America's ironic moniker of "policeman of the world." It was easy to chuckle when comedian John Oliver noted that Keene, New Hampshire ordered an armored personnel carrier to thwart terrorism at their annual pumpkin festival. However, police departments in even the most remote enclaves of rural America have accepted and even delighted in the prospect of being auxiliaries on the domestic front of the global war on terrorism – an attitude which is reinforced with each and every bomb dropped in the Middle East.