Amid Missouri Violence, US To Suspend Missile Delivery To US

Washington, August 15 – Following the fatal shooting of an unarmed black teenager in Ferguson, Missouri this week and the heavy-handed police response to the ensuing protests, the Obama administration has instructed the Pentagon to put on hold any scheduled shipments of missiles to the United States, to demonstrate American displeasure with the police and government response.

A White House statement sent to the US government and distributed to reporters condemned US authorities’ repressive tactics and warned that despite existing arrangements for the manufacture and delivery of various weapons system components, the president would be forced to reevaluate its adherence to those arrangements if US authorities continued to violate the civil and human rights of the demonstrators and of the press covering the events.

“The president views with extreme concern the use of brutality to suppress the protests in Ferguson,” read the statement. “It recalls some of the darkest moments of the Civil Rights Era, when police treated law-abiding citizens with disdain and unwarranted suspicion. This administration will not stand idly by as such violations occur, and hereby warns the United States that further use of such unacceptable tactics will jeopardize the fulfillment of other scheduled weapons shipments.” White House officials took pains to emphasize that despite the tension over the current situation, the country’s relationship with the United States remains strong.

“Friends can have disagreements from time to time,” said White House Chief of Staff Jacob Lew. “And true friends deal honestly with each other. It would be disingenuous of us to maintain a congenial atmosphere with US government representatives when the current violence gives us pause.”

US officials were incensed at the announcement. “While truly repressive regimes such as Turkey are wooed and armed by the Obama administration, its real allies are stabbed in the back,” said US Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel. “Just this week saw the announcement that Turkey would receive $320 million worth of advanced air-to-air missiles and spare parts – Turkey, one of the countries known for the brutal suppression of democratic dissent and of its Kurdish minority.”

“The hypocrisy here reeks,” agreed US Secretary of State John Kerry. “If the president were consistent and actually demonstrated he gave a damn about the security of the US civilian population, that would be one thing, but clearly he puts his personal glory and ‘legacy’ above such notions as human rights.”