The militarization of American police forces makes the United States seem more like a war-torn Middle Eastern nation, according to Charles C. W. Cooke, a writer for National Review Online.

"The militarization of the police is something that I've been bothered about for a while. It does not look good. It is not structurally good to have what looks like military officers on the streets of the U.S.," Cooke said Thursday on "The Steve Malzberg Show" on Newsmax TV.

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"You start to see this hyperbole creeping in. Is this Syria or is this the United States? … By sending in the National Guard the United States has started to look like Iraq or Pakistan."

Cooke's comments came amid the ongoing racial tension in Ferguson, Missouri, where police have clashed night after night with rioters following the shooting of a black teenager by a white cop.

"As critical as I've been of the authorities in Missouri, when we get to the point which we're comparing a United States city, which has been summarizing a lot of protests, to a war zone that is now run by a neo-caliphate, we have slightly jumped the shark," Cooke said.

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