Civil unrest and the military.

Separating this out since it has its own constitutional questions.

A run down as of Weds afternoon.

So I’m not gonna find the tweets right now but Trump has been threatening to use military force against protesters for a while.

Other far right Republicans have been egging him on.

Things seemed have reached a turning point though with the use of National Guard troops to clear out peaceful protesters in front of the WH for a Trump photo op.

The military brass is apparently pissed at being used to attack Americans for a re-election stunt.

An Under-Secretary of Defense resigned over it.
https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2020/06/02...agon-slams-esper-for-role-in-trump-photo.html

SecDef Esper is now claiming to have been deceived as to the point of photo op and the use of force to clear peaceful protesters:
https://thehill.com/policy/defense/...ain-participation-in-white-house-photo-op?amp

Now the SecDef has come out against using the Insurrection Act to deploy active duty troops to cities:https://www.thedailybeast.com/esper-says-he-opposes-using-insurrection-act-on-protesters

The active duty troops on standby around DC are being sent back to their home bases:
https://www.khou.com/amp/article/ne...exit/507-0d2fec11-8b3a-4d21-8501-2b9abe32258e

Of course POTUS is flipping out and wants to fire Esper:
https://www.politico.com/newsletter...er-breaks-with-trump-and-risks-his-job-489417

Republicans are doing their usual hand wringing and begging Trump not to be an idiot:
https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/500916-gop-leader-backs-esper-on-opposing-insurrection-act?amp

White House is only saying that Esper is currently at his post:
https://mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSKBN23A325

The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs put out a statement today:


Reading what was said (oath to the Constitution, its values, Duty to the American people) and not said (any mention of the Commander in Chief, need for order, etc) it sounds like the Armed Forces gonna just sit this one out.

Now Mattis is speaking out:

I just posted the Mattis thing in the Trumpite Americans thread.

Remember when he was the darling of the MAGAtards?

Now he's not of the body.

This is the thing i dont get. @oldfella1962 is old school military. He see's all of these top brass generals speaking out and or get thrown under the bus by the orange man snd he doesnt care.

But there's a 0.0000000001% chance Biden might be worse, you guys!!!

If you elect him and that comes off, whence America? Whence liberty? Whence freedom?

Whence, goddammit, whence???!!!

The devil you know..., amirite?

"Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people — he does not even pretend to try. Instead he tries to divide us."

- USMC General James N. Mattis, Retired
Former Secretary of Defense

"We are witnessing the consequences of three years without mature leadership."

- USMC General James N. Mattis, Retired
Former Secretary of Defense

That statement all but says they're prepared to disobey an illegal order from the Commander-in-Chief.

"I was only following orders" has been repeatedly struck down in U.S. courts as a valid defense.

who says I don't care? I do not agree with using active duty military for the civil unrest - that's the role of the national guard and they are more than capable and equipped. Bringing those active duty troops to the DC staging areas (and eventually returning them from where they came) diverted resources and transportation earmarked for the sandbox - not cool! I can't confirm that, and of course the military won't discuss that for security reasons. That said what can I do about it? Nothing anyone else under the military umbrella can do, including the generals. If he won't listen to them will he listen to me? Survey says no.

Yes I got Esper's e-mail today just like everybody else did. Rarely do I read any of those cookie-cutter pep talk e-mails, but this time I did. Of course it didn't discuss specifics and I don't read between the lines and assume anything. Did Esper get duped into a photo-op? Most likely he did. If so I'm sure he was holy shit pissed off, but can he lose his cool in front of god & everybody? There's a time and a place for everything, and that ain't it.

Bottom line just like separation of church & state, I believe in separation of military & politics as much as possible anyway. I don't expect any president to know the nuts & bolts of how the military operates at every level, but I do expect them to understand the overall role and mission of the military, and plan their crisis management/mitigation strategy around those limitations.

National guard troops with specific experience & training & required skillsets in non-lethal force, de-escalation and crowd control (like MP's for example) are all you need IMHO. For the average national guard or active duty member our only "non lethal force" we know is trigger discipline. I know little about non-lethal weapons but of course MP's do for example, or members who have had special taskings in civilian policing actions. The military has been used as a police force/referee relatively recently (Bosnia is a great example) but our current situation doesn't warrant that.

The active duty will sit this one out because there is literally no justification (legal, Constitutional or common sense) to utilize the active duty military.

He's scared.

Me, looking at how young some of the NG units look, I'm hoping this time we can avoid another Kent State. Der Drumpfenfuhrer probably doesn't even know what that means.

But you'll just keep running your mouth.

A libtard who hates America obviously.

This is pretty damning of Esper and Milley:

As a voter who supports Trump you endorse his actions. Either you think it's appropriate to use the military in that way or you don't. In this case it's literally a decision you get a say in.

The good thing is Trump can't just put Jarad in charge, or someone else who is loyal to him. He may be the HMIC but all the people under him are career military officers who should have different loyalties and agendas. Unlike the administration he does not get to micro control who is where in the military. The reality would also seem to be if he really wanted to use the military on US soil it would involve pulling back external troops. There is way too much land for the active military to suppress.

He is a simpleton idiot.

umm....the Kent State NG units were young too. If anything the average age of all military units has gone up because a higher percentage of military members are married with children (thus a bit older) than they were a few decades prior - not that I expected you to know what the fuck you are talking about.

What I'm saying is (I'll try to use smaller words): I don't want the NG having to shoot civilians, any more than I wanted them to be shipped off to Iraq in the early days, when more of the older ones succumbed to heart attacks and heat stroke than to enemy fire.

Put Your Boy Donnie in a uniform and put him on the front lines or STFU.

Yes I could get a say on election day. And for those who vote Biden (and he wins) Biden could make a terrible decision involving the military the day he assumes the presidency. Would they have a say in that decision? Some people on wordforge bust on Obama for killing thousands of brown people in the sandbox both before and after (though to a lesser extent) his reelection in 2012. Do you hold those Obama voters responsible or are you going to cherry-pick and rationalize like most on the left?

by "Iraq in the early days" do you mean the first Gulf War or the 2003 version? If it's the latter trust me many more died of enemy fire than had heart attacks or heat strokes - but I guess you had to be there.
BTW the first Gulf War caught the National Guard/Reserve (active duty called them "The Nasty Guard") with their pants down as far as being fat & out of shape & untrained. Heads rolled and that was very much corrected by the 2003 version. But again, I guess you had to be there. Now I'll use smaller words - do your research or STFU.

If he does the type of thing he said he was going to do before being elected? 100% yes. If he did something different than he said and they continued to support him? 100% yes.

Yes.

Bush War II. Look at the number of NG personnel who were called up and look at how many of them were overweight, out of shape, and stroked out in the heat. Family men, many of them grandfathers. God Bless Murica.

This should help with getting the military on Trumps side.

bull...mother...fucking...shit as far as Bush War 2. I was fucking there! I saw the numbers you described and it was nearly zero. I worked with some NG troops from time-to-time. I don't know what kind of news sources you got your information from but they are 180 degrees out of phase from reality. There may have been a few out of shape and got heat stroke but considering how many thousands of NG troops were there mathematically it's inevitable even among young well conditioned troops.

And "family men" many of them grandfathers? A tiny percentage might be grandfathers. And newsflash that doesn't matter because if you are still in the guard you don't get to sit it out at a desk in the rear - you go where your unit goes and do what your unit does. If you can't hack it you shouldn't be doing the job no matter what your age.
FYI I was regular army not guard, but I was the oldest guy in my company at age 41. In the whole battalion there were only two guys older than me - none of us were fat or had heat injuries. And like I said we had plenty of Nat Guard soldiers at some of the airfields where we worked - they performed just fine and yes a few were long in the tooth but had no more health problems than any regular army members.
You are absolutely talking out your ass and completely out of your element here - it's quite pathetic to be honest.

And you were in charge of documenting every American casualty and cause of death? Extraordinary.

Reservist deaths high in Iraq
Originally published October 11, 2005 at 12:00 am

The National Guard and Reserves are suffering a strikingly higher share of U.S. casualties in Iraq, their portion of American military...

Article is from 2005.

That article doesn't support the point you were trying to make about reservists dying because they were old and out of shape, though."...what has made the Iraq experience so different is the large numbers of reservists getting killed and wounded" implies death and injury sustained in combat, not because Sgt. Snuffy stroked out because of the heat.

If anything it totally negates her first point, which was that more NG soldiers are "stroking out" than getting killed in actual combat. So I called her on her inaccurate bullshit and she provides a source which digs her in even deeper. Well played Garamet!

Now if the first Gulf War had lasted longer than a bad case of sunburn, they might have had NG/Reserve soldiers "stroking out" because some of them were scary fat and out of shape. They were pencil-whipping weigh-ins and PT tests and training in general, never thinking they might have to deploy to a by-god shooting war. To their credit Gulf War 2 they were very much on top of their game - first ones in and last ones out in some cases.