According to nearly a dozen retired officers and current military lawyers, as well as scholars who teach at West Point and Annapolis, an intense if quiet debate is underway inside the U.S. military community about what orders it would be obliged to obey if President-elect Donald Trump decides to follow through on his previous warnings that he might deploy troops against what he deems domestic threats, including political enemies, dissenters and immigrants.

Archived at https://archive.is/He9O6

  • @givesomefucks
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    8 hours ago

    “There was real sensitivity about keeping federal troops away from the front lines,” said Ollivant, who was ordered in by President George H.W. Bush as rioters in central-south LA set fire to buildings, assaulted police and bystanders, pelted cars with rocks and smashed store windows in the aftermath of the videotaped police beating of Rodney King, a Black motorist. “They tried to keep us in support roles, backing up the police.”

    Important to note the real reason they kept military and cops “from the front lines” is they kettled Black protestors into Koreatown and then just let the two groups of minorities to fight it out while cops, ambulances, and firefighters were forming a barrier to protect the white neighborhoods.

    I stopped reading the article as soon as the author showed they didn’t understand that. It’s been over 30 years, if the author didn’t know by now it’s because they didn’t bother to research what they’re writing about.

    • @gAlienLifeformOP
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      148 hours ago

      I think the senior military types will only talk about this stuff to journalists who have swallowed at least a little bit of American propaganda, but yeah thank you for getting the correct version of history out there

    • @dhork
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      18 hours ago

      I mean, both explanations can be right. The military leaders could have had severe objections about deploying domestically, because they are well versed in history and understand why that is simply not done here. However, they no doubt understood what the local police were doing, and also looked at that policy as permission to take a back seat and not get more involved in the controversy directly.

      • @givesomefucks
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        177 hours ago

        What?

        The “controversy” was manufactured by authorities…

        There was no violence, no looting, no destruction until police attacked the protestors, then they drove them into another minority area after using violence to antagonize them…

        Like, this was 30 years ago, lots of people have investigated this by now.

        We knew it the year it happened

        “In April, for whatever reason, there was no government assistance in this area. For three days we tried to find police officers. There were none,” he said. “There were conscious efforts to move officers from this area to other areas.”

        https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1992-09-12-me-298-story.html

        Cops are still doing it, when there’s a peaceful protest they instigate violence so they can label protesters as violent looters and use that as an excuse to not listen to their demands.

        Everyone who was sent to LA to help with the riots then just stood at the border where “white neighborhoods” started instead of actually going to where the riot was knew what they were doing and why.

        It doesn’t take a fucking genius to put it together. Yet the author and some commenters appear to be having a lot of difficulty…

        • @dhork
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          16 hours ago

          My point is that even now that we know all that stuff happened, that doesn’t mean that the military held back because it was directly complicit. Their justification is a solid one, and backed up by years of military history and tradition in this country. Yes, the justification is convenient, but that doesn’t make it less valid. I would have much preferred that the police did their jobs back then without all the overt racism, but sending the military in to do the police’s job would not have been the correct answer, either.

          You seem to be lumping in “cops” and “the military” in the same category, where the whole point of this discussion is that they are not, and if Trump tries to use them in that fashion the military ought to stop him (for as long as they can, until Trump purges all the military leaders who are loyal to the country over him.)