Veterans slam Trump’s ‘political’ deployment of Marines and National Guard to LA: ‘Citizens are not enemy combatants’ | EUROtoday

Donald Trump’s deployment of National Guard troops and U.S. Marines to Los Angeles is a thinly veiled “authoritarian” and politically motivated try to inflame protests and crush dissent, veterans and authorized consultants warn.

Trump is counting on federal regulation that enables the president to name up the National Guard to answer home unrest, an motion recognized generally as federalizing the usually state-authorized Guard. Even then, these troops have solely a restricted mission in supporting federal regulation enforcement brokers and federal buildings on the middle of protests in opposition to the administration’s mass deportation agenda.

But now, together with his National Guard deployment mixed with sending some 700 Marines to L.A., veterans teams, army regulation consultants and Democratic officers worry the president is testing the bounds of his authority to ship active-duty army into American streets — and violating service members’ commitments to remain out of home politics.

“When I joined the Marine Corps, I swore an oath — not to a person, not to a party, but to the Constitution,” mentioned Marine veteran Janessa Goldbeck, CEO of the Vet Voice Foundation, a nationwide nonpartisan advocacy group.

“What we’re seeing now is a deliberate effort to turn the military into a political prop,” she advised The Independent.

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Trump will not be deploying troops for nationwide protection however “domestic intimidation,” she added.

“That’s not just just politicizing the military — it’s crossing a dangerous line,” Goldbeck advised The Independent.

Trump’s army threats are “how authoritarian regimes take power” and sign the president’s wider ambitions for “the weaponization of the military for political gain,” based on veterans advocacy group Common Defense.

“The militarized response to protests in Los Angeles is a dangerous escalation that undermines civil rights and betrays the principles we swore to uphold,” Army veteran and Common Defense political director Naveed Shah mentioned.

“The idea that Marines would be deployed to suppress the very people we’re meant to protect is a disgrace. It’s un-American,” Marine Corps veteran and Common Defense organizer Jojo Sweatt added.

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The final time a president federalized the National Guard in opposition to the desire of a state governor was in 1965, when then-President Lyndon Johnson deployed troops to guard civil rights advocates marching from Selma, Alabama to Montgomery — two weeks after the violence of “Bloody Sunday” on the Edmund Pettus Bridge.

Johnson did so after Alabama’s segregationist Gov. George Wallace advised the president that his state “refuses to provide for the safety and welfare” of the marchers, based on Johnson’s proclamation.

But 60 years later, Trump is deploying troops to not defend civil rights activists however to guard regulation enforcement and federal property. Activating troops in opposition to the desires of California Gov. Gavin Newsom“is bad for all Americans concerned about freedom of speech and states’ rights,” retired Major Gen. Randy Manner mentioned in a press release to Fox News.

“There are over a million badged and trained members of law enforcement in this country for the governor to ask for help if he needs it,” he added. “While this is presently a legal order, it tramples the governor’s rights and obligations to protect his people. This is an inappropriate use of the National Guard and is not warranted.”

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Trump’s open-ended memo invoking army deployment doesn’t single out Los Angeles and even California. It empowers the Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth “to employ any other members of the regular Armed Forces as necessary.”

Carrie A. Lee, a former affiliate professor on the U.S. Army War College, referred to as Trump’s actions “massive overreach” and “crazy broad,” seemingly paving the way in which for the administration “to use military force against protestors on American soil anywhere they want.”

Invoking “protective power” authority with none geographical limits successfully creates an unprecedented and “dangerous” nationwide order, based on Lee.

Trump has not invoked the Insurrection Act, although the president and administration officers have repeatedly labeled protesters “insurrectionists” and “seditionists” — sparking fears that the president is laying the groundwork for mass deployment of army property throughout the nation.

Instead, Trump is at the moment counting on a much more restricted statute that faucets his “protective power” authority, which doesn’t permit the army to conduct regulation enforcement actions — not like the Insurrection Act, which is excluded from federal statute that bars federal troops from collaborating in civilian regulation enforcement.

“The public must be laser focused on seeing the extent to which Secretary Hegseth adheres to these historically recognized limitations,” based on University of Houston Law Center professor Chris Mirasola, a former attorney-advisor on the Department of Defense Office of General Counsel.

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If troops are pulled into violent confrontations, Trump may use these incidents to justify invoking the Insurrection Act, opening the door for active-duty army to face off in opposition to Americans not simply within the streets of Los Angeles however throughout the nation.

“This is an unnecessary, unprecedented and predictable misuse of military power against American citizens,” based on Army veteran Paul Rieckhoff, founding father of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America.

“And Trump has now thrust our troops into the middle of the most explosive issue in America,” he added. “And this is likely just the start. We could see a clash and crisis between Trump and governors and mayors across America like we’ve never seen.”

A lawsuit from watchdog group American Oversight referred to as the deployment “an opening salvo in a coordinated national strategy and not simply an isolated incident.”

The lawsuit is looking for information from the Trump administration concerning using army property in immigration enforcement and “potential authorities his administration would invoke to authorize federalizing law enforcement.”

“Deploying the military to quash protests over the administration’s inhumane and legally dubious immigration policies — especially over the objection of elected state leaders — is a dangerous, though unfortunately predictable, escalation by the Trump administration,” based on American Oversight government director Chioma Chukwu.

“If left unchecked, this abuse of power under thin legal pretense can be readily replicated across other states in the future,” he mentioned in a press release.

“Americans have a right to know who authorized it, what rationale was offered, and not just whether the government crossed a line — but by how much that line has been obliterated.”