Tag: U.S. Military

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Donald Trump GOP Immigration The Trump Adminstration

WATCH: Combat Vet Destroys Republican Over Use Of American Troops For Deportations

Iraq War veteran Paul Rieckhoff dismantled GOP strategist Scott Jennings Monday evening on CNN during a discussion of Donald Trump’s plan to use members of the U.S. armed forces to round up and deport immigrants.

“It is really a sacred and terrifying prospect for anyone who’s been in uniform,” Rieckhoff explained. “You can send me to Iraq but to send me across from American protesters and situations like we’ve seen across America is wrought with a tremendous burden you’re going to put on men and women in uniform.”

That led Jennings to respond that the military would not be used against U.S. citizens, only illegal immigrants. “Which I think most people would agree is a national emergency, is a national security emergency.”

Jennings also claimed that National Guard troops had been deployed before on American soil, which led Rieckhoff to correct him: “To wildfires.”

“To the border,” Jennings insisted.

“To wildfires,” Rieckhoff said once again.

“No, to the border,” Jennings again noted.

Smiling, Rieckhoff replied, “In small numbers.”

Later in the discussion, Jennings told Rieckhoff to stop talking.

“You got to make your speech. Let me —”

Rieckhoff would have none of it.

“Is it a debate with you or am I answering questions with the host? Because every time I come on you want to sidetrack to take me into your talking points.”

“By all means have at it, my friend. You’re the expert,” Jennings sneered.

Rieckhoff finally asked Jennings, “Have you served in uniform?”

“I have served as a United States citizen,” Jennings replied.

“Have you been to the border?” Jennings asked Riekhoff, to which he replied he had not.

“Oh! So you’re not a genius. Go on. By all means. Have at it.”

Here’s the video:

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Donald Trump Military

Pentagon Preparing For Orders From Trump To Deploy Troops Against Americans

Officials at the Pentagon are currently holding high-level discussions about how the Department of Defense would respond if Donald Trump issues orders to deploy active-duty troops on the homeland as part of his mass deportation program and for “domestic law enforcement,” according to a disturbing report from CNN.

Officials are now gaming out various scenarios as they prepare for an overhaul of the Pentagon.

“We are all preparing and planning for the worst-case scenario, but the reality is that we don’t know how this is going to play out yet,” one defense official said.

Trump’s election has also raised questions inside the Pentagon about what would happen if the president issued an unlawful order, particularly if his political appointees inside the department don’t push back.

“Troops are compelled by law to disobey unlawful orders,” said another defense official. “But the question is what happens then – do we see resignations from senior military leaders? Or would they view that as abandoning their people?”

CNN’s Kristen Holmes told anchor Jake Tapper on Friday that Sens. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Bill Hagerty (R-TN) are among the contenders for top cabinet posts at agencies such as the State Department and Defense. They are reportedly meeting with Trump team transition leaders, and the president-elect is also making calls as he firms up plans for who he will appoint to many key agencies and departments.

Consider for just a moment the specter of uniformed troops patrolling the streets of U.S. cities, demanding to see ID cards and detaining anyone who doesn’t have proper credentials. It’s the very same thing that has been done by repressive regimes throughout history, including in Nazi Germany and Mussolini’s Italy.

Is such a show of force meant to reassure us, or is it planned as part of a larger crackdown on all dissent against Trump? After all, this is a man who doesn’t take criticism well.

Here’s the video from CNN:

 

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Congress GOP Military

WATCH: CNN’s Brianna Keilar Brutally Fact-Checks GOPer For Lying About Attacks On US Forces

Rep. Mike Waltz (R-FL) got schooled by CNN host Brianna Keilar during a discussion of the Biden administration’s Middle East policy Monday on the network after the congressman suggested the administration was responsible for attacks on U.S. forces by proxy groups loyal to Iran.

Keilar noted that the Trump administration also struggled to control Iran.

“I know you’re critical of President Biden, that you think he is emboldening Iran, but how should the U.S. respond when even former President Trump — I mean, you said that peace broke out [under his watch], but his direct and controversial action like taking out [late Iranian Gen. Qasem Soleimani] did not stop the deadly attacks on U.S. troops.”

Waltz said that killing Soleimani had been effective, “They launched some missiles and that was it!”

Keilar, whose husband is an active duty Green Beret, interjected, “Service members died!”

Waltz: “Who died, post-Soleimani strike?”

That’s when Keilar fact-checked the congressman.

“March 2020, service members died,” she said. “You had Iranian-backed proxies… the one in March was determined that it likely was [Iran] and you had service members, two Americans and one Brit, who were killed… So if we’re talking realistically on what deters and what does not deter the proxies, then let’s use those facts to talk about what might actually be a way to… get them to stop.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFQWqApBzU4
 

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Donald Trump Military The Trump Adminstration

Navy Vet: Trump Wanted Military To Swear An ‘Oath To Him’ And Perform Illegal Acts If He Ordered Them

Theodore Johnson is Navy veteran who is currently a fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice who writes for The Bulwark that former president Donald Trump believed that being commander-in-chief meant members of the military “swore an oath to him personally” and he could order them to do whatever he wanted, even if such orders were unconstitutional or illegal.

Johnson says he came to those conclusions after reading two recent news stories:

  • The release of a draft resignation letter from Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
  • Trump’s insistence that he was allowed to keep thousands of classified and top-secret documents at his Mar-a-Lago golf resort

These historic occurrences speak to just how deeply Trump believed the military not to be an instrument of national power but an apparatus for personal use. Milley composed his resignation draft after being asked to participate in Trump’s ego-stroke theater — first by conducting a military show of force against Americans upset about George Floyd’s killing days earlier and then being unwittingly drafted into Trump’s infamous march across Lafayette Square after it was forcibly cleared of protesters. Regarding the classified material squirreled away in Mar-a-Lago, the underlying explanation from Trump and his supporters appears to amount to little more than that it was his to do with as he pleased without any regard to the potential damage to our national security interests.

Those events, Johnson continues, made it clear exactly what Trump believed when it came to a president’s power over U.S. armed forces:

These occurrences bring to the fore a troubling issue usually lurking in the background of civil-military relations: When a president believes his interests supersede the nation’s — or, worse, that his interests become the nation’s — the democratic principle of ‘civilian control of the military’ exposes the armed services to co-option as a partisan tool for domestic politics.

There have also been reports that Trump considered using the military to disperse protesters after the May 2020 killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis by police officers, which leads Johnson to conclude:

“Civil-military relations mostly held during the Trump presidency, a testament to the resilience of the institution and to our democracy. But dangers remain. If our country’s toxic polarization, hyperpartisanship, and intentional stoking of social tensions for political ends are not sufficiently addressed, we may find ourselves dangerously close to the precipice once more—and if Trump or someone following the Trump model comes to power again, we may well tumble over the edge.”

If Donald Trump happens to wind up in the White House again, this country will quickly become an authoritarian police state and the Constitution will no longer be the controlling document of our republic. All of us, as citizens and voters, must make sure that doesn’t happen.

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Congress GOP Military Veterans

‘Angry’ US Army Vet Shreds Lauren Boebert For Her Childish Antics At SOTU Address

During Tuesday evening’s State of the Union Address, President Joe Biden brought up the issue of U.S. military veterans who have been exposed to toxic materials that are destroyed in what are known as “burn pits” on forward bases in places such as Iraq and may be responsible for the brain cancer which killed his son, Beau:

 “One of those soldiers was my son, Major Beau Biden. I don’t know for sure if the burn pit that he lived near was the cause of his brain cancer, and disease of so many other troops. But I am committed to find out everything we can.”

As the president was speaking, Colorado GOP Congresswoman Lauren Boebert stood and shouted, “13 of them!” Boebert was apparently making reference to the 13 service members who were killed in a bombing during the U.S. evacuation from Afghanistan last year.

That heckling enraged many people, including U.S. Army veteran Eileen Rivers, who excoriated Boebert in an op-ed she wrote for USA Today, noting that while we should welcome political disagreement, “there is also something wrong with reducing what should be thoughtful political discourse – done at the right time with real information – to a shameful and antagonizing heckle.”

Rivers went on to add:

“The congresswoman’s comments about a 20-year war perpetuated by leaders in both parties were misleading and lacked context. She not only lowered discourse, she disrespected the office of the presidency. I am a veteran. I spent four years of my life in the Army as an Arabic linguist. I come from a family of veterans. And I am angry.”

Most importantly, Rivers says she wants to make it clear that Lauren Boebert — who has never served a day in any branch of the military — is not the right messenger for such a message:

“When she stifled the president, she was also stifling me. Surely others who have lost loved ones felt that, too.

“Boebert does not speak for me. And neither do other members of the GOP who reinforced her sentiments on social media.”

Lauren Boebert is a pustule on the U.S. Congress. She needs to be excised by the voters in November.