Several service members told advocacy groups they felt like pawns in a political game and assignment was unnecessary
California national guards troops and marines deployed to Los Angeles to help restore order after days of protest against the Trump administration have told friends and family members they are deeply unhappy about the assignment and worry their only meaningful role will be as pawns in a political battle they do not want to join.
Three different advocacy organisations representing military families said they had heard from dozens of affected service members who expressed discomfort about being drawn into a domestic policing operation outside their normal field of operations. The groups said they have heard no countervailing opinions.
“The sentiment across the board right now is that deploying military force against our own communities isn’t the kind of national security we signed up for,” said Sarah Streyder of the Secure Families Initiative, which represents the interests of military spouses, children and veterans.
this is a good thing to hear
Similar when they were doing border patrol in Texas.
Military training is kinda big on threat identification and assessment. You don’t have to like the military to appreciate some of the stuff you can learn from it.
Protesting is not a threat to America. It’s a threat to the people who are in charge.
That’s why it’s essential we keep it peaceful while we increase our numbers. If we are non-violent, we cannot be determined to be a domestic threat, and it’s the military’s duty to protect us.
If we are non-violent, TACO will just say “They’re violent!” and a majority of this country, including our military, will believe him. Things can only go downhill from here.
Arm yourselves.
And if we’re still non-violent, someone will join who isn’t and ensure some violence exists. It’s Plan 1A in the dictator playbook.
Yup, that too. There is no happy ending.
It’s not the military’s duty to protect protestors. Just as the police have no obligation to protect and serve citizens.
It’s not. Unhappy people can lash out. You put a bunch of angry people on the riot control line, and they might start hitting people. It’s all downhill from there.
You’re right, it would be so much better if they were happy to be there. I would much prefer knowing that all of the soldiers are excited to suppress our constitutional right to protest. WAY better than the chance of one lashing out because they’re mad at their boss, right?
You’re making a lot of wild leaps from “I don’t feel good about being here and being used life this” to “I want to hit people!” even if they did, the people they want to hit are the ones who sent them there. And that’s also good.
MobHerd mentality
Their orders are illegal, thus disobeying them is not insubordination or illegal.
Not just not subordination following them is specifically illegal and historically “I was following orders” has NEVER been justification or gotten anyone off their charges. You follow illegal orders YOU are a criminal as much as your commanding officer.
That’s not how military orders work.
Tell me you never served in the military without telling me you never served in the military.
I think we are talking past eachother here. We can talk a lot about what an illegal order is; how there is training to disobey one, but that is talking about how things ought to be not how they actually are. For example, we all have agreed to not speed and taken training on it as well, yet it happens all too often. It is not unreasonable to believe that a soldier will follow an illegal order because they want to or there is enough coercion.
I would argue that the deployment orders for the 2003 Iraq war were illegal, but the people who refused to follow them are the ones who got in trouble.
How do they work?
Is it possible to refuse to follow an order because you believe it is illegal?
Yes.
They can be court martialed either way. Literally an entire movie about it and a phrase that gets used everyday. Cache 22
Sure and once the military court sees the order was illegal you’re not going to be held responsible
There’s a book called Catch 22. Looks like the made a movie of it. The book is the funniest thing I’ve ever read. Made me think about how crazy fighting is. Sort of like a funny Slaughterhouse-Five.
Neither mentioned illegal orders as far as I remember. Was the movie quite different?
Catch 22 isn’t about illegal orders. The contradiction is more about your own sanity/safety.
Basically yeah, you can refuse, but that’s the more absolute form. What you should do if you suspect the legality of an order is to ask it in writing, register that you don’t want to follow, but will comply.
Then afterwards you’ll be less responsible. Depends on what it’s about, you can’t just register a complaint about killing kids and then do it anyway, but like for milder illegal orders.
Then the American populace will forget all about how they raided your country, move on to the next one while moralizing to the colonized. Or like what’s happening now, they’ll lecture everyone about genocide and invading countries, won’t realizing the hypocrisy.
Well, they haven’t made a movie about how the Philly police got depressed after they bombed their own city yet.
They should be troubled. They are breaking their oath on the constitution.
On the other hand, they could easily turn and end tyranny before it really sets in.
You say “easily,” but I doubt it appears so easy, because disobeying the order first starts with you violating the UCMJ and paying for it. Only then can you fight and say hey, the order was unlawful. But you’re doing that from military jail. It’s an uphill battle and there’s nothing easy about it.
I imagine the mindset is go, stand around with a shield, don’t murk protestors, and try to just wait this shit out.
Plus, for the Marines, they were living in 29 Palms beforehand, so it’s practically a vacation.
Good. They should be troubled. This is utterly fucked.
In just hoping that ICE is dumb enough to try to arrest and deport one of the Marines in front of their co-workers just like they do with civilians.
You got the choice to stand up and say no. No I will not use my weapons on my own fucking people because some geriatric PoS is having a terrible twos tantrum because everyone hates his ass.
Do what’s right or be remembered as the ones who did wrong.
Please. Please. Please. Come on boys, just read the Constitution, you didn’t sign up for this shit.
Every military and law enforcement member needs to understand right now that attacking protesters for exercising their First Amendment rights is crossing a line that they can never come back from. I, for one, will always hold it against any MAGA for the rest of my life. They deserve to be mercilessly shunned, ridiculed, and discriminated against for the rest of their miserable, stupid, treasonous lives. I own a business, and I will never hire a MAGA supporter, ever.
What is the strat for MAGA customers?
MAGA customers are a double edged sword. You can sell them on practically anything as long as it “owns the libs”, but they often don’t have much money.
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They are upset that they are witnessing police tear gas their own community members and civilians exercising their 1st amendment rights, yet soldiers cannot use that same weapon against enemies… what does that say?!? STOP GASSING US! Stop with the rubber bullets! We have right and Americans need to stand up and realize this!
If there are no consumers, there is no capitalism! If all essential workers all don’t show up ONE DAY… we shutdown America! We
THIS IS WHAT NEEDS TO HAPPEN, mass organized protests across the nation!!!
Sadly there are enough people who agree with it or simply can afford to protest, so too many scabs
The person who regularly hates on people who serve using them to attack the people they joined to protect? I can’t image why morale would be low.
They’re welcome to come defend the American people from the criminal gangs known as the police and ICE.
They should be troubled.
This bullshit is going to absolutely tank military recruitment numbers.
And also boost retirements of career members who manage and operate the military. Which will be okay with the MAGA Nazis, because eventually they’ll have an entire military of followers who will happily kill ANYONE for HitlerPig.
My Dad was a helicopter pilot in the Army, during the late 50s, and wanted to do that for his entire life. Then Vietnam heated up, and he was going to train pilots to go to over there, and might have ended up there himself. Nobody could explain to him why this was happening, and he didn’t want to train young men (like himself) to go off and die for a war that nobody could explain, so he quit flying, retired from the military, and got into the insurance game.
I would imagine that a lot of career military are questioning their career paths.
I would imagine that a lot of career military are questioning their career paths.
Absolutely.
good start, recognizing that you ARE pawns. Always were. Next step: being strong enough to quit and deal with the court martial.
being strong enough to
quitrefuse unlawful orders and use your own common sense and basic decency to resolve conflicts in the field and deal with the court martial.if they had decency and basic sense they would not have volunteered in the first place. The trick now is to grow what little incipient hatred they have into a consciousness and recognition that they are being abused because of their class.
edit: the initial reply was harsh - those who need help after getting sucked in are the decent ones - they are “waking up.” I may hate the military and the dicks who keep supporting it, but do want compassion for the ones who realized they were tricked into joining as children and need to get the heck out.
Goddamn, you really hate the military, huh?
I think it is, in the modern era, completely used to bolster corporate profits, destroy lives, spread violent hegemony and exploit the working class all over. So. Yeah.
Our US nation is not the “world police” and the members who wish to leave need help and support in getting out. While they acknowledge they were actually and really brainwashed through professional propagandist workflows.
The ones that rock Punisher logos and “Terrorist hunting permits” and “Don’t tread on me” flags on their F250s need to be ignored at all points in the day. They are already too far gone.
