I have no fear of the U.S. Military, Active Duty or Reserve or National Guard; not from any soldier

[bigtree]

...I have fear for myself and other Americans of the mission and activity of the irregular, armed and armored new recruits who make up the militarized forces of ICE.

The 'Kavanaugh stops' which advantage the republican Supreme Court justice's writing for the maga majority that ICE agent's practice of stopping, detaining, and jailing people in the country who have darker skin than white; work at certain jobs; or don't speak a certain way is just a minor inconvenience; have allowed Trump to yank this nation back to the Jim Crow era where government not only established myriad ways to deny black residents rights and opportunities regularly afforded to their white counterparts, but allowed the rest of society to do so, as well, with impunity and even encouragement.

Up until now, even as the jackass that runs the Pentagon who thinks he's some god of war is drawing up battle plans against the diversity of his forces that he believes threatens the purity of his "male standard," the U.S. military foces, like our government workforce, has benefited from a slightly higher percentage of women, people of color, and alternatively able individuals than in most businesses.

In uniform and under command they don't threaten Americans, they defend and protect us as if we are their own. It's their creed, it's why they joined the service - to defend and protect the nation and it's inhabitants.

The U.S. Army's official motto, "This We'll Defend," has been in use since 1778 and embodies the core values of loyalty, duty, respect, selfless service, honor, integrity, and personal courage. This motto signifies the Army's commitment to safeguarding the nation and its citizens, reinforcing the idea that soldiers are dedicated to protecting the Constitution and the values that define the United States.

The recruitment effort behind Trump's campaign of mass deportations to fill out the unaccountable police agency with faux soldiers aimed to recruit law enforcement officers inclined to object to their cities' restrictions on immigration enforcement, thereby aligning with ICE's broader deportation efforts.

The ads featured a narrator stating, "You took an oath to protect and serve, to keep your family, your city, safe. But in sanctuary cities, you’re ordered to stand down while dangerous illegals walk free."

The ads open with a video of each metro’s familiar skyline and the narrator’s voice announcing, for example, “Attention, Miami law enforcement.”

Beyond that, the spots are identical, inviting officers to “join ICE and help us catch the worst of the worst. Drug traffickers. Gang members. Predators," according to a review of the ads on the ad-tracking service AdImpact.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/ice-recruitment-raids-trump-ads-b2840178.html

“They are the ones that are making it a war zone,” Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker said Sunday on CNN. “They fire tear gas and smoke grenades, and they make it look like it’s a war zone.”

Echoing that view, U.S. District Judge April Perry, in halting the advance of military troops into Illinois this week, said that tactics used by immigration agents in Chicago so far have only increased the risk of protests, and that bringing in the National Guard would only make matters worse.

Judge Perry, too, asked if under 10 U.S.C. 12406 it mattered that the government was unable to execute federal law because of its own provocative conduct. Alexander Hamilton said it didn’t, implying that the government could deliberately foment unrest and cite that unrest in deploying troops.

Indeed, that is what our military does when deployed against enemies abroad. It immediately sets about protecting its own forces from attack; an absurd proposition that armed and armored troops in flak jackets and helmets needing more protection from residents hollering objections and defenses of their neighbors, coworkers, and fellow country folk under increasingly terrorizing assault from these forces directed against mostly workers and their families as if arrayed and armed against the fictional "worst of the worst" Trump has demonized as drug traffickers gang members, and predators."

It's a war game for anti-American malcontents who enjoy assaulting non-white people, enabled by this racist, criminal president and unleashed on American communities like disciples of the KKK Grand Wizard.

As U.S. Rep. Janelle Bynum said today, as she called on ICE to stop abducting her Oregon constituents, “These ICE raids are reminiscent of the Fugitive Slave Act, when the U.S. Marshals would hunt down and kidnap Black Americans. That was a dark and shameful time in our nation’s history—we must not allow that to repeat.

[Eko]

1. Tin soldiers and Nixon is calling

We're finally on our own
This fall I hear the drumming.

[bigtree]

3. that's a valid concern

..our military forces are trained to kill the enemy upon command.

But, long mindful of the challenges faced by deploying armed young troops against protesters further inflamed by their very presence, there has been an established training regime that doesn't just anticipate a riot, and stresses armed conflict as a very last resort.

That's not to say that the potential isn't there for tragedy, with an expanded force that may not be from the state. But the National Guard is mostly made up of part-time troops who work alongside of many of us in our civilian professions when they're not on duty.

They're often paired with local police forces as logistical support, rather than muscle, and both agencies have come quite a long way singe the 70's.

What concerns me about their potential deployment is their support of a destabilizing and dehumanizing mission which they're not trained, equipped, or institutionally intended to perform. None of our troops are designed, trained, or equipped to effect mass deportations of workers and families in their own country who pose no threat to our citizens or our national security.

It's a ludicrous, primarily political endeavor that not only compromises their service, but puts them at odds with the very country and people they are sworn to defend. The vast majority of them have to be as concerned about that prospect as we are, as they, representative of America, also have people and family who are in the way of missions or actions that are unjust or threatening.

In many ways, it would be helpful for them to provide the logistics, but they are at high risk of being enlisted into a dirty and dangerous task that roils everything our Constitution expects as it provides for their establishment and existence.

A deadly game of chicken forced upon all of us.

[Eko]

5. Our rank and file military killed what? 3 boats now, 4? Of people they did not know of their status.

Illegally.
Known to be illegal. Against the Geneva convention and Illegal under US Law.
You were saying?
I apologize but I dont think you dont understand the paradigm we are actually under.

[bigtree]

8. the pattern isn't really as clear as drawing a straight line between what military forces do abroad

...with the way they regard their service in their own country.

That's the paradigm that I think is relevant here.

It's a perfectly valid fear to believe there's a risk of one or more soldiers shooting or seriously injuring someone. There are also proven risks of militarized police forces killing someone in situations where they aren't prepared for or in situations where their very presence foments aggressive and violent resistance that they may not be trained or equipped to handle.

That concern isn't the same as fearing our nation's troops. My fear is a mission that pits these Americans against other Americans as they are armed and armored against citizens exercising their constitutional rights to free movement and dissent.

And while there have certainly been instances of tragedy, the vast majority of the Guard and other military service within this country has been to aid and assist Americans in natural disasters/ The instances where they've responded to political unrest in say, the past 40 years hasn't been as much about armed confrontation as logistical aid and mostly benign crowd control in cooperation with local forces.

And this isn't a justification for bad acts, it's an acknowlegment of the risks associated with armed troops, anywhere, recognizing that it's not these soldiers who are casting Americans as the 'enemy within,' it's their deranged commander in chief. That's what threatens us, not mostly young soldiers our families have seen off to service, and sometimes conflict abroad.

There are certainly grave consequences to a lethal force deployed against any human, and the mission in the waters outside of Venezuela is a immoral, shameful, and illegal one in which the morality and integrity of those forces has been shattered and has damaged our entire military posture and reputation around the world.

The military is a blunt instrument which relies on a command which respects the values that each individual soldier is expected to carry into service. It's obviously the command that's to be regarded with reservation and,with this regime, fear.

I do not fear the troops, no more than I fear my fellow American, no more than I fear my family members who have served.

[SSJVegeta]

2. I wonder if Jan. 6 was a microcosm of the second Ttump term

People are already comparing ICE to J6 rioters. They did whatever they wanted for hours brutalizing people and trying to essentially overthrow our constitution until the national guard and actual police came through to finally put an end to it.

Think of this as a longer -even more agonizing version of that. Question is: are we closer to Trump rallying blocks from the Capitol, stage? Beating cops with flagpoles? Or imminent dispersal upon hearing the Guard is being called?

[bigtree]

4. it meshes with the militias that claimed to be a defense against a corrupt or coercive government

...which predictably devolved into an armed resistance to government they simply disagree with politically.

ICE is a lure for malcontent racists who used law enforcement to brutalize people they didn't like. That's the klan you join if you sign up with them.

[Hekate]

6. Thanks, Bigtree

Kinda sick at the moment, so I’m better off not trying to formulate complex thoughts. You take care.

[littlemissmartypants]

7. Sometimes the tipping point...

Arrives when and where we least expect it.

Thanks for sharing this, bigtree.