Trump’s plan for a ‘rapid reaction force’ of the National Guard is dangerous

Donald Trump Has always wanted his own, private muscle – a group of armed men (and you should think he would like them to be men) that he can use to silence his critics, intimidating his enemies and generally use the threat of violence to make his bid. All the strong men he admires HAVE SPIEN – Vladimir Putin has the FSB, Recep Erdogan de Sadat and Viktor Orban the Tek.

That is why Trump often placed threats on social media about the “Police officers, cyclists and soldiers” Ready to conduct violence on his behalf. That is why he could not denounce himself to denounce the proud boys during the 2020 debates, and that is why, despite supplications of allies and his own children, he is to deny the uprising of January 6, the Capitol Riot unfolded on TV for TV more than three hours Before you reluctantly called his villains – but not before he told them he loved them.

It is against this history that Trump has signed An executive order Last week entitled “Additional measures to tackle the emergency situation in the District of Columbia” (the all caps are of course from him). Although the order mainly relates to the acquisition of Trump of law enforcement in Washington, there is also an ominous language that is put into ordering Minister of Defense Pete Hegseeth To ensure the availability of a status National guard Fast reaction force that must be collected, trained and available for fast national deployment. ”

This power would “be available to help federal, provincial and local law enforcement in suppressing civilian disruptions and guaranteeing public safety and order.”

This seems to be performing a blueprint in the Pentagon The Washington Post reported about last month. It calls for a force of 600 soldiers who are ready for bets everywhere in the country by order of Trump. That plan indicated that the power would be used to suppress protest Or civil unrest. That it is tucked away in an executive order that claims that the common crime is being tackled, suggests that Trump is expanding the idea.

The plan drops so many alarms that it is difficult to know where to start.

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First, the National Guard is none Police Power. It is one military Organization that usually serves under the authority of the governors. Guard troops are not trained to put protests, police streets or to arrest people for open containers violations. It is also not what they have registered for.

Secondly, we have a long and important history in the United States to keep the army out of household police. Police officers and soldiers have two fundamentally different missions. Police officers are asked to maintain peace and at the same time protect our rights. Soldiers are asked to kill the soldiers of enemy countries. That the army would often be used for the domestic police was one of the founders’ Biggest fears. It is a large part of why we have the second, third and fourth amendments.

Trump seems to think that because soldiers and agents wear both weapons and use strength, they have the same jobs, the same skills and the same training – that the army is simply police work, but more difficult. It is a dangerous ignorant misconception. During his first term, he wanted to send the army to cities to violently suppress the George Floyd protests – including Protesters If necessary. He was thwarted by his own Minister of Defense, Mike Esper, and his joint Chiefs chairman Mark Milley. Trump has since said that both men are guilty of crimes because they criticize him, inclusive.

This week, A federal court ruled That Trump’s federalization and deployment of the California National Guard in Los Angeles about the objections of Governor Newsom was a violation of the Posse Commitatus Act, which forbidden the President to use the army for the Interior Police, unless he calls up the uprising acting for the first time.

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The White House seems to have come up with a solution: According to the governor of Illinois JB PritzkerHas asked Trump Texas Governor Greg Abbott to send the Texas National Guard ChicagoWithout Pritzker’s permission. This means that Texas ordered his national guard to invade and occupy the streets of Chicago on the command of Trump.

But the language that creates “fast implementation” is especially alarming. It seems to imitate the police units of crime pressure that mayors and police chiefs often create to show that they are heavy for crime. These teams usually receive free rule over cities with little supervision and the strength to circumvent rules and procedures.

It is not surprising that telling police units that they are ‘elite’ and are not subject to the usual rules A long and constant trace of violence, corruption and abuse. Tyre Nichols was beaten to death by the Scorpion Crime Suppression Unit in Memphis. In the nineties, an elite unit in Los Angeles in the nickname resulted in the “Death Squad” in $ 125 million In abuse settlements. The unarmed immigrant Amadou Diallo was killed Due to a NYPD – suppressing unit called the Street Crimes Unit – as they were Eric Garner” Sean BellAnd Kimani Gray. Elite police teams in Chicago (in the 20s), and Baltimore (in the years 2010) were responsible for two of the largest police abuse and corruption scandals in American history. There have also been crime suppression scandals in Indianapolis” Atlanta” PhiladelphiaAnd Newark.

These are just the structural problems – or the reasons why such an order would be dangerous each administration. But we also have to worry about how a national fast implementation unit would work among this.

The Supreme Court has ruled that federal law enforcement officers – and that would probably have been allocated military staff to domestic police work – have almost absolute immunity due to civil liability for constitutional violations. The only real way in which these fast deployment teams could be held responsible for abuse would be criminal prosecution, and they should come from the Ministry of Justice of Trump. That just won’t happen.

It is also remarkable that Trump has entrusted Hegseeth for staff, training and supervision of these units. Hegseeth is a man whose favorite word appears To be ‘deadliness’, and who went to the mat Defense war criminals – Including those accused by their colleague soldiers. In his book, Hesget evoked that the US Army would be hired A holy warand he kept a prayer service At the Pentagon in which a pastor stated that Trump was “sovereigned by God”.

There is actually a reason to hope that troops from the National Guard are more inclined than others to refuse illegal orders. The guard consists of part -time soldiers who in most cases are deployed in the states where they live and work. These are not immigration and customs enforcement (ICE) or border patrols that are immersed in the toxic police culture. They are teachers, bartenders and lawyers. When the White House released violent protesters from Lafayette Park to allow Trump’s surrealistic, Bible coupling photo in 2020, they were national guard troops and supervisors Who disputed The lies of the White House about how it all went.

But this is again the reason why it is important that HegseTh will supervise the staff of these units. This is a Minister of Defense who said during his confirmation hearing that he is doing his pushups In sets of 47 – as a tribute to the 47th president. It seems safe to say that under Hegseeth the units will be manned by soldiers who are loyal to Trump above all.

The rapid implementation plan will probably encounter pushback from the courts. The LA implementations Were the first time in American history that a president of Federal and Investigated Guards in a State focused on the objections of the governor of that State. This plan would essentially make that infringement of standards an ongoing federal policy.

But if the courts intervene, don’t expect Trump to give up the idea. The most likely scenario is a similar project, but instead staffed with ice, border patrol, FBI or DHS officers. He should only change the mission of the masked, lawless goons that we see that mothers and grandfathers in viral videos from immigration enforcement to general law enforcement are being brought down.

The congress also gave Trump a huge budget increase to hire these agencies, and the agencies themselves have already been purified from non -believers. The Atlantic Ocean Recently reported that ICE has shortened its five -month training period, ICE has shortened its training period up to only 47 days – the 47 again in honor of the current president. (An ICE spokesperson says that the length of the new training program is a coincidence.)

A rapid bet power that is staffed with federal law enforcement officials would still be illegal if it is used for reasons other than to maintain federal law, such as suppressing protests or excellent strength in blue cities. But the rule of law means little if no one disturbs to force it.

Over the years, one of the healthier aspects of our Nu-Hobbare Democracy is that the institution has been the most determined about the preservation of the border between the military and domestic police the army itself. When the Regan and Bush administrations in the 1980s and 1990s wanted the Regan- and Bush troops to performed streetfalls and drug attacks in the 1980s and 1990s, the Pentagon itself was opposed to the idea. “We do not allow the army, the navy and the Marines and the Air Force to be a police,” said Marine Major General Stephen Olmstead in 1989. “The history is full of countries that have made that. Ramp is the result.”

Retired major -general Randy way – the former second in the command of the National Guard and deputy commander of army troops in the middle -east – recently repeated Olmstead’s fears To a reporter of MSNBC.

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“Should the US Army concept not alert every person in the United States in the streets of our cities?” he asked. “Military, they are trained to kill people – and they are not trained in law enforcement – on our streets. This should deter the nonsense of every person in the country.”

Trump and Hegseeth have done their best to clear people like Olmstead and the way of the Pentagon. Let’s hope they missed a few.