Pentagon Scrambles To Draw Up Rules For Marines To Use Force Against Americans
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After protests broke out in Los Angeles in response to ICE’s large-scale raids, people disappearing on the streets of the United States, and individuals being sent to El Salvador’s notorious prison without due process, Donald J. Trump sent in the National Guard, and now Marines are being deployed to put out the fire the president started.
Interestingly, The Hill ran an opinion piece last year titled, “Kamala’s newest lie: Trump will send the army after you,” and here we are with Donald siccing the miilitary on protestors.
The Associated Press reports:
The Pentagon was scrambling Monday to establish rules to guide U.S. Marines who could be faced with the rare and difficult prospect of using force against citizens on American soil, now that the Trump administration is deploying active duty troops to the immigration raid protests in Los Angeles.
U.S. Northern Command said it is sending 700 Marines into the Los Angeles area to protect federal property and personnel, including federal immigration agents. The 2nd Battalion, 7th Marines are coming from Twentynine Palms, California, and will augment about 4,100 National Guard members already in LA or authorized to be deployed there to respond to the protests.
The forces have been trained in deescalation, crowd control and standing rules for the use of force, Northern Command said.
One official told the outlet that having the Marines deploy to protect federal buildings allows them to be used without invoking the Insurrection Act.
Elizabeth Goitein, a senior director of the Liberty and National Security Program at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law, told the AP that if their role expands if the violence escalates, it is not clear under what legal authority they would be able to engage.
“If in fact those Marines are laying hands on civilians, doing searches, then you have pretty powerful legal concerns,” Goitein said. “No statutory authority Trump has invoked so far permits this.”
Trump doesn’t care about laws, though.
Donald took to Truth Social this morning.
“If I didn’t “SEND IN THE TROOPS” to Los Angeles the last three nights, that once beautiful and great City would be burning to the ground right now, much like 25,000 houses burned to the ground in LA do to an incompetent Governor and Mayor – Incidentally, the much more difficult, time consuming, and stringent FEDERAL PERMITTING PROCESS is virtually complete on these houses, while the easy and simple City and State Permits are disastrously bungled up and WAY BEHIND SCHEDULE!,” he wrote. “They are a total mess, and will be for a long time. People want to rebuild their houses. Call your incompetent Governor and Mayor, the Federal permitting is DONE!!!”
That’s a lie. Donald is referring to the wildfires that caused significant destruction. The number of structures destroyed is closer to 12,000, not 25,000, and it had nothing to do with the Governor or the Mayor. But somehow, Trump is tying the wildfires to his appalling decision to silence Americans. That fabricated number is about as real as the ‘assassination attempt’ on Trump.