this post was submitted on 15 Jan 2025
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According to nearly a dozen retired officers and current military lawyers, as well as scholars who teach at West Point and Annapolis, an intense if quiet debate is underway inside the U.S. military community about what orders it would be obliged to obey if President-elect Donald Trump decides to follow through on his previous warnings that he might deploy troops against what he deems domestic threats, including political enemies, dissenters and immigrants.

Archived at https://archive.is/He9O6

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[–] [email protected] 210 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (28 children)

"There's a reason you separate military and the police. One fights the enemies of the state. The other serves and protects the people. When the military becomes both, then the enemies of the state tend to become the people."

-Commander Adama

[–] Boddhisatva 62 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

The reason is that one is trained to (supposedly) keep the peace and prevent and investigate crimes. The other is trained to kill people. Military methods are incompatible with effective police work.

[–] PalmTreeIsBestTree 38 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Ironically the American military is better at it than the police are. They usually only kill someone if they were being fired at first. It’s called rules of engagement. American police have zero concept of it.

[–] ForgotAboutDre 6 points 1 week ago

Largely because they’ve spent two decades trying to police Afghanistan.

[–] Gammelfisch 6 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Not exactly, read more US history, especially in situation when the military was called in to remove demonstrators. Look up the Bonus Army and no fucks were given even though the protestors were WW I veterans. Douglas MacArthur and George Patton were involved too. Disgusting piece of history.

[–] PalmTreeIsBestTree 6 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (4 children)

You know that happened over 100 years ago right? Things have changed since then. If you wanted to make a good case, then you should have brought up Kent State because that one is very valid for criticism.

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[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 week ago

Wait.....which is which?

[–] [email protected] 31 points 1 week ago

Trump literally calls anyone who disagrees with him an "enemy of the state", so yeah, we're way past that.

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[–] FiremanEdsRevenge 173 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

The constitution is your oath, not the president. Acknowledge that this administration is a domestic threat and deal with it.

[–] ChonkyOwlbear 64 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

The Praetorian Guard killed something like 13 emperors. Food for thought.

[–] rottingleaf 19 points 1 week ago

Also installed its own. All power goes both ways.

In any case, even in US history military has been used against US citizens too. Not many things can really be new.

[–] Kyrgizion 19 points 1 week ago (1 children)

In their defense, they killed more terrible emperors than good ones.

Pertinax though... I'll never forgive them for that. Who knows how the entire world would look now if he'd been emperor for a decade or more...

[–] Siegfried 6 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Please enlighten us, how was or in which sense was pertinente so terrible?

[–] PugJesus 6 points 1 week ago

Other way around, I believe. Pertinax is commonly pointed to as one of the best potential Emperors, and I think Kyrgizion is saying that Pertinax is one of the few good ones that they killed, not one of the many terrible ones.

STTL, Emperor Pertinax!

[–] newthrowaway20 59 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

Didn't you hear? Apparently if we vote for it, a domestic threat is allowed to just walk on in and do his thing.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 2 weeks ago

eyup. surprisingly voting for hitler gets you hitler. I was surprised pikachu as anybody about it.

[–] SoftTeeth 102 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Every person in the US military has a right to defy orders they see as inhumane or unethical

[–] [email protected] 107 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

It is not a right. It is a duty to disobey.

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[–] givesomefucks 59 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (4 children)

“There was real sensitivity about keeping federal troops away from the front lines,” said Ollivant, who was ordered in by President George H.W. Bush as rioters in central-south LA set fire to buildings, assaulted police and bystanders, pelted cars with rocks and smashed store windows in the aftermath of the videotaped police beating of Rodney King, a Black motorist. “They tried to keep us in support roles, backing up the police.”

Important to note the real reason they kept military and cops "from the front lines" is they kettled Black protestors into Koreatown and then just let the two groups of minorities to fight it out while cops, ambulances, and firefighters were forming a barrier to protect the white neighborhoods.

I stopped reading the article as soon as the author showed they didn't understand that. It's been over 30 years, if the author didn't know by now it's because they didn't bother to research what they're writing about.

[–] gAlienLifeform 18 points 2 weeks ago

I think the senior military types will only talk about this stuff to journalists who have swallowed at least a little bit of American propaganda, but yeah thank you for getting the correct version of history out there

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[–] [email protected] 55 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

I wonder how many people using social media today have gone back and actually watched the beating of Rodney King.

It is really horrifying. And VHS video recorders are the only reason the police were caught.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 week ago

There are countess stories like this one that never ended in riot's. One that comes to mind is Kelly Thomas a mentally I'll man, schizophrenic if I remember correctly. I remember Thomas cried out for his mother as they beat him to death.

These atrocities sadly are commonplace here.

[–] [email protected] 47 points 1 week ago (1 children)

This is an important step in establishing a police state, which will be crucial for when trump doesn't want to end his term peacefully.

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[–] WrenFeathers 34 points 1 week ago (2 children)

As I understand, they’re under no obligation whatsoever to obey jack shit from comrade trump if said jack shit involved orders to turn weapons on Americans on American soil.

And such a request should come with it an immediate impeachment hearing and a tribunal to determine how many years in prison he should get.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Dude's already been impeached twice. What the hell does that shit even do? I remember it being a huge deal with Clinton and that didn't seem to change things either.

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[–] Gammelfisch 31 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Hopefully the US military will honor and protect the US Constitution. If key officers drank the shitty Orang Kool-Aid, then the USA will have become FUBAR (Fucked-up Beyond All Repair).

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 week ago (2 children)

There are definitely hawks in the upper echelons of military power, but I've never met one who didn't hold the ideals of the United States as sacred.

I believe they will stand against tyranny. At first.

Then they will be replaced, made examples of, forced into retirement, and violently removed. If history is any indication.

I'm no military or historical expert, but I do believe if we're counting on our military to save the country it is already lost.

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[–] [email protected] 30 points 1 week ago (5 children)

Wasn’t that literally the last thing Julius Caesar did immediately before declaring himself emperor for life?

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

The country is fucked, isn't it? We're cooked?

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 weeks ago

Deep fried, even

[–] Kyrgizion 8 points 1 week ago

End of the line yes. This is no longer something that is recoverable within a single generation. There's some hope that our grandchildren or thereabouts can put things right, but I'm halfway through (40's) and I fully expect every year after this to get objectively worse until I die.

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[–] TokenBoomer 11 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

When military coup? Asking for a friend.

[–] dhork 22 points 2 weeks ago

I seriously wonder whether this is the real reason they are putting so much effort into keeping the Classified Documents case report totally secret, without even disclosing it to Congress.

As absurd as the thought that the US military would rise up and depose a duly elected President is, ask yourself under what circumstances might it happen? Perhaps it would happen if it came out that there was incontrovertible proof that duly elected President sold that military's secrets to foreign parties (or, worse yet, freely gave them away in exchange for compliments, and plauditudes.) And that two (possibly all three) branches of government refuse to do anything about it.

It's not the most absurd conspiracy theory I've heard.

[–] tootoughtoremember 8 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Not until after they purge the "woke" and "DEI" generals first and install their loyalists. Then the executive and military can operate as one.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 week ago (3 children)

On the plus side, it would be the first time in several decades the military is deployed in a terrorist rogue state

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[–] Maggoty 7 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

I hope Trump is dumb enough to spend years hollowing the military out instead of doing the easy things. All he has to do in red states is convince the governors to use their National Guard. If they're under state orders there's no legal conflict. And in blue states he could start giving badges to the Proud Boys or whoever, (literally anyone willing to do his bidding) and set them loose as federal agents.

What the old officer corps is really afraid of here is the destruction of military norms and institutions.

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