• White House approves use of lethal force for troops at border, may be illegal
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https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2018/11/21/white-house-approves-use-of-force-some-law-enforcement-roles-for-border-troops/ The White House late Tuesday signed a memo allowing troops stationed at the border to engage in some law enforcement roles and use lethal force, if necessary — a move that legal experts have cautioned may run afoul of the Posse Comitatus Act. The new “Cabinet order” was signed by White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, not President Donald Trump. It allows “Department of Defense military personnel” to “perform those military protective activities that the Secretary of Defense determines are reasonably necessary” to protect border agents, including “a show or use of force (including lethal force, where necessary), crowd control, temporary detention. and cursory search.” Some of those activities, including crowd control and detention, may run into potential conflict with the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act. If crossed, the erosion of the act’s limitations could represent a fundamental shift in the way the U.S. military is used, legal experts said. Military forces always have the inherent right to self defense, but defense of the border agents on U.S. soil is new. In addition, troops have been given additional authorities in previous years to assist border agents with drug interdictions, but the widespread authorization of use of force for thousands of active-duty troops is unique to this deployment. Defense officials said the language in the directive was carefully crafted to avoid running up against the bedrock legal limitations set in Posse Comitatus. The law was originally intended to protect the states from being controlled by federal troops. It has evolved into a singly defining, almost church versus state-type wall forbidding active-duty forces under the control of the president from conducting any types of crowd control or law enforcement domestically, essentially ensuring that the U.S. military is not used to control or defeat American citizens on U.S. soil. But the White House still may find itself in a legal challenge if the authorities in the memo are determined to be counter to the law, Banks said. “Even [an executive order] couldn’t overcome Posse Comitatus,” Banks said.
As if police shootings of innocents wasn't tearing the country up socially already. What the fuck is going to be unleashed if we get military shootings of border shootings?! Having studied at Kent State, home of the 1970 May 4 incident, I get serious bad vibes here...
Yes, because military opening fire on civilians across the border is a fucking brilliant idea.
Now that's just some tyrannical Russian-type style bullshit right there
Isreal-Palestine border shootings 2: American Boogaloo
Don't you get it? It's pure genius! It's making use of the $700 billion military so they can cut of the cancer that is the wallet breaking $40 billion used for immigration! No need to use that money if they can kill off immigrants before they get here! /S ............if you will excuse me, having typed and read that I now need to puke and hate myself for even joking about something horrible like that.
This sounds like something out of a story about a depressing society... oh wait...
Holy shit this is going to be catastrophic in one way or another for someone. Hopefully it's just trump who suffers as a result of this.
This quote is feeling relevant again “But the one great shocking occasion, when tens or hundreds or thousands will join with you, never comes. That’s the difficulty. If the last and worst act of the whole regime had come immediately after the first and smallest, thousands, yes, millions would have been sufficiently shocked—if, let us say, the gassing of the Jews in ’43 had come immediately after the ‘German Firm’ stickers on the windows of non-Jewish shops in ’33. But of course this isn’t the way it happens. In between come all the hundreds of little steps, some of them imperceptible, each of them preparing you not to be shocked by the next. Step C is not so much worse than Step B, and, if you did not make a stand at Step B, why should you at Step C? And so on to Step D. And one day, too late, your principles, if you were ever sensible of them, all rush in upon you. The burden of self-deception has grown too heavy, and some minor incident, in my case my little boy, hardly more than a baby, saying ‘Jewish swine,’ collapses it all at once, and you see that everything, everything, has changed and changed completely under your nose. The world you live in—your nation, your people—is not the world you were born in at all. The forms are all there, all untouched, all reassuring, the houses, the shops, the jobs, the mealtimes, the visits, the concerts, the cinema, the holidays. But the spirit, which you never noticed because you made the lifelong mistake of identifying it with the forms, is changed. Now you live in a world of hate and fear, and the people who hate and fear do not even know it themselves; when everyone is transformed, no one is transformed. Now you live in a system which rules without responsibility even to God. The system itself could not have intended this in the beginning, but in order to sustain itself it was compelled to go all the way.” They Thought They Were Free: The Germans 1933-45
essentially ensuring that the U.S. military is not used to control or defeat American citizens on U.S. soil. Now why would a criminal head of state possibly be concerned with eroding this particular law...
Lmao using fully armored troops to deal with a bunch of starving brownie, come on, get the fuck out of your own ass
I don't disagree with your criticism but is this meant to be read in any other way than super racist
Nothing makes you proud to be american like hosing migrant caravans with machines guns.
I don't really care about their race. They could be Muslim, German, or icelandic, its all the same exact shit, they'd still have their own issues. The 'anti-anything south of the border' is so strong with this admin, that maybe I shouldn't use nicknames like they do.
There is a department for this. Not the fucking military. Troops are not border guards. Troops are not a private police force.
If this isn't illegal, it should be. the US army should never operate on US soil unless we are actually being invaded. In this situation, it should be the border patrol, at worse, the national guard.
I feel like we are witnessing the precursor buildup to an event that will be remembered with a catchy name like “Thanksgiving Massacre”
It seems like they've just forgotten that Homeland security was ever a thing
We'll have Thanksgiving, Black Frinday, and then Red Saturday!
worth noting mattis is in charge of these operations. some additional info On Tuesday, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen visited a San Diego Pacific Coast beach to see up close newly installed razor wire wrapped around a towering border wall that cuts across the sand. She said there were as many as 500 criminals and gang member in the groups heading northward, though she refused to answer questions about how they were identified or what crimes they had committed. Mattis emphasized that he would use his expanded authorities only in response to a specific, detailed request from Nielsen, and that none has yet been made. “I now have the authority to do more. Now we’ll see what she asks me for,” he said. Mattis was adamant that the military will remain within its legal limits. “We are not doing law enforcement,” he told reporters at the Pentagon. “We do not have arrest authority.” He noted that National Guard troops under state control are also involved at the border, and he said the governors of those states could give them arrest authority. He said there are about 2,100 National Guard troops involved.
Having permission to fire upon civilians from the president doesn't mean the troops there will fire upon them. Hopefully everyone stationed at the border keeps a cool head and sees the bullshit for what it is.
John Kelly is not longer in the military Chain of Command. As far as I'm aware no service member has any obligation to follow this order as it is not issued through the proper channels.
I can only wonder what Mexican officials are thinking about the prospect of their citizens potentially being gunned down as they flee their country en masse.
Trump probably looks at the Berlin wall and wants the same thing. The Berlin wall worked not because it physically prevented people from crossing, but because there were fucking machine gun nests along it that would gun your ass down if you tried to cross
Themigrants that are heading to the border arent mexican, they're El Salvadorans, Guatamelans, and nicaraguans. Mexican emigration out of their country has been going down for years. More than that, Mattis claims the soldiers on the border aren't even armed and won't participate in any combat or violent actions. Perhaps Kelly released this to placate trump after another ofhis detached late night rants?
it's 6,000 people. around 40 million people live in central america. that doesn't include mexico. the caravan includes some especially marginalized and at-risk people that have legitimate grounds for asylum as plenty of interviews and journalism have now shown. sorry but "en masse" is way too much of a coded turn of phrase in this context to let it slide.
That this order doesn't really change anything and might just be red meat for Trump's base really just makes it worse and says a lot about the people who still support him.
The shear fact that this was even considered should be instantly thrown in court because you cannot deploy non-Coast Guard troops on US soil without an act of Congress, and if they deployed military units on the other side of the border without permission it's an act of war against the other country. So either our president just declared war on all of Central America and Mexico, or he's to be immediately imprisoned for 2 years. There's no two ways around this, if this isn't undone as soon as possible and the people responsible aren't immediately imprisoned, then that means the rule of law no longer has any meaning and nothing in the United States Code has any legal standing, nor does the Constitution, nor the Supreme Court as it has not struck down Posse Comitatus; as they are being openly disregarded by this move and is an attempt by the Executive Branch to assume control of the country militarily.
This shit fucking sucks and I think the poser assholes who stand behind this illness are unpersuaded from any other perspective out of fear.
No, I certainly did not intend what I think you are implying with that choice of words. You will find it used in various writings on the topic with ostensibly no ill intent because the caravan, a single large group of people, fits the literal definition of "en masse." That's all. There is no ulterior motive for my use of that term.
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