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You're not cynical; it's his plain, revealed character. He's been openly fantasizing about soldiers shooting protestors for years. He's asked his own defense secretary if he could do it for him, https://www.npr.org/2022/05/09/1097517470/trump-esper-book-d... ( "Former Pentagon chief Esper says Trump asked about shooting protesters" )
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And how will they protect? When a protester throws a rock at a federal building’s window. Or when they run towards the fed building with a can of spray paint. Will the Marines merely deploy harsh language?
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Seems to me that sending the USMC to protect a burning Waymo is a bit of an overreaction.
Whether or not someone supports the current topic of the mostly peaceful and somewhat rebellious and violent protests, this much is clear. You either support somewhat violent protests, regardless of topic, expecting that law enforcement and civilians will handle it amongst themselves, or you are authoritarian and demand that the federal government intervene with the US Armed Forces the moment someone throws a rock at…
I worry that, rather than de-escalation, one of the White House’s explicit goals here is to stage manage a Kent State-like demonstration of state force against left-wing activists that spreads to other cities. I sincerely hope I’m cynically wrong here.
Kind of like shooting reporters with rubber bullets.
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I'm not american but I remember marines being mobilized for hurricane Katrina in New Orleans too. Funny that if it's so bad to deploy them, why is it OK to deploy them in other countries?
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And how will they protect? When a protester throws a rock at a federal building’s window. Or when they run towards the fed building with a can of spray paint. Will the Marines merely deploy harsh language?
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Doesn't LA have a police department?
What did the LA governor had to say about it?
This is terrifying and unconscionable. Hard to believe this is the USA today. I don’t really see this de-escalating given the ongoing rhetoric but I hope I’m wrong.
I lived through the BLM protests in a liberal city. They let them destroy everything, then they called in the National Guard to stop looting that already happened. Everyone’s okay with peaceful protests, but they should call in the national guard and prosecute people for violence. You might hate Trump, but in my previous experience, it’s the residents of the most liberal districts that suffer all the consequences of…
Now, did they really destroy “everything”?
Soldiers, especially Marines, are trained to follow orders and kill. They are not specialists in de-escalation or crowd control. Here's hoping this is purely an optics play and they are only there to waste money and incite nationalism. Because if this escalates in any way and the US military turns on Americans, its hard to understate how bad things could get.
I’m not sure that’s true any more. I know a few vets and it was definitely thought-provoking to hear a Marine who’d been in the thick of Fallujah react to some police shooting by noting that they had stricter rules about use of force because the top brass wanted to get the Iraqi people on their side.
If it was ever true, it hasn't been true for a long time.
There used to be (and probably still is) a saying in the US military that goes something like "Folks who can't hack it in the military wash out and become cops.".
The military is not at all configured to be an effective long-term occupying force, but its personnel are trained to be soldiers [0] and peacekeepers. (While I'm absolutely certain that one can find examples of psychos that should have been detected and discharged earlier, that's true of any sufficiently-large organization. Finding every malicious person is a task that's next to impossible.)
Anyway, in a high-pressure, chaotic situation, I'd rather come up on a random member of the US military [1] than a random cop any day of the week.
[0] Yes, this does mean that they damage, destroy, injure, and kill when required.
[1] Whether active duty, reservist, or honorably discharged.