Many American servicemen feel duty-bound to oppose combat Marines being deployed in American cities. I’m one of them.
First of all, this president is in clear violation of the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, a federal U.S. law that restricts the use of the military for law enforcement within the country. It prohibits the use of federal troops to execute civilian laws unless explicitly authorized by the Constitution or an Act of Congress.
I served in the Naval Security Group, 20 years, under six presidents, all former Army or Naval Officers (Dwight Eisenhower to Jimmy Carter). None were perfect men nor did any claim to be. Neither did any one of them entertain a fleeting thought of igniting an armed mob to attack our Capitol, killing or maiming its defenders (his own vice president if necessary), to overturn an election he knew he’d lost.
Like many servicemen of my era I am deeply distraught that an amoral criminal, corrupt conman and grifter, a president proven to care nothing for the rules of law or justice, has so easily dismantled a constitutional democracy and replaced it with the despot-ruled equivalent of a banana republic surrounded by masked thugs and parasitic bootlickers. Knowing he couldn’t have accomplished this feat without the complicity of the Supreme Court and huge numbers of our fellow citizens thinking this is all okay (or even good), does nothing to assuage my anguish.
The question has already been asked by a University of Texas professor, “How can the Commandant of the Marine Corps act upon an illegal order by the POTUS and have United States Marines violate U.S. federal laws?” Is it possibly because our radically unethical Supreme Court, having ruled that this convicted Felon-in-Chief cannot be held criminally responsible for anything he does as president, will simply get away with ordering them to do so?
Some former Marines are hopeful that active duty Marine generals will tell the troops to “stand down.” However, Marine Lieutenant General Walter Gaskin (Ret.), when asked what Marines would do if ordered to fight American citizens on the streets of America, responded: “Same thing we always do, what we’re trained to do, they have to follow orders.”
I think we can assume many Marines are as angry and are struggling every bit as hard as most of the rest of us right now.
I envision that by the time America prepares to celebrate its 250th birthday (about a year from now), absent a Herculean miracle, Donald Trump will have rendered what’s left of our Constitution and representative form of government substantially irrelevant and in its place his very own little fiefdom, a well-established oligarchy with groveling lackeys in Congress to cheer him on, leaving the rest of our representatives milling around bleating like the helpless sheep they are.
One universal question remains. How much more damage will Trump be allowed to inflict on the world order before some brave soul stands up and says: Enough?
David L. Snell, Franklin