Category: Military

The National Guard is typically brought into American cities during emergencies such as natural disasters and civil disturbances or to provide support during public health crises — when local authorities require additional resources or manpower. There was no indication that was needed or wanted in Los Angeles this weekend, where local law enforcement had kept protests over federal immigration raids, for the most part, under control.

Guard members also almost always arrive at the request of state leaders, but in California, Gov. Gavin Newsom called the deployment of troops “purposefully inflammatory” and likely to escalate tensions. It had been more than 60 years since a president sent in the National Guard on his own volition.

Which made President Trump’s order on Saturday to do so both ahistoric and based on false pretenses and is already creating the very chaos it was purportedly designed to prevent.

Mr. Trump invoked a rarely used provision of the U.S. Code on Armed Services that allows for the federal deployment of the National Guard if “there is a rebellion or danger of a rebellion against the authority of the government of the United States.” No such rebellion is underway. As the governor’s spokesman and others have noted, Americans in cities routinely cause more property damage after their sports teams win or lose.

By Thom Hartman / AlterNet / June 10, 2025

Trump: Well, we’re going to have troops everywhere.

Reporter: What’s the bar for sending in the Marines?
Trump: The bar is what I think it is.

The 2026 and 2028 elections may have just gotten a lot more distant. First, the backstory.

It was around 2 a.m. on July 15, 2020, when Mark Pettibone, then 29, was walking home from a relatively calm Black Lives Matter protest in downtown Portland, Oregon. He hadn’t done anything more provocative than wearing a black shirt: no slogans, no mask, no glimmers of violence. Yet an unmarked minivan pulled up alongside him. Out jumped several armed men in camouflage, with no insignia, to slip a bag over his head and kidnap him.

“I was terrified,” Pettibone told reporters, his voice trembling with the memory. “It was like being preyed upon.”

He was shoved into the van, blindfolded, driven to the federal courthouse, interrogated, and held — with no Miranda rights, no paperwork, no explanation — for nearly 90 minutes before being released without charge or citation.

No uniforms, no accountability, no transparency, yet a citizen was stripped of his rights and dignity in a blurry high-stakes operation. And around the same time in Washington, DC, Donald Trump was trying to talk Gen. Mark Milley into having the National Guard shoot at protesters in that city.

This was not some fringe vigilante action. It was federal agents wielding brute force under cover of Trump’s executive order, agents whose silence spoke louder than any badge. The American Civil Liberties Union of Oregon called it an unconstitutional kidnapping. Legal scholars said probable cause was nowhere to be found.

Yet Merrick Garland, U.S. Attorney General under Joe Biden, decided it wasn’t worth investigating or prosecuting. Let’s just move on. And so here we are.

As Trump levels attacks on Los Angeles — sending in federal forces to “restore order” amid unrest provoked by ICE’s illegal tactics —

Here’s two brief reports on Bernie Sanders’ reaction to Trump deploying hundreds of National Guard troops to Los Angeles.

By Sudiksha Kochi / USA TODAY / June 8, 2025

Progressive firebrand Sen. Bernie Sanders said he believes President Donald Trump is “moving this country rapidly into authoritarianism” after Trump deployed 2,000 National Guard troops to help quell immigration protests in Los Angeles.

“This guy wants all of the power. He does not believe in the Constitution. He does not believe in the rule of law. My understanding is that the governor of California, the mayor of the city of Los Angeles did not request the National Guard, but he thinks he has a right to do anything he wants,” Sanders, a Vermont independent, told CNN’s Dana Bash on “State of the Union.”

The protests come as the Trump administration has taken stronger actions to arrest and deport undocumented immigrants. Demonstrators allege the administration’s immigration enforcement has violated civil and human rights.

After recovering more than 15 tons of wreckage from the crash of an unoccupied fighter jet that hurtled into the San Diego Bay last month, crews Sunday planned to remove the heavy equipment used in the effort, according to the U.S. Navy Third Fleet command.

This will allow civilian boaters to regain access to the Shelter Island basin two weeks after the crew of the EA-18G Growler safely ejected during an apparent mechanical emergency, officials said.

It was revealed Wednesday that due to the potential for hazards from leaking fuel from the Navy aircraft that plunged into San Diego Bay, there is a water-contact closure order or Kellogg Beach in Point Loma.

After the crew members were pulled from the water, paramedics took them to UCSD Medical Center in Hillcrest for evaluations. They were in listed good condition on Wednesday afternoon, officials said.

The cause of the accident remains under investigation, according to Navy officials.

Pentagon’s 18 spy plane missions near US-Mexico border spark surveillance concerns

MND Staff / Mexico News Daily / February 12, 2025

“We can’t rule out [espionage] because we don’t know what they did.”

With those words, Mexico’s Defense Minister Ricardo Trevilla Trejo responded to a reporter’s question about whether United States military aircraft had engaged in “espionage” missions near and south of the U.S.-Mexico border to surveil and collect intelligence on Mexican drug cartels.

“They didn’t violate national air space,” added the top military brass at President Claudia Sheinbaum’s Tuesday morning press conference.

The questioning of the defense minister came a day after CNN reported that the U.S. military “significantly increased its surveillance of Mexican drug cartels over the past two weeks, with sophisticated spy planes flying at least 18 missions over the southwestern U.S. and in international airspace around the Baja peninsula.”

A military E/A-18 G Growler fighter jet crashed into the San Diego Bay off Shelter Island late Wednesday morning, February 12,2025, according to the San Diego Fire-Rescue Department.

UPDATE:

The two-person crew of an EA-18G Growler is in stable condition after their aircraft crashed during an attempted landing at Naval Air Station North Island, Navy officials told USNI News.

“At approximately 10:15 PDT, a U.S. Navy EA-18G Growler assigned to Electronic Attack Squadron (VAQ) 135 crashed while landing,” read a statement from Naval Air Forces.
“Two aircrew ejected into San Diego Bay and were quickly recovered before being transported to a local hospital for medical assessment. Both personnel are in stable condition. Naval Base Coronado has stood up an Emergency Operations Center in response to the mishap, and assessment of the crash site is ongoing.”

The aircraft had traveled from Naval Air Station Whidbey Island and was in San Diego for an exercise. The Growler was not assigned to the air wing that is currently training with the Nimitz Carrier Strike Group.

According to radio traffic at the time of the crash, the two-seat electronic attack aircraft was approaching NAS North Island. Shortly after leaving the runway, the crew of the aircraft ejected, and the plane crashed into the water. The two aviators were initially picked up by a sport fishing charter before they were transferred to a Customs and Border patrol vessel, according to radio traffic. According to ABC 10, the aviators were taken to UC San Diego Health.

Following the recovery of the crew, emergency crews were responding to the debris and fuel from the crash, according to radio traffic.

The following is the complete statement from Naval Air Forces.

By David Helvarg

The U.S. Coast Guard is the only Armed Service not located within the Department of Defense.

That’s why the incoming Trump administration was able to have its acting head of DHS fire Coast Guard Commandant Admiral Linda Fagan on Trump’s second day in office. It was an effective shot across the bow for bringing the Pentagon brass to heel given that even a President can’t fire the heads of the other Armed Services, only have his new Secretary of Defense, former Fox News co-host Pete Hegseth reassign or court-martial them.

Expect a number of reassignments and likely court-martials of Pentagon leadership under Hegseth. He’s already promised to get rid of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Charles Q. Brown plus, “any General, Admiral, whatever, that was involved in any of the DEI woke shit has got to go.”

By Staff / Mexico News Daily / Jan. 21, 2025

Just hours after his inauguration as the 47th president of the United States, Donald Trump signed a number of executive orders directly related to Mexico. At least some of those orders have the potential to have a significant impact on the Mexico-United States relationship, especially in the early period of Trump’s second presidency.

President Claudia Sheinbaum said on Tuesday that she will maintain “a cool head” and respond “step by step” to the actions taken by Trump on the first day of his second term.

Here is a summary of five Mexico-related executive orders Trump signed in the Oval Office of the White House on Monday night.

1. Emergency at the United States’ southern border

Trump signed an executive order “Declaring a national emergency at the southern border of the United States.” “That’s a big one, a lot of big ones, huh?” Trump said after an aide announced the order he was about to sign.

By Alex Henderson / AlterNet / January 13, 2025

After winning the 2024 election, Donald Trump doubled down on his promise to declare a national emergency, invoke the Insurrection Act and use the U.S. military for mass deportations. And the president-elect has also said he would use the military to quell possible protests if they turn violent.

But many of the president-elect’s critics think that using the Insurrection Act in the ways that Trump has proposed is a very bad idea, including some veterans.

Hirsh reports, “One fear is that domestic deployment of active-duty troops could lead to bloodshed given that the regular military is mainly trained to shoot at and kill foreign enemies. The only way to prevent that is establishing clear ‘rules of engagement’ for domestic deployments that outline how much force troops can use — especially considering constitutional restraints protecting U.S. citizens and residents — against what kinds of people in what kinds of situations. And establishing those new rules would require a lot more training, in the view of many in the military community.”

Trump has said he wants to use active duty U.S. troops to quell protests and round up immigrants. Will the military comply?

By Michael Hirsh / POLITICO Reader Supported News / January 13, 2025

The last time an American president deployed the U.S. military domestically under the Insurrection Act — during the deadly Los Angeles riots in 1992 — Douglas Ollivant was there. Ollivant, then a young Army first lieutenant, says things went fairly smoothly because it was somebody else — the cops — doing the head-cracking to restore order, not his 7th Infantry Division. He and his troops didn’t have to detain or shoot at anyone.

“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.”

By the end of six days of rioting, 63 people were dead and 2,383 injured — though reportedly none at the hands of the military.