During what was supposed to be a policy announcement on Thursday, Donald Trump actually launched into a campaign speech, hyping his message of xenophobia and racism and trying once again to increase fear about a rag-tag group of families hundreds of miles from any American border. But Trump did make one real policy change during his racism ramble. Trump has ordered the American military to fire on unarmed civilians.
According to Trump, he has ordered the military that if anyone throws a rock “we will consider that a firearm.” Later, Trump gets more specific.
Trump: They want to throw rocks at our military, our military fights back. We’re going [to] consider it, and I told them to consider it a rifle. When they throw rocks like they did at the Mexico military and police, I say, consider it a rifle.
Those words are already meeting with approval half a world away, where the Nigerian Army posted Trump’s statement.
As Reuters reports, the Nigerian military opened fire on protesters earlier this week in the capital of Abuja. According to leaders of the protest group, at least 24 were killed. Amnesty International reports that the army used automatic weapons against unarmed protesters. The army waves off that report, saying they only killed three. And now they have Donald Trump’s words to support their actions.
Consider the image at the top of his article to be a preview of what Trump wants to see on the border.
A genuine organization of American veterans has a somewhat different take on Trump’s statement.
“We want to be clear: Use of lethal force against rock throwers is murder—period. Rules of Engagement call for commensurate force. This would be an unlawful order and should/would be disobeyed. The Commander in Chief is frighteningly clueless.” — VoteVets
Meanwhile, the Military Times reports that there is a subject of genuine concern for troops being deployed to the border—but it is not women and children still weeks away from completing their desperate trek to escape the same kind of violence that Trump is promising.
The deployment documents for the troops focus on drug-related activity and gangs, not the caravan that Trump pointed out as the target for his actions. And those documents point out another big problem that is only made worse by their presence.
From the papers, the military is preparing to defend against an “estimated 200 unregulated armed militia members currently operating along the [Southwest Border]. Reported Incidents of unregulated militias stealing National Guard equipment during deployments.
Extremist militia groups, pretending to be “citizen patrols” have been making friends with National Guard troops and then running off with military hardware.
The number of troops Trump has already deployed to the southern border now matches those in Iraq. If Trump follows through on his plans, there will soon be more troops massed along the border to face a few hundred families, than there are in Afghanistan dealing with the Taliban.
And the deployment orders make it clear—they’re not there stopping a problem. Thanks to anti-immigrant militias, the military deployment is actually making the odds of violence on the border much worse.