By Donald V. Watkins
©Copyrighted and Published on November 1, 2018
President Donald J. Trump has authorized some 15,000 U.S. troops that have been dispatched to the Southern border to turn back a caravan of 7,000 migrant men, women, and children from Central America to shoot-to-kill any migrant who throws rocks at them. Prior to Trump, no U.S. president has ever authorized the use of deadly force in this circumstance.
Trump has used every opportunity to vilify and dehumanize the caravan of migrants. He has labeled them as “gang members”, “terrorists”, “thugs” and “drug dealers”, without offering any evidence to support these claims.
With each passing day, Donald J. Trump has escalated his hate speech against migrants of color, many of whom are innocent men, women, and children fleeing gang violence and abject poverty in their countries.
Today, Trump announced that he has authorized U.S. soldiers to shoot unarmed migrants seeking political asylum at the Southern U. S. border. In doing so, Trump has scripted an “Edmund Pettus Bridge” moment that makes Alabama Governor George Wallace’s “Bloody Sunday” beatings of civil rights protesters in 1965 look like a mild-mannered crowd control police exercise.
Trump is preparing to inflict extreme violence upon these migrants. All one of the migrants has to do to trigger this violent response is throw a rock at a U.S. soldier.
George Wallace chose a similar path when he ordered state troopers to brutally attack unarmed and peaceful civil rights marchers in 1965 at the base of the Edmund Pettus Bridge. However, George Wallace never authorized his state troopers to use deadly force against the innocent marchers.
Trump’s shoot-to-kill authorization should not surprise anyone. Trump idolizes Presidents Rodrigo Duterte (Philippines), Kim Jong-un (North Korea), and Vladimir Putin (Russia). These despots are murderous dictators who slaughter people as a strongman governance tool and who experience no repercussions for these actions.
Because Trump emulates the tactics of the world’s most notorious despots, his scripted border confrontation is expected to resemble a modern-day version of the “Mỹ Lai Massacre” where U.S. Army soldiers murdered between 347 and 504 unarmed men, women, and children on March 16, 1968 in Sơn Tjnh District, South Vietnam on direct orders from Lieutenant William Calley, Jr., a platoon leader in the U.S. Army's C Company.
We must all remember that Trump bragged during the 2016 presidential campaign that: "I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn't lose any voters." He actually believes this statement.
Trump's shoot-to-kill authorization is meant to give him “street” credibility with his fellow despots. This is the primary reason why Trump's authorized use of deadly force is directed at helpless migrant men, women, and children of color. In Trump's warped and bigoted mind, his authorized massacre has to be bigger, bolder, and bloodier than the “Mỹ Lai Massacre.”
In Donald Trump’s world, all forms of evil are on the table when it comes to his dealings with women, Jews, gays, transgender Americans, Muslims, and people of color, whether African-American citizens or immigrants.
There is no "check and balance" system inside of our national government, or inside the Republican Party, or in the Evangelical Christian community that will check Trump's evil conduct. They all seem to look the other way as they struggle to normalize his fits of evil.
PHOTO: Victims of the March 16, 1968 "Mỹ Lai Massacre."
Donald V Watkins
I remember My Lai ... Ken Burns documentary on Vietnam brought back a lot of memories for me and delved deeper into what was going on then.
At any rate ..... if FAKEBOOK is going to quash free speech than by default they are a political organization engaged in shaping the minds of their users and need to be regulated by the FCC. Donald, taking your post down was WRONG! Fakebook is either an open platform for the dissemination of disparate ideas , as they dishonestly claim, or they are a tool no better than the "news" controlled by totalitarian governments who allow just as much contact with them as fakebook does.... ever try to finds ph…
Shouldn't "Rocks" be spelled "Glocks" ?
Mexican authorities arrested two Hondurans who allegedly shot at federal police officers escorting the migrant caravan across the southern state of Chiapas. The attack follows shortly after government warnings about Molotov cocktail attacks around a second caravan near the border with Guatemala.
From the Mexican Authorities
Bulletin No.383 / 18
"Both men were secured with a pistol, Glock brand, with license plate YAE371, caliber 380 mm, with 9 useful cartridges"
https://www.gob.mx/segob/prensa/detienen-a-dos-hondurenos-tras-ataque-armado-a-policias-federales
Most Churches don't want to run afoul of our separation of Church and State. Additionally a ban on political activity by charities and churches was created by Congress more than a half century ago.
But I suspect you already knew this.
It is convenient to blame the church for Government problems when the Church has been repeatedly told to BUTT OUT of the Government by our liberal courts. Now all of a sudden they want a conscience?
Let's be clear here: Donald Trump wants American soldiers to fire their weapons on these Central American migrants. He does not care if the bullets strike men, women, or children. As we have seen with the case of Jamal Khashoggi, the murder of people of color means nothing to Trump. The "Mỹ Lai Massacre” means nothing to Trump because he was a Vietnam War draft dodger.
Trump is looking for an excuse to kill these people. Trump actually thinks he can deter other migrant caravans from coming to America if he terrorizes this group of Central American migrants.