In his final address to his fellow Americans from the Oval Office, President Ronald Reagan of the United States praised the American military for their centuries of service to the American people. In 1776 this military gave the British forces a bloodied nose and set America free from the shackles of the oppression and exploitation of imperialism. At the peak of the World War II, General Dwight Eisenhower flew from the United States to Europe to resume duty as the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe. By 1945, he secured an unconditional surrender from the Axis Powers. The American Military is the most lethal and dangerous military machine in all of human history, making American adversaries paying heavy prices, turning their wives widows and their children fatherless. General Qasem Soleimani of Iran that was killed by the American drones in Iraq in 2020 knows better.
Four years ago, a boyhood friend of mine in the Nigerian security community gave me a book that he bought in the United States during his tour of duty to the Pentagon. The title of the book is: ‘Operation Neptune Spear: The Mission to Kill Osama bin Laden’. This is a masterpiece that gives a vivid account of how the American intelligence located the building Osama was hiding in Afghanistan. Upon finding him, the American Navy Zeal swung into action and intense and rigorous preparation to either capture or kill him began. As President Barack Obama, the Commander-in-Chief was being briefed, he listened with rapt attention. After asking probing questions, he told the Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff and his team that he would give his orders on the issue the following morning. It was a night full of intense suspense for the American Forces in far away Afghanistan. Finally came the ultimate presidential order: ‘Proceed to Pakistan and capture or kill Osama bin Laden, the number one enemy of the United States.’
Right from Afghanistan, two black hawk helicopters with five Chinook backup helicopters flew in the dead of the night in the dark, sound proof and below radar detection landed in Osama’s compound, killed him, took his corpse with them and returned to their base in Afghanistan. Mission accomplished. Mind you, while this dangerous operation was going on, a drone was put nearby beaming the entire mission to the Situation Room in the White House with the President and his aides in attendance.
In all of the American history, all presidents have come to recognize that the American military is trained to kill the enemies of the United States. Not its citizens in civil protests. The only exemption is the racist, bigot and modern day Adolf Hitler in the White House, Donald Trump.
To be sure, the American Military is a civilised and informed one that is able to distinguish between lawful and unlawful orders, between the American interests and a regime or government’s interests, between inclusiveness and racist bully and oppression. Donald Trump ordered the use of force but the overwhelming majority of the forces disobeyed his orders and joined the American people to demonstrate against his racist sadism and intolerance.
In all of the American history, one factor that has run through the entire gamut is the respect for the constitution by each American president, the political affiliation not withstanding. Into the bargain, they always recognize the fact that the United States is a melting pot of all the races, religions and cultures of the world and often strive to exploit this kaleidoscopic and exhilarating diversity to strengthen America to the point of superpowership and the most powerful nation in the world. It is, therefore, these unifying and centripetal forces that produced Barack Obama, the son of a black immigrant from Kenya to become an American President to the utter humiliation of the white supremacists and the Ku Klux Klan of the United States. It is, therefore, this wholesome American spirit that made the American troops with their rifles to side with the people, disobey their Commander-in-Chief and sided with the people they were ordered to attack and possibly kill, but rather demonstrated peacefully with them. This is the American spirit.
In the rise and fall of nations and empires in history, the place of leadership has proven overwhelming and staggering, making a difference between changing realities and living in the anachronistic past.
The United States took the world by storm in the 20th century and became a superpower be-strolling the entire world with pomp and pageantry. But over the years, this country has begun to decline without knowing but still living in delusion that all is well. But this self delusion has come to the fore with the emergence of Donald Trump. The American whites and the Caucasians still believe that the America of the 21st century is the America of the 1880s when the slaves were the beast of burden in the United States. Currently, the power, ethnic and cultural configuration in the United States is no longer within the precinct of the sole dominance and manipulation of the white supremacists. The United States is a country of refugees across the world seeking economic opportunities and freedom from persecution and oppression. The Red Indians who are the original inhabitants of America were killed in thousands by the Whites.
So, for any race to lay claim to exclusive ownership of the United States will not only be preposterous and absurd, it would be tantamount to outright mischief. It is therefore from this ridiculous mindset that Donald Trump views the United States and the world. The growing isolation of the United States by its European allies, China, Russia, Japan and majority of the Third World should be sending a strong message to the white supremacists that America is gradually coming to its knees. In fact, the disobedience of his orders to deal ruthlessly with the demonstrators over the Killing of George Floyd is a clear message to the American Ku Klux Klan, in which Trump is the chief protagonist, that their racial insanity is about running out its course.
From the actions of the American Forces, what are the lessons for the Nigeria’s Armed Forces? And perhaps the entire Nigerian citizens?
1. Security matters are multi layers and respond to true federalist principles and norms that cannot be silenced by any mafia group and clannish considerations. Most of the state governors and even mayors defied Trump to use their police personnel to violate the right to peaceful civil protests as enshrined in the American constitution. The import of this for Nigeria is the atavism and anachronism of its centralized police system in which the state governors are held prostrate by the suzerainty and omnipotence of the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria even when the interests of their states are directly affected. This federalist infraction that has made nonsense of the security of Nigeria must be consigned to the limbo of sad abuse of civil governance that has completely obliterated the fact that the federal government and the states are equal and co-ordinate in the security of Nigeria.
2. The allegiance of the Nigeria’s Armed Forces is to Nigeria and any unlawful orders must be refused and resisted. An order that a military personnel should open fire on defenceless Nigerians is against the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and such must be resisted. Apart from resisting his orders to use force to suppress the American people, one security Chief told Trump on CNN to shut up if he did not have any redeeming message for the Americans. No President can ever be synonymous with the Nigerian State, no matter his powers.
3. It is constitutionally wrong for any president to draft in the Nigerian military to put down civil protests. This is the primary responsibility of the Nigerian Police Force. Currently, the Nigerian police is in a comatose point and on on life support. A visit to their offices and barracks would reveal and archaic system harassed and rendered impotent by chronic under-funding and utter neglect.
4. The right to peaceful civil protest in Nigeria does not require police permit or approval. And it is a fundamental human right of all Nigerians.
5. The Invasion of the National Assembly and the Judiciary by the DSS, Military and any other security agents is a most dangerous anti-democratic act against the Nigerian State.
6. The Nigerian security forces should be well aware that any obedience to an unlawful order from any source against the Peoples of Nigeria is criminal and might land them in the International Criminal Court at the Hague.
7. The drafting of the Nigerian military by the President in any military campaign requires authorization of the National Assembly.
8. Conscious efforts should be made to withdraw the Nigerian military from illegal duties like mounting of road blocks and other activities that are incompatible with their constitutional status.
The Nigeria’s Armed Forces is the security outfit of Nigeria and not necessarily to the government of the day if the constitution of Nigeria is violated.
Nigerians should take note.
Below is how six top American military officers responded to the recent use of the American Military by Trump:
“Six military heavyweights and defense experts weigh in on Trump’s call for the military to put down protests – By John Allen, Loree K. Sutton, Dana Pittard, Richard K. Betts, Harold Hongju Koh, Peter Feaver (June 4, 2020)
“On Wednesday, current and former military leaders came out with powerful messages against President Donald Trump’s calls to deploy the U.S. military to quash nationwide protests against racial injustice, set off by the gruesome killing of George Floyd at the hands of the Minneapolis police.
“What would soldiers putting down protests mean for the United States? Foreign Policy asked six former military leaders and security experts to weigh in.
“The American People May Soon Find Themselves the ‘Enemy’ – By John Allen, president of the Brookings Institution, a retired U.S. Marine Corps four-star general, and former commander of the NATO International Security Assistance Force and U.S. Forces in Afghanistan.
” Every member of the U.S. military—be they active duty, National Guard, or reserve—swears an oath to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” Deploying the military against U.S. citizens sends the wrong message at the wrong moment and is antithetical to everything America represents.That is their solemn vow and at the heart of their service to America. History has shown that there are indeed periods when domestic threats or unrest reach such a level that they require the direct involvement of federal troops to keep the peace. Now, however, is not one of those moments.
“If the military begins to hold primary responsibility for law enforcement in the United States, I fear the American people may soon—against their own wishes—take on the mantle of the “enemy.” That is simply unacceptable, especially at this horrendous moment of national pain stemming both from the killing of George Floyd and others and from the pressures of COVID-19. And it is well beneath what is needed from America’s national leadership. Deploying the military against U.S. citizens sends the wrong message at the wrong moment and is antithetical to everything Americans represent as a people. The stakes are high, and we must be better than this.
“The Call for Force Must Come From the Governors – By Loree Sutton, a former brigadier general and highest-ranking psychiatrist in the U.S. Army who is currently running for mayor of New York City.
“Throughout nearly 40 years in public service—as a U.S. Army psychiatrist, retired general officer, and New York City commissioner—I have grown to revere the trust, judgment, and legitimacy on which the character and habits of principled leadership depend. Those entrusted to lead America’s treasure—its daughters and sons—know the moral implications and personal agony involved in ordering troops into harm’s way. When force is not necessary, reasonable, and proportional, the fabric of civic society begins to unravel.
“The use of force must be approached with due caution and restraint, even when it is necessary, reasonable, and proportional. When force at any level—local, state, or federal—is perceived or deemed otherwise, the fabric of civic society begins to unravel.
“The question we should be asking, therefore, has less to do with whether federal forces should ever be deployed to quell domestic unrest but whether, at a given moment, the facts on the ground require additional reinforcement. This judgment must come from the country’s governors, exercising their legal authority to do so. Unless and until this is the case, federal troops should remain at their posts, in their camps, and at their stations.
“Let Law Enforcement and the National Guard Handle This – By Dana Pittard, a retired U.S. Army major general and the co-author of Hunting the Caliphate: America’s War on ISIS and the Dawn of the Strike Cell.
“It really is something when two former chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff—Gen. Martin Dempsey and Adm. Mike Mullen, both of whom I’ve worked with—feel a need to speak out against using the military on American soil during a domestic crisis. It really is something when two former chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff feel a need to speak out.We’re at a tough time in our country right now, between the pandemic, the unprecedented unemployment, as well as this bubbling up of something that’s been under the surface for quite a while.
“There are occasions when we have used the military in domestic crises in consultation with state governors. I don’t believe we’re at that point yet. At this point it is something that law enforcement can handle—and the National Guard, by the way, is trained for civil unrest.
“Packed in Vile Rhetoric by an Odious Leader—but Not Without Precedent – By Richard K. Betts, the director of Columbia University’s Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies, an adjunct senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, and the author of American Force.
“How ironic: Originally it was racists and rightists who most vehemently opposed deploying federal troops to suppress local disorder; now it is anti-racists and liberals who condemn President Donald Trump’s attempt to do so. Some even assert that it would be illegal. To rest opposition to Trump on the notion that using the military for law enforcement is impermissible would reject ample historical precedent.
“It was white southerners and the Democratic Party that pushed through the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 that forbids the use of federal troops to enforce law in the states. This cemented the end of Reconstruction in the former Confederacy and enabled the re-subjugation of African Americans. Legal ambiguity remained, however: The 1807 Insurrection Act authorizes the use of federal forces and has been invoked numerous times, often to protect vulnerable black citizens.
“In 1863, draft riots in New York City killed more than 100 African Americans before they were put down by U.S. Army soldiers and Marines together with state militia. In 1957, President Dwight D. Eisenhower deployed elements of the 101st Airborne Division and the federalized Arkansas National Guard to safeguard school desegregation in Little Rock. Five years later, John F. Kennedy sent Army units against white rioters protesting integration at the University of Mississippi. His successor, Lyndon B. Johnson, dispatched them in 1967 to quell the Detroit riots (where they inflicted fewer casualties than ineffectual and trigger-happy National Guard troops) and again in 1968 to pacify Washington (where none of the 13 dead were killed by the military). George H.W. Bush sent Army soldiers and Marines to Los Angeles in 1992. Some of these cases involved more extreme violence than we have seen so far today, some less.
“As usual, Trump’s rhetoric and actions are vile and alarming, and his desire to use the military is unnecessary as long as violence does not overwhelm police and the National Guard. But to rest opposition to the odious current president on the notion that using the military for law enforcement is impermissible would reject ample historical precedent, much of which has served justice more than Trumpian villainy.
“Our Allies Watch Ashen-Faced and Weep for This Country – By Harold Hongju Koh, a professor of international law at Yale Law School, founding editor of Just Security, and legal advisor at the State Department from 2009 to 2013.
“In this defining moment, for personal political gain, the U.S. president wrapped himself in religion, the military, and the rule of law to perform a masquerade that is nakedly antithetical to each. He violated the core biblical mandate to love, not demonize, one another. He violated the core military credo that civilian leaders do not dispatch U.S. soldiers onto U.S. soil to attack fellow citizens peacefully exercising their constitutional rights.To those enabling this revolting charade: Have you no decency, backbone, self-respect, and love of country? And he violated the law of the land, trampling on the Constitution’s directive to respect “the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” Congress has not authorized, and in fact has forbidden, deploying the U.S. military on American streets, particularly when citizens are lawfully demanding investigation of serious charges of police brutality.
“America’s allies around the world are watching ashen-faced, weeping for how the country they respected has been degraded by its leaders. At this historic moment, when we need serious leadership to address the uniquely toxic blend of pandemic, economic depression, and racial discord, shame on the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the attorney general, and Republican legislators for enabling this revolting charade. Have you no decency, backbone, self-respect, and love of country?
“Using the Military for Partisan Grandstanding Will Backfire – By Peter Feaver, a professor of political science and public policy at Duke University, where he directs the Program in American Grand Strategy.
“There is ample historical precedent for the National Guard and even active-duty military to be mobilized to quell domestic strife. However, even when local law enforcement officials are overwhelmed and governors ask for help, it is a fraught mission for military units, who would generally prefer to stay out of domestic conflict. In the current situation, governors are not asking for help.If there is a genuine threat that law enforcement cannot handle, the public will welcome military backup assistance.
“President Donald Trump was inserting federal units into a politically charged situation for what appeared to be partisan reasons: a desire to replace politically damaging reports of the president sheltering in the basement of the White House with more favorable images of him taking charge. Using the military as wallpaper for photo-ops is something every administration in the modern era has done, but it comes at a price. It drags the military into the partisan fray and lowers public views of the competence and trustworthiness of the military as an institution. If there is a genuine threat to the citizenry that law enforcement cannot handle, the public will welcome military backup assistance. But if the military is being used as a prop for political grandstanding, it will backfire”.
Toba Alabi is a Professor of Political Science and Defence Studies at the Nigerian Defence Academy, Kaduna
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