By Darrall Cozens, Labour Party member, Coventry.
On June 1st Donald Trump said that if any city or state, “refuses to take the actions that are necessary to defend the life and property of their residents, then I will deploy the United States military and quickly solve the problem for them.”
In the following hours and days, he was opposed by the existing Defence Secretary (in US terms the Secretary of Defense), Mark Esper, and by the former Defence Secretary, General James Mattis. The words they used to oppose Trump expose the reasons for not calling into play the Insurrection Act of 1807 at this time.
Esper said in a press conference on June 3rd that, “The option to use active-duty forces in a law-enforcement role should only be used as a matter of last resort and only in the most urgent and dire of situations. We are not in one of those situations now,” and later, “I do not support invoking the Insurrection Act.”
General Mattis condemned Trump in far more strident language, writing that “When I joined the military, some 50 years ago, I swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution. Never did I dream that troops taking that same oath would be ordered under any circumstance to violate the Constitutional rights of their fellow citizens—much less to provide a bizarre photo op for the elected commander-in-chief, with military leadership standing alongside.”
He also wrote that a false conflict between the military and civilians would erode a “trusted bond between men and women in uniform and the society they are sworn to protect, and of which they themselves are a part.”
The timing of the use of the military
The worry, therefore, of these two, is not that the military should not be used to try and quell the uprisings in many cities across the USA following the murder of George Floyd by agents of the state, but rather the timing of such a use of the military. That, and the likely effects of such a use, both on civilians and on the troops, who are recruited from the same society. Is this an indication that the ruling class is divided over what measures to use to suppress the uprisings?
The message is clear. If the militarised police forces and the National Guard are containing the situation for now, why risk bringing in the military, because they are a ‘measure of last resort’ and their use could break that “trusted bond”? In other words, the military could be affected by the mood of the streets and refuse to obey orders. If that were to happen, the state could be left impotent, defenceless and vulnerable to being overthrown, as the “the bodies of armed personnel”, the power used for suppression, becomes ineffective. The state, in the last analysis, is the nothing more than the executive committee of the ruling class. If the state is threatened, then so are the wealth and power of capital, whose interests the state protects. Perhaps that is why the influential magazine The Atlantic writes on June 4th that the use of the military in this situation would be “catastrophic”.
Troops would refuse to obey orders
And these people have reason to be worried about the likely consequences of the use of the military. It has already been reported that some active military personnel have stated that they would refuse to obey orders if such orders were to be given. The Truthout news organisation reported on June 3rd that it has been contacted by several active military personnel who are seeking advice as to their options should they refuse to obey orders.
Truthout wrote that, “One activated National Guard member who is currently in the process of refusing orders told Truthout that the events of the last few days have shattered his belief that there can be such a thing as a justified use of force. ‘Most of all, I feel that I cannot be complicit in any way when I’ve seen so many examples of soldiers and police acting in bad faith,’ he said via an encrypted text message.”
Some 20,000 National Guards have already been deployed in 29 States across the USA, but some are already beginning to question what they are doing.
Another Guardsman stated to Truthout, “I can’t do it. Even looking at my uniform is making me feel sick that I’m associated with this, especially after [the National Guard unit] shot that man who owned that barbecue shop [in Louisville, Kentucky],” he said. “I live in Pennsylvania. I live with the history of Kent State. I’m not being a part of that.”
This is what the gentlemen in the Pentagon fear – active military personnel beginning to side with those on the streets demanding justice. It is early days yet, but these voices could portend what is to come, should the uprisings continue to grow, both in numbers and reach and seriously threaten the state and capitalism. Should that happen, a serious analysis would have to be made about the forces that state could deploy to protect capitalism.
Vietnam-era military based on conscription
The US military is not what it was during the time of the Vietnam War. Then it was a conscript military of draftees and we saw how this mighty military machine was affected by a number of factors: the growing anti-war sentiment on the streets of the USA, the mounting casualties in an unwinnable war, and the basic questioning of why they were there in the first place. The mood could be summed up in that famous phrase of the greatest sportsperson who has ever lived, Mohammed Ali, who said in 1967, “I ain’t got no quarrel with them Vietcong”.
How did the increasing disillusionment of the soldiery with the war express itself? On the one hand, there was a massive drug problem, not only of soldiers on the front line being high on marihuana, but also of the use of hard drugs such as heroin. It also led to increasing numbers of soldiers refusing to obey orders, even to the extent that when officers in the front line called on troops to advance to confront the opposition, many soldiers allowed the officers to go in front and then “fragged” them, that is threw fragmentation grenades at them to blow them up. A dead officer cannot give orders that would be disobeyed!
The US State machine had seen the writing on the wall, in the effect that the opposition to the war was having on conscripted soldiers. For that reason, some two years before the Vietnam War ended in 1975, the draft (ie conscription) was ended. At the time, the US military numbered 2.2 million; today, the all-volunteer military numbers 1.3 million, some 0.5% of the US population.
These figures are important, as they show in number terms of the forces that could be called upon to defend the status quo, to defend, therefore, the power and privilege of capital. And those who would seek to overthrow that power and privilege would need consummate skills in a revolutionary situation to break the rank and file of the military away from the officer caste. To know your enemies is the first step to defeating them!
Many army recruits are from ethnic minorities
Of those in the military today, some 471,000 or about 37% are in the US Army and 43% of those are 29 or under. So we have young men and women who have the potential to be more affected by the mood of youth on the streets than older soldiers.
In class terms, most of the recruits come from middle class neighbourhoods. We have to be very careful with terms here, as government officials in the US studiously avoid using terms like ‘working class’. Some 19% of recruits come from families that earn up to $38,000 a year, and a further 21% from families that earn up to $50,000 per year. What we are therefore talking about in UK terms are skilled working-class families and to be skilled you have to be educated: that is people who think!
There are further considerations, too, in terms of ethnicities and “race” that have to be borne in mind, given the rising number of black/Afro-American men being killed by agents of the state. In 2018, Afro-Americans numbered 17% of male recruits and 30% of female recruits. In the population as a whole, Afro-Americans count for 13%. In addition, 20% of female recruits were Hispanic, and so were almost 18% of male recruits. Overall, some 43% of recruits in the Army came from racial or ethnic minorities. Given the persistent discrimination and prejudice against minorities that seems to be built into American capitalism, this 43% composition could be a powder keg under certain conditions.
Conditions determine consciousness
However, to win over the last resort defenders of capitalism to the forces that seek to change society, requires something far more important than the social class or racial/ethnic composition of the armed forces. And what is it that is more important?…that soldiers can see that what is on offer from such a social change is far better than that which they currently enjoy. In other words, for many active military personnel, it would be an issue of material conditions, because, in general, conditions determine consciousness.
What are the benefits and rights that US military personnel enjoy today, in addition to the right to die for their country if called upon to do so? Firstly, there are pay and grade bonuses, and these are above the average for civilian life. Then you can be paid to go to college or to pay off loans that you have already incurred from studying. After that we have room and board – free dining or food allowances. Free or almost free travel is also there, under what is called “space available” – so a military flight going to some exotic destination can be used for free by military personnel and families.
There is also life insurance, just in case you do die in service. But given the fact that anything up to 50 million Americans do not have health cover, military recruits can benefit from hospital, clinic and dental care for themselves and their families.
Solid material benefits
These are very solid material benefits that would be forfeited if military personnel were to refuse to obey orders if deployed on the streets to put down an insurrection. In addition, there are jail sentences of various lengths that they could face. Yet despite all that could be lost the Truthout article says that a number of organisations have been contacted regarding enlisted personnel rights should orders be refused.
“The GI Rights Network is organizing emergency conscientious objector packets for troops who may have only a matter of hours before they are scheduled to ship out, after orders are given. ‘Once they have [the conscientious objector packet] in, they should have the right to say that they can turn up at their mobilization point, but they cannot carry a weapon,’ says Siri Margerin, a counsellor with the Network.”
The Network hotline has “received roughly 30 calls in the last five days, mostly consisting of Guard members with questions regarding the consequences for not showing up to their armories. The hotline has received a couple of calls from active-duty soldiers at Fort Bragg in North Carolina who have been mobilized.”
Veterans against the War
Truthout also reports that, “Other left-leaning, anti-war veteran’s organizations are receiving an influx of inquiries. About Face: Veterans Against the War recently penned an open letter asking activated troops to stand down for Black lives. Since the letter was published, About Face Organizing Director Brittany DeBarros says more than 300 veterans have signed on, and that the organization has received several responses from National Guard members and active-duty troops.”
These reports are the tip of the iceberg and indicate what the current and former Defence Secretaries fear, should Trump order the deployment of the military. And legally speaking, Trump has the power to do just that.
The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 forbids the domestic use of military for law enforcement purposes without specific congressional authorization, but the Insurrection Act of 1807 gives the president authorization to do so under certain circumstances. It states that, “Whenever there is an insurrection in any State against its government, the President may, upon the request of its legislature or of its governor if the legislature cannot be convened, send in military troops.”
This 1807 Act has been used dozens of times in US history, with the most recent use being during the 1992 uprising over the Los Angeles police officers’ beating of Rodney King. However, should this Act be invoked and fail in its aims as increasing numbers of military personnel refuse to obey orders, the state and its master, the capitalist class, would be left naked and defenceless.
That is why it is a weapon of last resort, something that Trump fails to understand. As Napoleon Bonaparte once said, “Beware when the bayonets begin to think!”
Harnessing the pent-up anger
Social change never follows a straight path. Its directions is dictated by a number of factors which include, among others: the history and context of a particular society; the willingness of those who have been suppressed and repressed to fight for change; the indifference, passivity or even support of middle layers for the struggle for change; and the inability of the ruling class to prevent that change as their last bastions of support can no longer be relied on.
There is one other factor that is imperative, and that is the existence of a revolutionary party that is deeply embedded in the masses of society and is able to offer an achievable aim by harnessing the pent-up anger and frustration of millions who are no longer willing to put up with the conditions that capitalism imposes on them. Insurrectionary and revolutionary situations can occur but not succeed in the absence of that subjective factor.
We cannot predict the outcome of the present uprisings in the USA. The most likely outcome, however, is that promises will be made, some legal changes will occur, some discriminatory practices will be removed and race awareness-raising courses will be introduced into the forces of the state. The police and National Guard will be asked to crack the skulls of both white and black protesters in equal measure. All of these changes will be welcomed as they may lead to alleviating some of the racism that Afro-Americans in particular face.
However, none of these changes will affect the real material issues of low wages, inadequate housing, inaccessible health provision, unemployment and underfunded education programmes. These are the outcome of capitalism in crisis. In the words of Malcolm X, assassinated in 1965, “You can’t have capitalism without racism”. Therefore, to defeat racism, you have to get rid of capitalism.
June 6, 2020
