A four-star general has affirmed a willingness to carry out strikes inside the United States against those the administration deems as threats. With the state of increasingly hostile rhetoric against large swaths of the American population and a history of preparation to match, this is a threat that cannot be ignored.
The possibility of lethal strikes against those designated as "terrorists" within America's borders is apparently a potential scenario the military is willing to undertake. This is according to testimony given before the Senate Armed Services Committee last week by General Gregory Guillot of U.S. Northern Command.
During the hearing, when asked by Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I) if he would be willing to carry out orders to attack so-called designated terrorist organizations within US borders, General Guillot responded by saying:
“If I had questions, I would elevate that to the chairman and the secretary. … And if I had no concerns and I was confident in the lawful order, I would definitely execute that order.”
The brazen openness of Gen. Guillot, who receives his orders directly from Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, to affirm such a willingness to carry out unprecedented military action up to and including against U.S. citizens on American soil should be cause for alarm.
And while some may look at the qualifier in his statement — "if I had no concerns and I was confident in the lawful order" — as some kind of buffer against abuse, it bears reminding the frequency with which this administration has shown a blatant disregard for the rule of law while simultaneously advancing openly hostile rhetoric towards huge swaths of the American public, referring to millions of average Americans as "the enemy within" for expressing dissent against the administration.
Furthermore, general Guillot is the authority who has personally overseen the illegal deployment of U.S. military forces to occupy American cities which have expressed opposition to the president's agendas throughout the year, particularly those opposed to the rampant lawlessness of immigration officials as they behave with brutal impunity on American streets. When scrutinized by constitutional attorneys and other legal experts such deployments have consistently been found to be unconstitutional.
It should also be considered that these statements come on the backdrop of a spate of extrajudicial executions at sea, during which the US Southern Command under the direction of the Department of War have blatantly and unconstitutionally murdered over 90 individuals accused of being "narco terrorists" without any proof or due process. Actions which amount to some of the most blatant violations of international law in recent years.
Speaking to The Intercept, Sarah Harrison, who previously served as associate general counsel at the Pentagon’s Office of General Counsel, International Affairs, stated thusly —
“After the military has conducted 95 summary executions of civilians in the Caribbean at the direction of Trump and Hegseth, it is not sufficient anymore for commanders to say to lawmakers that they will run any legal concerns up the chain — at the top of which are those who would be giving the order. Rather, to make clear they will uphold the rule of law, they should be definitive in saying that they will disobey patently unlawful orders, which include the scenario Senator Reed laid out for Gen. Guillot.”
The notion of such action being taken within U.S. borders presumably against U.S. citizens should be taken with the utmost seriousness. As The Free Thought Project reported in September, Donald Trump's designation of the amorphous group "Antifa", short for anti-fascist, as a terrorist organization despite there being no formal organizational structure or leadership hierarchy and the FBI being completely unable to specify what it even is, is such a broad and vague designation that the administration could label practically anyone as a terrorist.
And they are...
A recently leaked Department of Justice memo reported by investigative journalist Ken Klippenstein revealed that Attorney General Pam Bondi has directed the FBI to “compile a list of groups or entities engaging in acts that may constitute domestic terrorism,” in accordance with Trump's recently issued National Security Presidential Memorandum 7 (NSPM-7) to target those expressing “opposition to law and immigration enforcement; extreme views in favor of mass migration and open borders; adherence to radical gender ideology,” as well as “anti-Americanism,” “anti-capitalism,” and “anti-Christianity.”
Under this blatantly unconstitutional order pretty much any and everyone who isn't MAGA is under the risk of potentially being labeled a domestic terror threat.
This becomes all the more concerning when considering Trump has previously hinted at using the military domestically to quell opposition from his dissenters while refusing to acknowledge whether or not it has ruled out the use of summary executions of those it has labeled enemies on the aforementioned watch list.
Trump has also recently accused a number of Senators, all former military personnel, of sedition and suggested they be executed for their collective effort to release a statement reminding active duty members of the military of their responsibility to remain faithful to their oath to the US constitution, not the orders of the president in the event that said orders are unlawful.
The American government has always sought ways to put its citizens on domestic terror lists. Once upon a time, circa 2009, one could be identified by the Department of Homeland Security as a potential domestic terror threat for simply expressing support for Ron Paul. A decade later, believing in "conspiracy theories" was enough to get you put on a list. During the scamdemic anyone who opposed the unscientific draconian mandates was considered a potential extremist.
Over the last several decades preparations have quietly been made (simultaneously with the militarization of law enforcement) readying the military for potential deployments against American citizens domestically.
Trump's ability to wield these terrifying powers did not appear in a vacuum, the precedent was set in an agonizing mission creep with every little infringement from every previous administration. Long have we warned that the war on terror would eventually turn inward. Trump is using all of the infrastructure established by his predecessor to ramp up the war on domestic terror declared during the Joe Biden administration and use it for his own ends.
Throughout American history the US military has already shown a willingness to murder its own citizens. In 1914 a contingent of Colorado National Guard soldiers carried out a massacre of striking coal miners in Ludlow, Colorado resulting in the deaths of 21 people, including 11 children. In May 1970, several members of the Ohio National Guard open fire on anti war protesters outside of Kent State University, murdering four. In 2011 the US military carried out a drone strike in Yemen assassinating Anwar Al-Awaki, a US citizen. Two weeks later a second drone strike murdered his son, 16 year old Abdulrahman al-Awaki, also a US citizen. In January 2017, one of Donald Trump's first major orders as president was to authorize a Navy SEAL raid on a compound in Yemen, among the numerous civilian casualties was 8 year old Nwar al-Awaki, shot in the neck and left for dead despite herself also being a US citizen.
With abhorrent precedents like this already set sentiments such as those expressed by general Guillot cannot be left unchecked, lest we all potentially pay the price.