It is an image more familiar from dictatorships than from what claims to be the world\u2019s oldest democracy: 4,000 National Guard soldiers and 700 Marines marching through an American city \u2013 not to help, not in a disaster, but against their own population. President Donald Trump deployed them to Los Angeles without the consent of the governor, under the pretext of saving the city from \u201cviolent mobs.\u201d But what is staged as a martial display of strength is increasingly being revealed for what it truly is: a political show of force on the backs of those who are supposed to serve the nation \u2013 not their president.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Behind the concrete facades of this deployment lies a different feeling: fear, frustration, and a deep moral dissonance. Soldiers and Marines are telling their families they feel like pawns, misused in a game that has nothing to do with national defense. Three organizations for military families \u2013 including the Secure Families Initiative and the Chamberlain Network \u2013 report dozens of complaints: soldiers being pushed into a domestic police deployment against their will. Marines cursing silently. National Guard troops sleeping in concrete bays \u2013 without mattresses, without clear orders, without pay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe mood is miserable,\u201d reports Chris Purdy of the Chamberlain Network, which organizes veterans who stand up for democracy. And Sarah Streyder from the Secure Families Initiative puts it even more bluntly: \u201cUsing troops against their own communities \u2013 that\u2019s not the kind of national security they signed up for.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The scenes are reminiscent of historic missteps \u2013 like in 1992, when during the Los Angeles riots, Marines opened fire on a residential building after misinterpreting a police command. The officer had shouted \u201cCover me\u201d \u2013 meaning \u201cprovide cover\u201d \u2013 but the Marines took it to mean \u201copen fire.\u201d Only by sheer luck was no one killed. Today\u2019s chaos is subtler, but no less dangerous. The separation between police and military, between civil order and military intervention, is not just being ignored under Trump \u2013 it is being systematically blurred. The true extent of the farce reveals itself not only in the mood among the troops but also in the situation on the ground: the protests against Trump\u2019s anti-migration policies are largely peaceful, limited to a few blocks downtown. The deployment of troops? Symbolic, power-driven \u2013 and legally questionable. The largest protest, according to local media, saw National Guard troops boxed in by police vehicles, unable to intervene at all. Their job consists of guarding buildings and escorting raids. The Marines? They are not even allowed to make arrests. But their mere presence serves one purpose \u2013 intimidation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a provocation, not an escalation,\u201d says California Governor Gavin Newsom. And the image that circled the world \u2013 National Guard troops sleeping on concrete floors \u2013 confirms his words. The San Francisco Chronicle reports inadequate food, missing toilets, and no funding for lodging or drinking water. Meanwhile, a familiar pattern emerges in Texas: Governor Greg Abbott calls up the National Guard in several cities \u2013 supposedly in preparation for protests. But the troops, as past reports show, have suffered for years from overextension and psychological stress. After the controversial \u201cOperation Lone Star\u201d deployment in 2021, several soldiers took their own lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The system is shaking \u2013 not just on the surface, but at its very core. When the military, the last neutral instrument of a state, becomes a political chess piece \u2013 what is left of a democratic order? The words of a National Guard soldier, relayed to the Secure Families Initiative, sum it up in a single sentence: \u201cThis is a bullshit mission.\u201d And why? Because it\u2019s not about help. Not about rescue. But about a spectacle that the most powerful man in the world needs to cast himself as a savior \u2013 against a problem he created himself. This is not national security. This is an attack on the very idea of home.<\/p>\n
Es ist ein Bild, das man eher aus Diktaturen kennt als aus der angeblich \u00e4ltesten Demokratie der Welt: 4.000 Soldaten der Nationalgarde und 700 Marines marschieren durch eine amerikanische Gro\u00dfstadt \u2013 nicht zur Hilfe, nicht im Katastrophenfall, sondern gegen die eigene Bev\u00f6lkerung. Pr\u00e4sident Donald Trump hat sie ohne Zustimmung des Gouverneurs nach Los Angeles entsendet, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4264,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[46,49,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4263","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dark-america","category-state-news","category-topstory"],"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/kaizen-blog.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/national-guard.webp?fit=850%2C508&ssl=1","author_info":{"display_name":"Rainer Hofmann","author_link":"https:\/\/kaizen-blog.org\/en\/author\/admin\/"},"yoast_head":"\n