On October 18, 2024, Law Enforcement Today had the following headline, which passed by almost unnoticed: “DoD secretly reauthorizes bill that would allow military intervention domestically…and adds ability to use deadly force.”

The reissue of Department of Defense (DoD) Directive 5240.01 was quietly put into effect on September 27, 2024, six weeks before our presidential election. It is a formalized license to kill.

 Why? Because the Democrat party has determined that civil unrest is bad after condoning the 2020 “mostly peaceful” riots that consumed much of our nation in the aftermath of George Floyd’s death. It provides protection for the military to kill under clear cover of authority. Imagine the outcry if this had occurred under Donald Trump. This directive was not necessary.

President Trump argued for the use of National Guard or military assistance during this period of civil unrest as local law enforcement was unable to control the rioting mobs, although he was talked out of using an authority that presidents have used regularly over the last one hundred years:

Image by AI.

1. In 1932, President Herbert Hoover called on the military to quell rioting in our nation’s capital. It was the height of the Great Depression, and World War I veterans were demanding additional compensation as many were facing starvation and homelessness.

2. In 1957, President Dwight Eisenhower sent 1,000 members of the 101st Airborne to Little Rock, Arkansas, to protect black students who wanted to attend Central High School. The Democratic Governor, Oval Faubus, refused to acknowledge the 1954 Supreme Court decision overturning segregation proscribed in the 1896 “Separate But Equal” ruling.

3. In 1992, President George H.W. Bush used federal resources to stop the Los Angeles riot by people protesting the police abuse of Rodney King. During the uprising, four people were killed, with another 60 injured. Plus, $1 billion in property damage.

These three events were detailed in my October 4, 2023, American Thinker column “The Pentagon’s Lack of Loyalty to President Trump.” Pertinent key points raised in that article that are relevant today:

- It has been a long-standing practice to use federal troops to subdue civil unrest, going back to George Washington personally leading men into western Pennsylvania to put down tax protesters in the 1794 “Whisky Rebellion.”

- The George Floyd rioting should not have been an exception, but in 2020, in an act of gross insubordination, the Pentagon opposed bringing order to American streets. Instead, they essentially endorsed the burning of our nation’s cities.

From a June 2020 New York Times article:

Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, wrote on Twitter that “America is not a battleground. Our fellow citizens are not the enemy.”

The same article quoted another former Chairman, Admiral Mike Mullen, who claimed that Trump’s disdain for the rights of peaceful protest would play into the hands of America’s foreign adversaries.

In a book concerning the 2020 election, former Chairman General Mark Milley claimed he saved Americans from Trump’s aggression.

The really important question, though, is who will save Americans from a military empowered to kill Americans arbitrarily now that the Biden Administration has officially endorsed the former President’s position that civil unrest is a bad thing? Many have wisely observed that the Democrats always accuse others of doing what they are plotting.

The last line of defense in this revised directive is the Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin. His written approval is required for the use of lethal force. This man and the new Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force General Charles Q. Brown, are blatant racists who endorse CRT and DEI initiatives that have turned our military into a caricature of a fighting force. General Brown has published a racist, quota-based personnel promotion document while presiding over tanking recruitment and military readiness numbers. They are turning our military into a more lethal version of the Black Panthers.

Retired reservist Lieutenant Colonel James S. Corum, Ph.D., a military historian and author, has looked at the allegations that “Trump is Hitler.” His essay was informative and detailed in the finest military tradition.

…opposition leadership had to be completely destroyed. In late March (1933), prominent democratic opposition leaders were arrested and charged with an array of phony charges, from tax evasion to malfeasance. The list of charges filed by the Nazis would make Merrick Garland proud.

…from censorship to lawfare it’s the Democrat Party today — not Republican — that has embraced the exact same methods as the Nazis to seize power. But there is so much more. The Democrat use of DEI as a mandatory race ideology is similar to Nazi racial ideology — just change whites for Jews in DEI training and you get a good idea of Nazi methods of 1933.

Lloyd Austin has shown his willingness to do as instructed by the Democrat administration. This included blind support for the failed Afghanistan withdrawal and protecting an Iranian agent transferring military secrets to Iran. A YouTube video paints Austin as the fool and political hack he is. Likewise, my July 19, 2023, American Thinker article “Our Defense Secretary’s Repeated Failures Humiliate Our Nation” provides more details: Consider the following exchange from that post:

In March, House Armed Services Subcommittee on Military Personnel Chair Jim Banks (R-IN) asked Austin, “Do you have regrets about the withdrawal from Afghanistan?” Austin answered, “I support the President’s decision.”

Trying again, Banks asked, “Do you have regrets about the withdrawal or how the withdrawal occurred from Afghanistan that cost the lives of thirteen of our servicemen?”

This time, Austin’s answer was straightforward: “I don’t have any regrets.”

Banks next wanted to know if anyone in the DOD had faced consequences for a withdrawal he characterized as “deadly, botched, and embarrassing.” Austin responded by boasting, “Our troops evacuated 124,000 people off that airfield.”

Banks again tried to get a responsive answer. “Has anyone been held accountable? If a Navy captain grounded a ship, what happens immediately?”

Austin reluctantly acknowledged the second question, not the first. “Typically, that captain is removed.”

Closing in, Banks asked, “Has anyone been held accountable for what happened in Afghanistan?”

And then the truth came out. “To my knowledge, no.”

No one was held accountable because he was responsible, along with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Milley, for those deaths and clearly does not care.

The Iranian agent responsible for leaking Israel’s plans to attack Iran works at the Pentagon. Ariane Tabatabai is an Iranian American political science advisor to the Department of Defense. She had worked under Robert Malley, chief promoter of the failed Iran nuclear deal. Malley was fired and is under investigation. His security clearance was canceled by FBI Director Christopher Wray. Tabatabai works as the director of the office of the Assistant to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin for Special Operations and International Conflict. (A mouthful! Do they actually do anything?)

In September 2023, four U.S. Senators sent a letter to Austin calling for the suspension of Tabatabai’s security clearance. She is still on the job! It is conceivable that Malley was fired to protect Tabatabai. All information collected on Malley is being held by FBI Director Wray and has been withheld from Congress.

It is impossible for Secretary Austin to not know of her and the danger to our national security that she poses. Not removing Tabatabai from the Pentagon is an action that undermines our nation’s security. In my view, it is actionable treason.

Does anyone doubt Secretary Austin would authorize an American Tiananmen Square? During the French Revolution, the military refused to shoot their fellow countrymen. What will today’s military, driven by CRT and DEI, do when ordered to shoot their fellow Americans?