Staff Sgt. Demi Palecek and Capt. Dylan Blaha say they'll defy federal orders regarding Trump's immigration enforcement operation in Chicago.

Two Illinois National Guard members told CBS News they would refuse to obey federal orders to deploy in Chicago as part of President Trump’s controversial immigration enforcement mission — a rare act of open defiance from within the military ranks.

“It’s disheartening to be forced to go against your community members and your neighbors,” said Staff Sgt. Demi Palecek, a Latina guardswoman and state legislative candidate from Illinois’s 13th District. “It feels illegal. This is not what we signed up to do.”

    • NeilBrü@lemmy.worldEnglish
      28·
      2 days ago

      Kind of like Tiananmen Square.

      Everyone (at least in the West) seems to know about tank man, but there’s another story that’s not as widely known and I never understood why. It shines a whole new light on this and explains why the Chinese government is so heavy handed when it comes to this subject. It was more than just another autocratic crackdown on protestors, which, while terrible, are par for the course.

      A good chunk of military units sent in to squash the protestors refused to carry out their orders, refused to brutalize and kill their countrymen. Some actively joined in on the protests, then units sent in to put a stop it joined in as well. This terrified the Chinese leadership so they sent in the 27th army group, largely comprised of illiterate peasant farmers with no connection to Beijing or its people,  headed by a politically reliable officer. The 27th army group then proceeded to massacre everyone, not ‘just’ students and protestors, but their own comrades in arms, other PLA soldiers.

      Read the British embassy report and tell me it doesn’t completely change your perspective. The CCP wants everyone to think this was just another protest, no big deal. It wasn’t, it was the time they almost lost control, and they know it. It’s why they’re so fearful.

      https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/UK_cable_on_Tiananmen_Square_Massacre

    • GlitchyDigiBun@lemmy.worldEnglish
      36·
      2 days ago

      Holy shit… This was Putin’s suggestion wasn’t it? Get Texans to shoot people in Chicago to kickstart the 2nd civil war…

      • frunch@lemmy.world
        12·
        2 days ago

        Yikes. That’s kinda what I’ve been fearing this would really turn into: a chance to “legally” weaponize the chuds against their perceived enemies after years and years of propaganda. I can’t imagine the seething hatred they’ve managed to stoke in some of their most ardent supporters, and now they’re just finding ways to put guns in their hands and ship em off to ‘clean up the city/country/whatever the fuck’ or some such self-aggrandizing bullshit

    • brewery@feddit.uk
      16·
      2 days ago

      The East India company did this exact thing. Most of their troops were local seppoys. When the local ones didn’t want to harm their brothers and sisters, send in troops from further away + different tribes + different castes etc and they have no issues. See also: British army in northern Ireland, British army in Kenya, Chinese army in Tianamin Square, Soviet army in Hungary and plenty of other examples