Troops being mobilized for OWS?

[thriller]

I've heard from a few people that troops are being mobilized for OWS, but can not find any info online. Just wondering if anyone else heard this?

[A Revolutionary Tool]

You mean to suppress them?

[the Left™]

Source or imma assume its the same people who wear tin-foil hats and think martial law is literally any minute now

[citizen of industry]

A much less reliable force than the police. You'd think the ruling class would only call out troops as a last resort, when their police are overwhelmed. From what I've seen, it doesn't look like the pigs are overwhelmed at all.

[KurtFF8]

This would make absolutely no sense whatsoever. I'm going to go ahead and guess you heard this from a conspiracy theorist.

[thriller]

I actually heard it from a friend who's a progressive and usually well informed on current events. I don't really buy it either but I wondered if there was any source I couldn't find.

[agnixie]

We got that rumor in the ows.org email system at some point but the informer was found to be unreliable and his claims (including other areas) to be generally fanciful. So I'm not sure what to make of it. The most I'd recommend is try to figure out where the closest brigade is based just in case but I doubt they'd be sending in the military just yet.

Also the army would be far less reliable than Xe or the marines at suppressing people.

[Winkers Fons]

Well of course it is a possibility in the event of a legitimate riot but I haven't heard anything to suggest that it is going to happen anytime soon. Perhaps the military has made contingency plans for the planned port shutdown (though I consider that highly unlikely as well).

[wunderbar]

Sounds like a story from RT.

[RadioRaheem84]

Sounds like PrisonPlanet stuff

[Le Socialiste]

Yeah, this is highly unlikeley. Things haven't reached anything remotely resembling a threat to the ruling-class yet, so the idea that they'd send in the military is laughable. Doing so would do more harm than good (in that it would undoubtedly backfire on the government).

[thriller]

I guess branching off the idea... Wouldn't segments of the National Guard be sent in first, since they are under State control (rather than Federal)?

[The Douche]

National Guard (which is the army) would be the ones most likely to be deployed. The reasoning behind this is 1) the regular army cannot be mobilized within the US, legally unless martial law is declared in the area, 2) the national guard is authorized to carry live ammunition on US soil, which the army is not.


That being said, its highly unlikely, odds are, lots of those soldiers in the guard are college students and union workers, people not likely to support the suppression of the occupations. Plus, there is just generally no need to deploy them right now.

[IndependentCitizen]

Is there intense rioting right now? Because if not, I thought that'd be the only reason why they'd be brought in.

And to cmoney, what about during the VietNam war, when the NG was bought into suppress a university protest and ended up murdering a few?

[The Douche]

What about it?

Do you mean to ask if something like that could happen again?

Of course it could, but it is less likely, the US is very different from how it was in the 60s. Especially back then, college was a very isolated thing, now lots of kids join the national guard specifically for college benefits...


One thing you really have to understand is the difference in political views between combat arms and support roles in the military, its black and white. I do not believe for a second that a company of truck drivers and mechanics would open fire on protesters, but I wouldn't put it past some of the infantry units I've been in.