Illinois Governor JB Pritzker (D) held a press conference Thursday afternoon with former U.S. Major Generals, Admirals, and veterans to discuss President Donald Trump's "reckless" militarization of American cities.
"Every president has kept our troops above partisan politics honoring the duty to defend freedom, not political agendas," Pritzker said. "Every president except one."
"President Trump says he wants to go to war with Chicago, use it and our people as a training ground," Pritzker said.
Pritzker had a message to Trump's deputy chief of staff, saying, "to Stephen Miller who is pulling the strings for Donald Trump, Illinois is not going to take National Guard members away from their families and communities. These are citizen soldiers who signed up to serve their country in times of need . . .they have lives and loved ones that they're being pulled away from . . . all because Donald Trump wants to punish people who didn't vote for him and to threaten his political opponents and to carry out his agenda of chaos."
The governor said he assembled the group of military experts to discuss Trump's "dangerous power grab," calling it a "breach of the most fundamental values" as well as an "uncalled for, unprecedented and unlawful move."
One of those experts, Retired Major General William L. Enyart, said he and his group of over 300 "likeminded admirals and generals" who belong to a group called National Security Leaders For America, a non partisan not for profit organization that "strongly supports the governor's efforts to stop the misuse of our military members against our fellow Americans."
"It is imperative that we as citizens stand up to the overreach of the federal government today in Illinois, in California, and elsewhere," Enyart said.
Enyart said that the National Guard "are not political pawns ... who should not be treated as props for political theater," and that Trump's deployment of them to pick up garbage and lay mulch in Washington, DC has an "adverse affect on military recruiting, retention and readiness."
"They signed up to be part time soldiers, not part time policemen," Enyart said. "The soldiers and airmen that I served with loved being called up for natural disasters ... because it was what they signed up to do ... they felt a sense of accomplishment ... but here is your soldier spreading mulch in Washington, DC as a political prop."
"Every day that a soldier spends sitting in Washington, DC or Los Angeles guarding a building is a day they are not training for their job as a soldier," Enyart added, saying that this deployment is making our military less ready for their actual jobs.
Enyart also expressed concern that the guardsmen, ICE agents and soldiers "all look alike,' sporting the same uniforms.
"These ICE agents are not trained soldiers and they don't show the discipline that soldiers do, they don't obey the same rules of engagement. It offends me as a soldier that we have ICE agents cosplaying, pretending to be soliders. It is a smirch on the National Guard's reputation for them to be wearing the same uniform that we are."
Major General Randy Manner (Ret.) said: "Our military and National Guard are designed for combat, not for community policing."
"When we blur that line we risk turning our own streets into battlefields and our citizens into potential enemies. The use of the military by this administration in Los Angeles, Memphis, and possibly Chicago, is inappropriate, it's dangerous and it is a clear and present danger to the security of our nation. It is un-American," Manner said.
"History warns us of this danger," he added, referring to the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, which limits the domestic use of the federal military. "America's strength comes not from fear or force but from the principles of liberty and self governance."
Janessa Goldbeck, CEO of Vet Voice Foundation, a national nonprofit that mobilizes veterans and military families to shape American democracy, was the last speaker, who said "Deploying military into American cities when there is no widespread unrest, no breakdown of local law enforcement, and against the wishes of local leaders and local police is an extraordinary and dangerous breach of long-standing democratic norms."
Goldbeck called Trump's moves "a reckless precedent," and taking the National Guard members out of their communities "for what amounts to a political stunt doesn't just disrupt" military readiness, "it leaves holes in our local safety nets."
She said the president's misuse of the military puts them "in harm's way," and that "the president has planted the perception that the military is not neutral, not apolitical, not above the fray but that it is part of his personal political toolset. That perception corrodes recruitment, retention, willingness to serve and the moral reserve we expect from our armed forces."
"Our military does not belong to the president, it belongs to the people," she said.