Troops Worry about Being Used as Political Tools as Abbott Deploys Them Against U.S. Citizens

Some troops don’t understand why they are being deployed against peaceful protesters they’ve sworn to protect and suspect they're being used as political tools.

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Some troops don’t understand why they are being deployed against peaceful protesters they’ve sworn to protect and suspect they're being used as political tools. They also aren’t all buying Abbott’s justification for the advance deployment.

Military leaders are struggling to find and train enough troops to fulfill Republican Governor Greg Abbott’s threat of deploying more than 5,0000 National Guard troops against mass anti-Trump protesters (who have been peaceful for months) —an unjustified fivefold increase in troops compared to the 2020 protests — according to internal documents obtained by the American-Statesman.

But that’s not their only problem. The other problem is the soldiers themselves are not sold on the mission.

One officer told the Statesman they were shocked by the amount of people Abbott is mobilizing in Texas, saying it doesn’t make any sense to have such large numbers deployed against the citizens they are sworn to protect.

Two National Guard members told the Statesman they have deep concerns about the scale and scope of the deployment, which dwarfs Abbott’s 1,000-troop response to protests in 2020 over George Floyd’s murder by police. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak to the media.

“I was shocked that they were mobilizing the amount of people that they were mobilizing,” one of the guardsmen, who is an officer, told the Statesman. “It doesn’t make any sense to me why we would be activated in such large numbers against the citizens we’re sworn to protect.”

Pointedly, they note that none of Texas’ major cities requested this support in response to the expected demonstrations that were scheduled before the LA anti-ICE protests, and again, have been peaceful around the country for months.

Another National Guard member thinks it reeks of advance suppression of free speech.