Tatiana Schreiber worked as a journalist in public radio and other outlets for many years, and as an itinerant academic teaching writing and environmental studies at area colleges.
WESTMINSTER WEST-Amid the debate concerning whether our Town Meetings ought to consider resolutions on national or international issues, one topic ought to galvanize our attention.
The Vermont Air National Guard has been commandeered to serve in the Caribbean, as part of the Trump administration’s massive military buildup in the region. Most of the 158th Fighter Wing and most of its 20 F-35 jets are now in Puerto Rico.
While Congress has not been provided with any formal explanation for the buildup, the administration’s recently released National Security Strategy calls for a “Trump Corollary” to the 1823 Monroe Doctrine, aiming “to restore American preeminence in the Western Hemisphere, and to protect our homeland and our access to key geographies throughout the region.”
What could “access to key geographies” mean? Apparently, it now means control over Venezuelan oil, as the U.S. has seized two, or maybe three, tankers as I write, and our country claims that somehow Venezuelan has stolen our oil.
Does the U.S. also plan to claim the natural resources of Mexico, Central America, and South America?
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Meanwhile, our military has bombed nearly 30 boats (it’s hard to keep up with the numbers) in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific, and it has killed at least 105 people in these strikes.
The administration refers to their targets as “drug boats” without providing any evidence of drugs on board, but even if drugs were found, these boats, and the human beings on them, present no military threat to the U.S. and, as is obvious, no war has been declared.
These are extrajudicial killings and are illegal, according to numerous military law experts and international human rights law.
Yet Vermont citizens are now being asked to participate in a military incursion in the region.
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What can be done?
The group Brattleboro Common Sense has one proposal, which it has submitted to the town Selectboard, calling for the creation of a legal defense fund for soldiers who defy unlawful orders.
In addition to the practical support such a fund would provide, the proposal aims to offer moral support and remind soldiers that they have taken an “an oath of allegiance not to the president, but to the Constitution of the United States — the enduring doctrines of liberty and justice of our nation.”
This could enable individuals to be guided by law and conscience, rather than feel coerced to obey.
If a Vermont soldier from Brattleboro should decide to refuse unlawful orders, as is required by The Uniform Code of Military Justice, this fund would be available to support them. For more information about this proposal, contact BrattleboroCommonSense@gmail.com.
But to my mind, a town fund is not sufficient, given all those Vermonters who may be affected.
What else could be done? Should Town Meetings across the state take up this question? Should the Vermont Attorney General’s office sue the administration? How should Gov. Scott respond?
I don’t know the answers, but I want to raise the questions.
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Interestingly, in a Dec. 8 New York Times piece, journalist and lawyer Adam Liptak reported that just a year ago, the current U.S. Attorney General, Pam Bondi, wrote a Friend of the Court brief for a Supreme Court case in which she stated that “Military officers are required not to carry out unlawful orders.”
That was before Trump wrote that the six legislators who made just that point in a video had carried out “seditious behavior, punishable by death!”
The administration may be confused about what is legal, but it’s very clear to me that our Vermont Air National Guard is being put in grave danger, risking their own lives, the lives of countless others, and the consequences when the illegal military adventures of the Trump administration are eventually held to account.
The rest of us, standing by, are essentially complicit in these actions taken in our names.
This Voices Viewpoint was submitted to The Commons.
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