Making sense of the idea to defend the Constitution and refusing orders through a historical lens

When Michigan Senator Elissa Slotkin and several other members of Congress went public with a video urging current US soldiers to refuse orders to be deployed in US cities, the Trump Administration pushed back and called them traitors.

Trump’s response was predictable, but what I want to examine is the message that Senator Slotkin and her colleagues made and how to make sense of it with the history of US military deployments both domestically and at the international level.

Yesterday I posted an article that deconstructed a meme claiming that the US Constitution was the handbook for anti-fascists. I stated that saying the US Constitution is the handbook for antifa is both insulting and absurd. In fact, I would argue that the US Constitution is antithetical to anti-fascism.

However, for the sake of argument, if we follow what Senator Slotkin and her colleagues  were stating, that US soldiers have an obligation to disobey orders to deploy because it has nothing to do with defending the US Constitution, then let’s examine that claim.

First, it must be stated that US soldiers from the Revolutionary war and right up to the present have refused orders, primarily because they believed that what the US military was doing was unjust and had nothing to do with democracy.

In Robert Fantina’s book, Desertion and the American Soldier: 1776-2006, he documents that there have been thousands of US soldiers who have refused orders or deserted after a war had begun for a variety of reasons. Most people are familiar with the number of US citizens that refused the draft into Vietnam War, along with the large number of US soldiers that refused orders in the midst of that war. Some excellent resources for understanding draft resistance and Vietnam GIs who resisted being part of plans to murder Vietnamese communities can be found in David Cortright’s book, Soldiers in Revolt: GI Resistance During the Vietnam War, along with the powerful documentary Sir, No Sir.

Second, we could start by looking at Senator Slotkin’s time in the CIA during the US invasion and occupation of Iraq. The US claimed that Iraq had Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs), specifically nuclear capability, as the pretext for the US invasion/occupation in 2003. Those claims were false, but even if they were true, did the US have the right to invade and occupy Iraq? The United Nations didn’t support the US invasion/occupation, so why didn’t Elissa Slotkin refuse orders to be part of that military operation? The US invasion/occupation of Iraq had nothing to do with defending the US Constitution or bringing democracy to that country.

Third, I would argue that most US military actions have had little or nothing to do with defending the US Constitution, let alone having a just and moral purpose. There is an excellent chronological online resource put together by Zoltan Grossman, which begins with the US Military massacre at Wounded Knee in 1890 and goes pretty much up to the present. Here are just a few examples:

• 1890 – US military kills 300 Native Americans at Wounded Knee, mostly shooting them in the back while they were attempting to run away from US soldiers.
• 1898 – US sent troops to Puerto Rico, kicked out the Spanish and have occupied that island ever since. Many Puerto Ricans consider their country to be a US colony.
• 1914 through 1918 – the US military engages in several different interventions in Mexico in opposition to Mexicans who were involved in a revolution, such as attacking Poncho Villa’s army in the northern part of Mexico.
• 1932 – US war ships were sent to El Salvador to suppress a labor and political revolt against the oligarchs.
• 1943 – US troops deployed to Detroit to put down a Black-led rebellion.
• 1953 – the CIA plotted and executed a coup in Iran because the Iranian government nationalized its oil.
• 1965 – the CIA assisted the Indonesian army in a military coup.
• 1973 – CIA coup in Chile to out the democratically elected Allende government.
• 1989 – US military bombs Panama to remove Manuel Noriega, a long-time CIA asset, killing some 2,000 civilians.

Again, these US military interventions has nothing to do with defending the US Constitution or promoting democracy.

Now, I agree with Senator Slotkin that US soldiers should refuse orders to be deployed to US cities. US soldiers have no business being involved in domestic affairs. However, I believe that there have been few examples of US soldiers being deployed anywhere in the world that was for just reasons or for the claim that they are defending the US Constitution.

Where was Senator Slotkin and her colleagues when it came time to denounce US complicity in Israel’s genocide of the Palestinians? Why did Senator Slotkin and her colleagues vote in favor of US military aid to Israel while they have been committing a genocide? I would argue that their call to US soldiers to disobey orders has more to do to with what the Trump Administration is doing and has little to do with the awful harm and carnage of US troops being deployed around the world.

If you want to explore this history of US interventions, I invite you to sign up for my class on the History of US Foreign Policy since WWII.