It is important to remember that public acts of prayer do not absolve the application of selective violence especially against journalists.
A senior White House official said Trump wanted to an aggressive response in Washington D.C. to serve as an example for the rest of the country. Trump announced the plans to deploy the military in the capital city on Monday and threatened to send troops to other cities if the governors did not activate the National Guard.
The Defense Department has put together contingency plans for deploying the military if needed. Pentagon documents obtained by the AP described how soldiers from an Army division would protect the White House and other federal buildings if other law enforcement lost control of the protests.
The 82nd Airborne Division sent 715 soldiers in the Washington area on Monday and two more battalions, amounting to 1,300 soldiers, are on standby at Fort Bragg in North Carolina, according to documents obtained by the AP.
A White House official told the AP that the federal government has given all states with protests a list of National Guard resources. The official also said if governors don’t make use of all of their tools to quell a protest, they shouldn’t expect a generous response when requesting federal funds for cleanup and recovery.
thehill.com/...