The next national crisis: Trump versus veterans at Standing Rock

Keith Croes
2 min readFeb 1, 2017

Here’s the deal: The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has been ordered to issue a final permit for the Dakota Access pipeline easement. Meanwhile, Standing Rock Sioux Chairman Dave Archambault has renewed the tribe’s vow to fight the easement in court.

Let’s say federal authorities prevail over the Native Americans, as if that never happened before. I believe that plenty of veterans could be mustered for Round 2 of this critical face-off that heretofore has enjoyed niggardly attention from mainstream media.

Vets and Native Americans at Standing Rock: Coming soon, the Most Holy Hell American Army in history.

Sometime this summer, probably, it could very well be Donald J. Trump versus U.S. veterans linking arms with Native Americans. And the Trump family, at least, may still have financial interest in the corporations whose goals stand in opposition to the Most Holy Hell American Army ever to assemble in defense of an American cause.

Clausewitz, a Prussian general whose work underpins much military theory to the present time, once talked about “centers of gravity.” One report on Clausewitz’s ideas in this regard includes this passage:

“Centers of gravity are the characteristics, capabilities, or locations from which a military force derives its freedom of action, physical strength, or will to fight. At the strategic level, centers of gravity might include a military force, an alliance, a set of critical capabilities or functions, or national strategy itself.”

Carl von Clausewitz: Can defeat you while nattily dressed.

Standing Rock is a center of gravity. This new Holy Hell American Army has the characteristics, capabilities, locations, physical strength, and will to fight, and will take the form of a national strategy itself. A strategy pitted directly against the new Trump Administration and corporate American interests.

Watch and learn. Clausewitz was sort of weird looking and wore funny clothes. But he’s calling this shot, and the world will hear it.

Originally published at kcroes.wordpress.com on February 1, 2017.

--

--

Keith Croes

Freelance journalist, writer, and editor. Author of the Fantasy Crow trilogy of sci-fi/fantasy short stories.