Month: June 2020

Politics combined with bad events too often leads to a rush to bad policy. This is not breaking news, but it is, unfortunately, too often true.  Why is that the case? 

One of the principle reasons is that we get caught up in the moment and consumed by emotion and perceptions rather than taking a deep breath and looking at the facts associated with the issue.  This article is about a little history, current events and two questions. 1) Have we in the past month redefined racism? 2) Are we consumed with emotion and ignoring the facts?

RACISM, HISTORICAL CONTEXT: General Ulysses Grant, commander of the federal forces in the Civil War, believed in abolishing slavery. He was a champion of African Americans and throughout the Civil War used his influence and leadership to assist slaves escaping from the Confederate states.  President Lincoln, a Republican, agreed with General Grant.

Although President Lincoln had previously “freed” all slaves by signing the Emancipation Proclamation, January 1863, during the siege of Richmond Virginia, the final months of the Civil War in 1865, General Grant and President Lincoln met frequently to discuss and plan for what freedom and equality should mean for the freed slaves. Their plan included the right to own property, to vote and hold office. The freed slaves would have access to all educational opportunities, public transportation and commercial activities; the rights enjoyed by every white citizen.  Black Americans would finally be aligned with the basis of our democracy guaranteed in the Constitution that “all men are created equal.” 

The Civil War ended when General Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox Court House on April the 9^th, 1865.  Five days later President Lincoln was assassinated. The vision President Lincoln and General Grant had for the freed slaves died with the President. 

Lincoln’s Vice President, Andrew Johnson, a Republican, was sworn in as president.  Johnson was a weak, indecisive president and sided with the powerful Democrat leaders in the Confederate states to restrict the freedoms for the freed slaves.  The grand Lincoln/Grant plan for post-war reconstruction never came to fruition. 

One of the darkest periods in American history, from 1868 through the early 1870s the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) functioned as a loosely organized group of political and social terrorists. The Klan’s goals included the political defeat of the Republican Party and the maintenance of absolute white supremacy in response to newly gained civil and political rights by southern blacks. Fact, THAT WAS PURE RACISM.

It is estimated that there was a KKK organization in nearly every county in the former Confederate states.  President Johnson turned a blind eye to the KKK devastation.  After becoming president in1869, Grant used US military forces to attempt to crush Klan activity in the South.  However, white supremacy gradually reasserted its hold on the South as support for Reconstruction waned; by the end of 1876, the entire South was under Democratic control once again.

At its peak in the 1920s, Klan membership exceeded 4 million people nationwide. Today the Klan’s identity is unclear and their numbers are estimated to be less than three thousand.

For a period of 99 years, from 1865 until the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Democratic party was the party of segregation.  Black Americans could not walk into a restaurant of choice, sit down and order a meal; NO BLACKS ALLOWED, the sign on the door read.  Blacks could not attend a school of choice; segregation meant 100% black/white separation in education.  Blacks could not take a seat of choice on public transportation; BLACKS SIT IN THE BACK OF THE BUS, the sign said.  WHITE ONLY WATER FOUNTAIN, the sign said. 

Racism defined:  Segregation, supported by the Democrat party for 100 years, was pure, unadulterated, unambiguous, in-your-face racism.  That was racism defined by facts.

Finally, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 made segregation illegal in all states. But the Democrat party did not relent easily; 90% of lawmakers from states that were in the Union during the Civil War supported the bill compared with less than 10% of lawmakers from states that were in the Confederacy.

Fast forward to today where we define racism and racist in a different way.  I believe we can credit Hillary Clinton for the new methodology.  On September 9th, 2016 during a presidential campaign speech, Hillary stood behind a tel-prompter and read these prepared remarks, “You could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. They’re racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic, you name it.”  In two short sentences she defamed me and about 75 million of my closest friends.  Which, by the way, many believe was the beginning of the end for her campaign. 

The lasting impact of that insane Clinton speech was to make it OK to throw around the word “racist” with complete disregard for facts to the contrary. For example, it is now proper to label all nine hundred thousand cops racist because of a very few tragic interactions between police and black men. 

When I say, “very few” I mean it.  Back to some facts.  In 2018 police, while they had an estimated 50 million official interactions with the public, killed 47 unarmed persons; 23 white, 17 black, 5 Hispanic, and 2 unknowns. 

Looking at the numbers, each of those deaths was, literally, about a one-in-a-million happenstance.  Each one was tragic, especially for family and friends, but, back to facts, we do not live in a perfect world; bad things happen.  Bad things will always happen. Case in point; On 17 June, officer Garrett Rolfe and Rayshard Brooks, according to the video tape, were having as calm, cool-headed conversation about intoxication when in an instant the situation escalated to a point wherein two men were faced off each with a “deadly weapon”, a taser and a gun.  Yes, bad things can and will happen; another one-in-a-million.  But one could reach the conclusion that one-in-a-million illustrates tremendous restraint on the part of police.  

But, you say, those 17 unarmed blacks killed by police in 2018 represent 36% of the 47 fatalities while Black-Americans make up only 13% of the population.  You are correct, BUT.  In 2018 those Black-Americans made up 53% of known homicide offenders and committed about 60% of robberies.

In the current environment, calling someone or some group racist no longer needs to be backed up by facts. It is now acceptable to put a racist label on someone you don’t even know but do it because you are angry at them for something they said or did. But what is even worse, individuals and groups are often publicly called racist for simply having differing opinions on public matters and public policy. 

Where has all of this ugly, loose, racist talk gotten us?  George Floyd died a tragic death at the hands of Minneapolis policemen. Under the new “rules” for defining racism, at warp speed, accusations were made and conclusions drawn that the Minneapolis police force is fundamentally racist.  From that incident, politicians and extremist groups across the nation came to the same conclusion about their cities’ police forces. Defund/disband them.  This is a classic example of politics combined with bad events too often leads to bad policy.

Furthermore, what has flowed on from the defund/disband policy is the conclusion that anyone who disagrees with the new policy must therefore also be a racist. Just that easily and just that quickly America became divided on another issue.  Why, because sides were drawn up based on emotion and perception vs facts. 

The racism issue is further inflamed by discussions over slavery.  Senator Tim Kane, 2016 Vice Presidential candidate, Harvard Law School graduate, emphatically exclaimed recently that, “slavery was created in the United States.”  Ergo, the US is solely to blame for racism. 

This type of inflammatory rhetoric does not pass the history test but does throw gasoline on the racism fire.  

The facts, Senator Kane, are as follows: Man’s inhumanity in the form of slavery has been one of the great travesties in the history of mankind.  Slavery has existed in almost every civilization, dating back 3500 BC. Furthermore about 600,000 Americans died in our Civil War to decide that slavery should no longer exist in the US.  President Lincoln made the ban on slavery official on January 1^st, 1863 when he signed the Emancipation Proclamation, thereby freeing all slaves.

Leftist Minnesota Governor Tim Walz declared, after a few days of protests and violence, “The sheer number of unarmed black people who are killed by police as compared to other groups reveals police brutality for what it is: systemic racism. You have to look at the systemic patterns of policing and how they disproportionately result in the deaths of Black people.”

Governor Walz statement is another prime example of emotional, fact-less rhetoric combined with politics leading to a rush to bad policy, defund/disband the police. How would that work out in Minneapolis given that car-jackings were up 45%, homicides 60%, arson 58% and burglaries 28% from January through May, 2020 compared to the same period last year

Minneapolis is not alone with respect to increasing major crimes. In San Francisco, homicides before the riots this year had increased by 19%, burglaries by 23% and arson by 39%. Philadelphia reported a 28% increase in commercial burglaries, 51% in shootings, 22% in auto theft and 28% in retail theft from last year.

Will defunding/disbanding police forces make these crime stats better? Quite the contrary.  I would expect the following to begin happening immediately.  Breaking and entering will go off the charts rapidly.  This will lead to massive new “community watch” initiatives.  Gun sales spiked more than 80 percent in May as consumers responded to safety concerns and civil unrest.

Remember Travon Martin, the 17-year old Black man who was shot and killed by a neighborhood watch volunteer, George Zimmerman.  The case was headline news for months.  Hold on to your hat because there will likely be a Martin/Zimmerman situation happening nightly across America when the police are gone, or at least in scarce numbers, or untrained resulting from lack of funds and/or unable to function under new restrictive rules of engagement. 

All this mess is application of the classic, “people are entitled to their own opinions, no matter how wrong or off base, but they aren’t entitled to their own facts.”  But as Joe Biden said, “We choose truth over facts.” In other words, what feels like the truth takes precedent over the facts.  Nice going Joe, and where has that great proclamation gotten us over the past few weeks?  I’ll tell you where; more dead people, hundreds of injured police, more hatred, tens of millions in damaged property and a little anarchy in Seattle (or, as the Seattle mayor called it, “a summer of love.”) 

If we want to be proactive and actually try to reduce the number of one-in-a-million tragic police actions, why not first look at the hot-heads, the poor performers, the anger management failures inside the police ranks and then do something about it. The police know who these malcontents are but have negotiated such ridiculous agreements with the police unions that they are nearly powerless to get them off the streets. 

The union leaders say, “The job of a union is to protect the interest of its members, at any cost.” “At any cost” translated means policemen like Officer Chauvin charged with murdering George Floyd are still on the street in spite of being investigated 17 times in 19 years for misconduct in the line of duty and only disciplined once.

I began the above discussion with two questions; 1) Have we in the past few weeks redefined racism? Yes, I believe the jury is in and they have spoken.  We do have a new definition of what racism consists of, emotion and perceptions.  2) Are we consumed with emotion and ignoring the facts? Yes, consumed by, obsessed with and led by emotion and perception.  The facts be damned. 

This overall impact of all this across the nation is?  We have for several years been consumed with a culture of hate and blame.  That just got multiplied by some factor yet to be determined.  We have made continued progress in reducing factual, in-your-face racism since outlawing segregation in 1964.  Have actions over the past few weeks, led by the “left” set us back a few years or decades?  Unfortunately, probably yes. 

Oh, and don’t forget, by some deductions I am at a loss to understand, all this mess is the fault of the Republicans!?

A final question.  What do you do when you have an emergency, call 911 and it goes to voicemail?  Think about it. 

Lieutenant General, US Army retired, Marvin L. Covault is the author of Vision to Execution, a book for leaders.

Donald Trump surprised a couple hundred million Americans in 2016 by winning the election few expected him to win.  After the fact, it became obvious that the American people wanted change.  I believe they still do.  We are sick and tired of the Washington mess; how they act, what they say, their privileged positions, what they fail to do and that they have generally lost perspective on what America is all about.

Obvious problems go unfixed, things we do not care about get an inordinate amount of attention and the constant blame and bickering is distasteful, shameful and just downright disgusting.

We are inside five months before the November elections.  What follows is a list of issues you could be looking for as you go about deciding who to vote for:

SPECIAL INTEREST MONEY:  When Special Interest Groups have an inordinate influence over our elected officials, it is bad for the nation. Look for a candidate who wants to limit special interest money flowing into politicians’ pockets or into the campaign process. 

A BALANCED BUDGET:   Future generations have a right to be protected from debts accumulated by present-day politicians.  This nation absolutely cannot sustain the levels of deficit spending (averaging more than $1 trillion per year) over the past 12 years. Look for someone who has the courage to begin a balanced budget dialogue.  Tax-and-spend is not a valid economic policy.  

SIMPLIFY LEGISLATION:  The Affordable Care Act left a bad taste in everyone’s mouth. The ACA was about 2,700 pages followed by over 20,000 pages of implementing regulations.

Legislation should be a few pages not a few hundred pages, written in understandable English, with enough specificity to preclude thousands of pages of implementing regulations prepared and enforced by hundreds or thousands of bureaucrats.

LEGISLATION, FROM THE PRESIDENT:  It is difficult to find references to legislation prepared in the Obama or Trump White House and sent to the Congress for action.  Preparing bills in the White House is the logical way for a President to lead the nation. Failing to do so delegates the task to groups of Congressional staffers from varying committees whose results then get mashed together into an illegible, illogical mess; example, Obama Care.    

PURE LEGISLATION:  Each year Senators and Representatives attach tens of thousands of earmarks that are totally unrelated to the primary Bill.  This process results in untold billions of dollars in fraud, waste and abuse. There are examples of Bills with literally hundreds of earmarks.  Earmarking may be a key reason why polls show that more than 85% of Americans disapprove of how Congress conducts itself. 

SUNSET LEGISLATION:  Milk goes bad; so do laws. Unfortunately, most laws stick around long after they have served their intended purposes.  A sunset provision should be included in every statute; It should state that the law shall cease to have effect after a specific date unless further legislative action is taken to extend the law. 

LINE-ITEM VETO:  Line-item veto is an executive authority to nullify specific provisions of a law without vetoing the entire piece of legislation.  Forty-four State Governors have some form of line-item veto power. 

While a Presidential line-item veto law was struck down by the Supreme Court in 1998, the next administration should seek new legislation in relation to an attempt to get a balanced budget amendment.  That is, in a case where the Congress could not present a balanced budget, the President would have line-item veto power. 

REMOVE ANNUAL BONUSES FOR GOVERNMENT WORKERS:   A small percentage of hard-working Americans are in a situation that will ever provide for a bonus. When we read about the hundreds of millions of dollars going to government employees in organizations that have been less than sterling (the Veterans Administration, for example), it just does not pass the smell test. 

DE-UNIONIZE GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES:  Unions came into existence for good reasons; child labor, unsanitary working environment, unsafe conditions. Over the past century those poor conditions went away with child labor laws, OSHA protection and EPA regulations. Thereafter unions set their sights on office workers. Since most office workers cannot complain about their working conditions, what has evolved is unionized protection against being an ineffective employee.  Bottom line, it is nearly impossible to fire a bad government employee. 

The overall impact of union protection is that government employees no longer believe they have to be accountable for their actions or the quality of their work in order to remain on the job. Without accountability, any organization is, at best, mediocre.

There is a lot more water to be drained in the Washington swamp, vote for someone who at least promises to try.

Lieutenant General, US Army retired, Marvin L. Covault is the author of Vision to Execution, a book for leaders.

I know, this is too long.  But a couple days ago I received an email from a highly respected former boss and long-time friend.  The use of military forces in the on-going crisis is a current question that perhaps I should attempt to answer because, he reminded me, I am the only senior commander that has done this in the past 50 years.  So, I will use Thomas Jefferson’s excuse; when finished writing a long letter to a friend, he apologized for its length, saying, “if I would have had more time it would be shorter.”

Background:  March, 1991 the nation saw, on film, five white LA police officers brutally beat a black gentleman, Rodney King. 

While all of us had viewed the taped beating over and over in great close-up detail, a year later those five white police officers were found not guilty by an all-white jury.  That verdict was announced at 3:15 p.m. 29 April, 1992 and Los Angeles erupted, most particularly in South/Central LA.  

The final tally was as follows: 55 killed, over 2000 injured, about $1 Billion dollars is damages, over 10,000 rioters were directly involved in looting and destruction, over 1000 buildings seriously damaged or destroyed, the fire department responded to more than 4000 fires. This was not taking place at 5^th and Elm street; it covered an area of about 100 square miles of built-up urban terrain; by far the most difficult terrain in which to operate.  The largest riot in US history. 

At the time I was the commander of the 7^th Infantry Division (2-star position) at Ft Ord CA about 350 miles north of LA.  7^th ID, by design, was the most rapidly deployable division in the world.  

President George H.W. Bush had already dispatched 1000 Federal riot-trained law enforcement officials, FBI SWAT teams, special riot control units of the US Marshals Service, Border Patrol, Bureau of Prisons personnel and other Federal law enforcement agencies. 

At about the 36-hour point, May the 1st at about 2 a.m. we, 7^th ID, received a call from our military higher headquarters in Atlanta, and were told, “a military force may be needed in LA but don’t do anything yet.”  Dumb order, we immediately began to plan for a rapid deployment.  Six hours later at about 0800 we received a second call, “there will be a military deployment but it will not be the 7^th ID.”  CNN was following everything related to the riots live and continuously. 

Thirty minutes later we watched President Bush, live on TV, walk into the White House Briefing Room and announce, “I have decided to deploy the 7^th ID to LA to help secure the city.” Game on.  By the next morning we had 12,000 Soldiers and Marines (from nearby Camp Pendleton) deployed in LA and I was in charge of the entire mess.  

Later on, in a meeting with President Bush, he told me he had received a phone call from his long-time friend, California Governor Pete Wilson who had told him he wanted the 7^th ID to immediately deploy to LA.  So, he said, I just went to the briefing room and made the announcement.  Everyone in the military chain of command heard it at the same time I did.  

Interestingly, the president’s words, “…deploy and help secure the city” were the first, last and only words of guidance I received zero elaboration from my three-star boss, four-star boss, Army Chief of Staff or the Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff.  Why no guidance?  Because they knew I had spent 29 years training, studying, and being mentored to be ready for that moment.  They also knew that the biggest enemy of crisis planning and execution is time.  There isn’t enough of it and they all knew the last thing I needed was someone looking over my shoulder and grading my work. 

The keys to success in dealing with a crisis are to lean on your strengths, avoid your weaknesses at all costs (to include weak leaders) and decentralize execution. 

Two hours after the president’s announcement the deployment was underway and by noon, I was on the ground in LA with a skeleton planning staff.  What became immediately apparent was that no ONE was in charge of the multitude of federal, state and local agencies involved. All I could see and sense was chaos. And most concerning was that the California National Guard was streaming into the city with no deployment plan in place.

I called back to Ft Ord and had a dozen of the Division’s best “iron majors” (experienced, mature, articulate officers) flown in the first afternoon and I assigned them as my personal liaison to the Governor, Mayor, Chief of Police Gates, Sheriff Block, Highway Patrol, all the Federal Agencies, the CA National Guard and the Marines. Before dispatching them, I looked them in the eye and told them exactly what they were to do. “You stay about 3 feet from your principal at all times and tell me everything they do, everything they say and who they communicate with. There can be only one boss of this mess and it’s me.  You understand?” 

Their first mission was to get their principal on a conference call with me that afternoon at which time I gave the participants my first deployment briefing and told them to thereafter be on a conference call with me at 8 a.m. every day wherein I would give them an overall assessment of the night’s activities and what was to be accomplished in the next 6, 12 or 24 hours.  Principals only on the conference call. The Governor was not amused about the “principals only” part and it got a little ugly but it worked. 

As if President Bush’s surprise deployment announcement at 0830 that morning wasn’t enough; he saved another one for later in the day.  At 6 p.m. CA time, President Bush presented an update briefing to the nation.  First topic of the speech was, “I have decided to Federalize the California National Guard.”  At that moment, with those words, I became the Commander of the CA National Guard and they all became federal US Army soldiers.  That was actually a blessing because we immediately took charge of their rally points, established training stations (particularly to train rules of engagement) and integrated them into the overall deployment plan. 

My purpose here is not to necessarily criticize Governors, Mayors, Police Chiefs, etc in the cities recently being burned and looted but rather to explain why it can make sense to consider deployment of federal military forces early in the crisis. 

First of all, none of the on-scene leaders, governors and mayors have years of experience in crisis-action planning or execution.  The US military does, from top to bottom.  So having a senior military leader on the scene and in charge with all the assets of the Defense Department at their disposal can be a value-added game changer. 

It became obvious the past few days watching and listening to the city and state leaders as the riots got worse and deadlier, that no ONE was in charge.  If no ONE person is in charge, no one is in charge.  If no one is in charge there is no plan. That was the situation I found in LA in 1992 and it is what became very obvious as I listened to the governors/mayors/police chiefs during the George Floyd uprising. 

From my experiences in LA in 1992, I see many advantages to the use of federal troops early. Here are some:

Mass: The US military has lots of soldiers and they can deploy rapidly to any city. I had, on the ground, over a thousand squads (9-person teams). What we have witnessed in the past few days the initial call-up of 500 National Guardsmen in Minnesota and a couple hundred Military Police from Fort Bragg to New York were tokens, too small and too ineffective.

Experienced leaders: The leaders I had in LA had years of training in crisis-action planning and execution. Governors and mayors have nothing like that available to them.

Existing operating chain of command: Never underestimate the value and power of injecting an existing, experienced entire chain of command into a crisis situation. There was no down-time, no learning-curve; we became immediately operational.  The governors/mayors had nothing like that available to them and could not put it together.

Communications:  Integral to the in-place chain of command was existing communications protocols that were utilized and practiced on a daily basis in training and transferred directly into the LA area of operations.  None of this was in place prior to our arrival which made their daily operations difficult to impossible. 

Mission:  Every leader and soldier understand “mission.” My overall mission statement to Task Force LA was to rapidly create a safe and secure environment for every citizen in LA. Just as important, that mission was picked up by the media, transmitted and understood by the millions of LA residents.  Additionally, that overarching mission was filtered down through the chain of command, increasing in specificity to every soldier so that the squad leaders were telling their soldiers that their mission was to maintain complete situational awareness of their assigned area of operation (a street corner, or city block) and be prepared to report any unusual activity and/or the gathering together of a crowd.  During recent events across America did anyone hear a mission statement.  Did we see an ever-increasing de-escalation of hostilities?  Quite the contrary.

Rapid reaction: The troops where on 18-hour shifts throughout the 100 square mile area.  Their company and battalion headquarters were nearby in schools and parks.  Every headquarters had multiple rapid-reaction forces of varying sizes who were prepared to move immediately to any area where the squad or platoon leader needed back-up.  Another capability beyond the locals reach. 

“Mission creep” are the two ugliest words in the English language.  When left to their own devices, governors/mayors/police chiefs will try a little of this first, then some of that, well that didn’t work let’s try a curfew, and so it unfolded; one failure after another until they find something that works or the looters just grow weary of their efforts.  Upon deploying throughout LA during that initial 24-hour period, we were in a forceful, dominant position.  Trial and error was not part of out game plan. 

To the contrary, what we saw over the past days across America was people dying, businesses destroyed and everyone pointing fingers at the failure of the police to gain control. Trial and error is a process but it rarely works in a crisis because time is the biggest enemy.  You don’t have enough of it (time) before the looters roll in for another night of mayhem.  I am not implying that political leaders don’t mean well and hope for the best; what I’m saying is, hope is not a process. 

Rules of engagement: Day after day during the George Floyd uprising, I could not discern the rules of engagement for the police departments.  For the US military, rules of engagement is a given. It’s one of the, “don’t leave home without it” issues.  Every soldier must have a complete and thorough understanding of ROE.

I wrote the rules of engagement on the plane in route to LA, called them back to my Chief of Staff who had the printers standing by. They were no seen by a lawyer, not presented for approval to higher authority (time is our enemy) and they also never changed.  ROE cannot be vague and ever-changing.  Before they were on the streets of LA in 1992, every soldier had a 3×5 card in his/her breast pocket that spelled out in plain, non-legalese verbiage what they could and could not do.

-No crew-served weapons (machine guns) allowed. 

-Rifle selector switches will never be set on automatic or 3-round burst mode.

-Bayonets will not be locked onto the rifle.

-Every soldier has the inherent right of self-defense. 

-No rounds chambered unless you must fire in self-defense.

-Rifle position one: no round chambered.  Magazine full and in place in the rifle. Rifle held with both hands diagonally across the chest with muzzle up (port arms).

-Rifle position two: Rifle at port arms with magazine removed and in ammo pouch.

-Rifle position three:  Rifle at sling arms, magazine removed, muzzle up. This is designed to be a less threatening posture but still, if necessary, he/she could unsling the rifle, insert a magazine, lock and load in 5 seconds or less.

-Rifle position four: Rifle at sling arms, magazine removed, muzzle down.

What were the rules of engagement in Minneapolis, New York or Washington DC?  Could the general population discern what they were?  I think not.

Managing change:  Early in the crisis we were operating in 6-hour planning cycles, then to 12, then to 24 and finally to sustainment.  As the crisis de-escalated, general orders and ROE rifle positions would be changed.  Changes would move down from ONE central source to every soldier in a matter of minutes.  Additionally, daily operational orders did not need to be one size fits all. The entire area was divided into identifiable zones that could be easily referenced with specific applicable instructions.

Unity of command is critical:  Throughout this latest crisis, the trick has been to sort out what was and was not to be done during the next day by listening to daily media pronouncements from the governor, mayor and chief of police.  No unity of command equals confusion, often chaos, and results in little if any progress.  On day eight of the rioting in NY city we saw the mayor and chief of police speaking publicly and giving conflicting guidance to the police force.

President Bush did me a tremendous favor by federalizing the CA National Guard.  Without that, unity of command would have been very difficult.

Have a clear concept of operations and TTP (tactics, techniques and procedures: The issues we used in Task Force LA were implemented quickly and effectively. Such as:

1. In LA hundreds of CA Highway Patrolmen were on the outskirts of LA waiting for orders.  We sent several cars/patrolmen to every fire station.  When called out, the patrolmen would provide escort for the firemen and immediately establish a secure perimeter with arrest authority thereby providing firemen the opportunity to do their work. 
2. Our directive to the LA police and sheriffs’ deputies was simple; make arrests, transport and process criminals.  Period. How many times in the past few days have we seen on TV several police cars with lights and sirens streaming down a street followed by one 10-passenger paddy wagon?   Wrong answer.  Put large numbers of arrested offenders into city buses along with a couple policemen who were arresting officers.  Transport them to a very large (auditorium, sports stadium) facility where the accompanying police can describe the offenses during processing.  “Processing” should take 6-8 hours; keep them off the streets.  Special attention should be given to those offenders who resisted arrest; jail cells if available.  
3. Proactive, proactive, proactive.  An experienced, coherent military force will immediately get ahead of the power curve and take the advantage away form the rioters. For example, in LA we had quick reaction forces (QRF) of varying sizes at company, battalion and brigade headquarters all over the 100 square mile area of operation.  A call from a squad leader reporting “crowd gathering” would be dealt with in minutes while the “crowd” was likely less than a dozen people vs the normal crowds of hundreds we have been seeing consistently on TV the past few days.  LA police and buses were on station with every QRF and routinely accompanies a QRF to take care of arrests. 
4. “Peaceful marches”.  They were prohibited in the afternoon because the crowd would tend to grow, linger into the evening and move towards a target area for looting. Proactively prohibit that type of behavior. 
5. Begin curfews well before dark.  The recent New York curfew beginning at 11 p.m. was pure insanity.  By then the looters have distributed their cache of weapons, bricks, clubs, etc. and have all the momentum for the remainder of the night. 
6. Manage information flow from ONE command headquarters.  I was routinely out and about LA at night.  At 8 a.m. I hosted a conference call with all the principals; governor, mayor, police chief, sheriff, etc. The intent was to provide a SitRep (situation report) of the previous night’s activities, by sector.  Then, describe for them what steps would be taken, by sector, over the next 6 or 12 or 24 hours.  That information was the SINGLE SOURCE for their use as they dealt with the media that day.  If one of them got off message, my liaison major was to contact me directly and I would deal with it. 

It was equally important to manage information up the chain of command.  I did this  by sending out a daily SITREP to my bosses.  They, in turn, may or may not have commented on it and dutifully forwarded it to the service chiefs and the JCS Chairman, Colin Powell.  When he came to LA to visit the troops, President Bush kindly told me he had the SITREP delivered to his quarters every morning at 0500 and felt comfortable that he had what he needed to know for the day ahead.    

7. Redefine the battle space.  In the 7^th Infantry Division, we trained hard every day and night to close with and destroy the enemy.  The initial priority in LA was to redefine the battlespace where the objective was to create an environment where no one would die.  It was remarkably easy.  Your soldiers are so well trained, responsible and agile of mind and body, that a chat with their squad leader about the rules of engagement was all it took.  By contrast, New York City Mayor De Blasio said, after repeated nights of looting and burning, “When outside armed forces go into communities, no good comes of it.  We have seen this for decades.” He went on to explain that, “The National Guard is not trained to handle rampant looters and violent thugs.”  Has he been living on the back side of the moon?

My intent was to develop a contrast between what ended up to be a successful, large, complex crisis undertaking in 1992 with deployed federal troops in contrast to the chaos, indecision by governors/mayors in a disastrous situation that has gone on far longer that it should.

My answer to the title question, is yes, federal military forces should be engaged in national civil disturbances crises.  

Was Task Force LA perfect?  Not by a long shot but then dealing with crisis rarely is.  Did we make mistakes?  Certainly.  But the bottom line is, once our forces deployed and got on the scene no one lost their life and the rioting, looting and burning quickly stopped. 

Lieutenant General Marvin L. Covault US Army, retired.  Author of VISION TO EXECUTION, a book for leaders.   

Our ability to legally vote and ensure that our vote is properly counted is one of the underpinnings of a successful democracy, right up there with freedom of speech. 

Is voter fraud a problem in the United States? Yes, even a small amount is a problem that should be solved.  How prevalent is voter fraud?  The correct answer is, no one knows because fraud is a crime and folks don’t go around advertising that they are breaking the law. We have choices: do nothing, take a chance that it might get exponentially worse or try to fix it.

Voter fraud is in the news right now because democrats are clamoring for a dramatic change from voting booths to mail-in voting. Their argument is that because of COVID-19 it will not be safe to assemble and vote in November. 

Is the pandemic a good enough excuse to take a chance and suddenly shift the nation to mail-in voting?  Good question, let’s take a snapshot of the current problem and then you decide. 

California:  It has been determined that 1.5 million individuals were registered even though they no longer were eligible to vote. Recently California Governor Gavin Newsom signed an order ensuring that every registered voter will receive a mail-in ballot this fall. 

Disregarding several warnings, Mr. Davis was convicted of registering his four dogs and his deceased father to vote.  Or take Mr. Lerma, an illegal alien from Mexico who voted multiple times under a false identity.  Mr. Hall was involved in a scheme with eight other individuals where they solicited hundreds of false and/or forged signatures on voter registration forms by offering homeless people $1 and/or cigarettes for their participation.

Other cases out of California include individuals who forged the signatures of voters, being paid $5 per signature.  

Voter registration rolls are notoriously inaccurate and out of date, containing the names of voters who are deceased, have moved, or otherwise have become ineligible. 

 Having thousands of ballots arriving in the mail for individuals who no longer reside at a registered address risks those ballots being stolen and voted.  

North Carolina: In 2018 in the 9th Congressional District race was overturned because of illegal vote harvesting that included altering and forging absentee ballots.

Oregon:  A survey of one county found that five percent of registered voters admitted that other people marked their ballots, and 2.4% said someone else signed their ballots.  It is suspected the actual number was much higher, given that most people would not want to admit being a party to a crime. Likely tens of thousands of mail-in ballots are being cast in Oregon by individuals other than the registered voter.

New Jersey: A candidate bribed voters with $50 payments for mail-in ballots. 

The Election Assistance Commission found that 28.3 million ballots in federal elections between 2012 and 2018 were lost or disappeared in the mail.

Virginia: An investigation found 592 examples where registrants were simultaneously registered in another state. There are about 11,600 dead people on Virginia’s voter rolls, all of whom would receive mail-in ballots if an election were held by mail.

New Mexico: The Public Interest Legal Foundation found more than 3,000 individuals registered multiple times; 1,700 registrants who are dead; 1,500 voters aged 100 or above, 64 of whom are over 120 years old. All of these supposed voters would receive mail-in ballots.

These are just a few examples of the ongoing voter fraud in America. Collecting these examples just took a few minutes on Google.  Imagine if we went state by state and searched out voting and voter registration investigations.   Absentee and mail-in ballots are the tools of choice of election fraudsters because they can operate outside the supervision of election officials, making it easier to steal, forge, or alter ballots, as well as to intimidate voters. 

Ballot harvesting is the collecting and submitting of absentee or mail-in ballots by volunteers. In California, campaigns can legally go door-to-door as often as they want and offer to collect the filled-out ballots and drop them off to election officials. Fraud comes into play when one questions the collector’s intentions. Could they be motivated to NOT deliver the ballots once they are collected?

Going entirely to by-mail elections would unwisely endanger the security and integrity of the election process, particularly if officials automatically mail absentee ballots to all registered voters without a signed, authenticated request from each voter. 

These cases demonstrate that significant election fraud does exist and, unchecked, can compromise the integrity of the entire election process. 

Speaker Pelosi’s $3 trillion Heroes Act, recently passed by the House says that states “shall permit a voter to designate any person to return a voted and sealed absentee ballot.”  In effect it would impose ballot harvesting nationwide. 

We should not revamp our voting system with a knee-jerk change/solution just because of the potential for COVID-19 still to be an issue in November.

Conclusions:  One, voter fraud in America is a problem.  Two, with a concerted effort the voter rolls and voting procedures can get cleaned up with a little common sense and attention to detail.  Three, moving the nation to mail-in voting, as a reaction to the pandemic, does not solve the kind of problems enumerated above and could well make things a lot worse leading to many contentious election results like the 9^th District in North Carolina in 2018.

Here is what could/should happen leading up to the November elections:

1.  Election fraud is a crime. The US Attorney General should put pressure on all of the State Attorneys General to get involved and clean up the mess.  State election officials appear unable or uninterested in doing so. 
2. Ban ballot harvesting across the nation.  For those who cannot go to the voting stations (military, infirmed, etc.) tighten the requirement for a signed request for an absentee ballot and do the entire process with specific due dates well ahead of election day. 
3. If we are concerned about social distancing requirements, extend voting over three days to alleviate the crush and long lines.  How could that happen?

Our Constitution (article 1, section 4) specifically gives congress the power to regulate the, “Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections.” In 1845 congress passed a federal law designating, “the first Tuesday following the first Monday in November” as the time for Federal elections.  Easy to change it with a two-sentence law passed by Congress.  “The 2020 national elections will be held 1-3 November, 2020.  No results will be released until every voting station in the nation is closed.” Period.

In the 2016 presidential election there were about 240 million eligible voters.  Only 58% of them voted.  Pathetic.  Extending the voting period from about 12 hours to 3 days could hopefully elicit more interest and a greater turnout. 

4.This is the 21^st century, everyone needs a valid ID. It is about time we stopped the nonsense of arguing about voter ID. The state DMV facilities could easily provide a valid ID for those few legal citizens who do not have a driver’s license, a passport or a federal ID.  Remember, there are over 20 million illegal aliens in the US and many of them already vote illegally. 

Lieutenant General, US Army retired, Marvin L. Covault is the author of Vision to Execution, a book for leaders.