quote:

...it might be time for [Esper] to resign.

quote:

Originally posted by pianojuggler:


I wonder what Mattis would have done.

I wonder what Mattis is thinking right now.

quote:

Originally posted by wtg:

quote:

Originally posted by pianojuggler:


I wonder what Mattis would have done.

I wonder what Mattis is thinking right now.

https://www.theatlantic.com/po...litarization/612640/

quote:

Senator Lisa Murkowski, Republican of Alaska, on Thursday said she endorsed scathing criticism of President Trump’s leadership by James Mattis, the former secretary of defense, and was grappling with whether to support the president in the coming election.

Ms. Murkowski said the critique by General Mattis, in which he said that Mr. Trump had divided the nation and failed to lead amid growing protests across the country, was “necessary and overdue,” and might prod other Republicans to go public with their private concerns about the president.

“I was really thankful,” Ms. Murkowski said in comments to reporters on Capitol Hill. “I thought General Mattis’s words were true and honest and necessary and overdue.”

The comments by Ms. Murkowski, one of the few Republicans in Congress who has been willing to break with him, suggested that Mr. Trump’s response to nationwide unrest over police brutality and racial discrimination has prompted at least some members of his party to reconsider their support for him. It comes after a rare bipartisan rebuke of the president’s actions earlier this week, when he threatened to unleash the military to crack down on protests, just as police were using chemical agents and flash-bangs against demonstrators outside the White House to clear a path for him to pose outside a church.

When she saw General Mattis’s comments, Ms. Murkowski said, “I felt like perhaps we’re getting to the point where we can be more honest with the concerns that we might hold internally, and have the courage of our own convictions to speak up.”

She said she was “working as one individual to form the right words.”

Asked whether she could still support Mr. Trump in the coming election, Ms. Murkowski said: “I am struggling with it. I have struggled with it for a long time.”

quote:

Hundreds of combat soldiers with the 82nd Airborne were ordered to leave Washington, D.C, Thursday after retired generals and the nation's top officer rebuked Donald Trump over his use of the military.

Members of the elite unit had been deployed to the nation's capital to back up National Guard soldiers ordered onto the streets by Attorney General Bill Barr in a show of force.

The active duty soldiers will head back to base in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, a senior Defense official told NBC News, after Army General and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley publicly told the nation's troops to 'uphold the Constitution' and said that the National Guard was under governors' control - pointedly not the president's.

The troops spent a week at bases near the city on standby as peaceful protests turned violent in the nation’s capital with instances of looting, arson and destruction – but they were never called into D.C. to respond to the civil unrest.

While the capital is under federal control, the removal of hundreds of combat troops was a highly-visible sign that Trump had been forced into retreat on his threat to deploy soldiers under his control in protest-hit cities.

The about 200 members of the Army's 82nd Airborne division who were sent to the capital city were supposed to leave the region Wednesday night.

The order was suddenly reversed, however, after Defense Secretary Mark Esper made a visit to the White House Wednesday morning following a press conference where he attempted to distance himself from the infamous church photo-op.

The change also followed internal discussions Esper conducted at the Pentagon, Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy told the Associated Press.

It also followed a 10:00 a.m. order on Wednesday to draw down some of the 1,600 forces – including infantry members – who had been positioned outside Washington, D.C.

Trump is facing backlash for his decision to use the U.S. Military as backup against protesters following the death of George Floyd.

General Milley put himself at odds with the president in a Thursday memo where he told troops to 'defend the Constitution.’

He also asserted that the National Guard was not under federal control - as retired generals including former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis denounced the president's handling of the George Floyd protests.

Milley said in a letter to top military leaders that armed forces will continue to protect Americans’ right to ‘freedom of speech and peaceful assembly,’ as the president has called in troops to defend Washington, D.C.

'We all committed our lives to the idea that is America,' Milley hand-wrote in as an addition to the bottom of the letter. 'We will stay true to that and the American people.'

The letter represented an extraordinary public statement from the most senior U.S. military officer and was clearly directed at the Commander-in-Chief.

Coming after the words of Mattis, and two other former chairmen of the joint chiefs, it suggested serious misgivings by the military about Trump himself.

quote:

In rare public comments, the former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Ret. Gen. Martin Dempsey condemned Trump's threat to use military force to suppress nationwide protests as "dangerous" and "very troubling," in an interview with NPR on Thursday.

"The idea that the president would take charge of the situation using the military was troubling to me," Gen. Dempsey said.

quote:

The retired general said military involvement should be reserved for "conflict in external wars."

"The idea that the military would be called in to dominate and to suppress what, for the most part, were peaceful protests — admittedly, where some had opportunistically turned them violent — and that the military would somehow come in and calm that situation was very dangerous to me," he said.

quote:

Donald Trump’s former Chief of Staff John Kelly said Friday he agrees with former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis’s criticism of the president’s hostility toward protests against police brutality.

Kelly said he sides with Mattis’s view that Trump shouldn’t have threatened the use of active-duty troops to quell protests that have turned violent in some cities.

“I agree with him,” Kelly said during a virtual panel discussion with Anthony Scaramucci, the president’s former communications director. Kelly also said elected leaders need to represent “all of their constituents,” not merely their base.

“I think we need to look harder at who we elect,” said Kelly, who left the White House in January 2019. “I think we should look at people that are running for office and put them through the filter: What is their character like? What are their ethics?”

Kelly also said he had observed that over time, every relationship between Trump and his senior staffers “begins to deteriorate.”

Kelly said police should be responsible for ending violent protests. “These are civilian responsibilities,” Kelly said. “We should be very, very careful before we contemplate sending in active duty.”

quote:

When asked by Scaramucci whether he agreed with Trump's assertion that he's "a very stable genius," Kelly took a pregnant pause.

"Um, he's — what's a genius? I don't know what that is," Kelly said. "He is — as I say, when I was there working the staff process, more often than not he didn't like the recommendations. More often than not he followed the recommendations of the staff, of the Cabinet.

"But I don't think I should comment on — I'm not qualified to comment on stable or unstable or whatever."

quote:

Originally posted by wtg:
Waiting for the visits to a synagogue, mosque, and Buddhist and Hindu temples....

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Ten days after leaving the White House with President Trump and walking with him across a park that had been forcibly cleared of protesters, the nation's most senior military officer is calling that excursion "a mistake."

"I should not have been there," Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, declared Thursday in a video message to graduating officers at the National Defense University. "My presence in that moment and in that environment created a perception of the military involved in domestic politics."

Milley has drawn pointed criticism from retired military officers not only for accompanying the president in what turned out to be a staged photo-op in front of a boarded-up St. John's Church, but for having done so dressed in baggy battle fatigues. The four-star Army general appeared to express regret for that, as well.

"We who wear the cloth of our nation come from the people of our nation, and we must hold dear the principle of an apolitical military that is so deeply rooted in the very essence of our republic," Milley said in the commencement address. "And this is not easy."

Milley, whom Trump chose last year to hold the military's highest rank, also admonished the graduating class of commissioned officers to embrace the U.S. Constitution.

"The freedoms guaranteed to us in the Constitution allow people to demand change, just as the peaceful protesters are doing all across the country," he said. "As you graduate today, reflect on what you have witnessed over the past two and a half weeks — what it means to all of us as Americans, and what it means to you and I, as leaders."

quote:

Originally posted by wtg:

quote:

Senator Lisa Murkowski, Republican of Alaska, on Thursday said she endorsed scathing criticism of President Trump’s leadership by James Mattis, the former secretary of defense, and was grappling with whether to support the president in the coming election.

Ms. Murkowski said the critique by General Mattis, in which he said that Mr. Trump had divided the nation and failed to lead amid growing protests across the country, was “necessary and overdue,” and might prod other Republicans to go public with their private concerns about the president.

“I was really thankful,” Ms. Murkowski said in comments to reporters on Capitol Hill. “I thought General Mattis’s words were true and honest and necessary and overdue.”

The comments by Ms. Murkowski, one of the few Republicans in Congress who has been willing to break with him, suggested that Mr. Trump’s response to nationwide unrest over police brutality and racial discrimination has prompted at least some members of his party to reconsider their support for him. It comes after a rare bipartisan rebuke of the president’s actions earlier this week, when he threatened to unleash the military to crack down on protests, just as police were using chemical agents and flash-bangs against demonstrators outside the White House to clear a path for him to pose outside a church.

When she saw General Mattis’s comments, Ms. Murkowski said, “I felt like perhaps we’re getting to the point where we can be more honest with the concerns that we might hold internally, and have the courage of our own convictions to speak up.”

She said she was “working as one individual to form the right words.”

Asked whether she could still support Mr. Trump in the coming election, Ms. Murkowski said: “I am struggling with it. I have struggled with it for a long time.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/0...ki-mattis-trump.html