 |
| Trump and Mattis |
This week, former Secretary of Defense retired Marine Corps General James Mattis spoke out against President Trump's threat to deploy militarized force against Americans peacefully protesting as part of their rights as guaranteed in the first amendment to the Constitution.
In in op-ed for Foreign Policy and statement for other media outlets, Mattis wrote, "We do not need to militarize our response to protests. We need to unite around a common purpose. And it starts by guaranteeing that all of us are equal before the law." Protests throughout the United States and overseas are in the wake of the death of George Floyd, an African American, highlighting the need for greater equality and systemic police reforms.
Mattis joins a chorus of voices of respected leaders who are speaking out against misuse of the military and abuse of power by the commander in chief and his key staff.
Trump –– along with his attorney general, secretary of defense and chairman of joint chiefs –– directed force be used to attack and remove peaceful protestors in and near Lafayette Park June 1 so the president could pose for pictures while holding a bible. Last week, Trump tweeted, "...Any difficulty and we will assume control but, when the looting starts, the shooting starts."
Prior to the photo-op, Trump spoke at the White House and threatened to "deploy the United States military" if mayors and governors didn't take brutal action to "dominate the streets." "As we speak," he said, "I am dispatching thousands and thousands of heavily armed soldiers, military personnel, and law enforcement officers to stop the rioting, looting, vandalism, assaults, and the wanton destruction of property."
Earlier in the day Trump held a phone call with governors in which he said, "General Milley is here, who's head of joint chiefs of staff, a fighter, a warrior, had a lot of victories and no losses ... And I just put him in charge." SECDEF Esper then told the governors, "We need to dominate the battle space."
In his op-ed, "In Union There Is Strength," Mattis wrote: "We must reject any thinking of our cities as a 'battlespace' that our uniformed military is called upon to 'dominate.' At home, we should use our military only when requested to do so, on very rare occasions, by state governors. Militarizing our response, as we witnessed in Washington, D.C., sets up a conflict —a false conflict — between the military and civilian society. It erodes the moral ground that ensures a trusted bond between men and women in uniform and the society they are sworn to protect, and of which they themselves are a part."
His statement comes on the heels of a similar statement by former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff retired Navy Admiral Mike Mullen, published by The Atlantic the day after the incident in Lafayette Park. In an essay titled "I Cannot Remain Silent," Mullen wrote: "Our fellow citizens are not the enemy, and must never become so."
Mullen, a respected military leader, served as CNO and then as CJCS under both President George W. Bush and President Obama.
Mullen wrote, in part: "While no one should ever condone the violence, vandalism, and looting that has exploded across our city streets, neither should anyone lose sight of the larger and deeper concerns about institutional racism that have ignited this rage ... We must, as citizens, address head-on the issue of police brutality and sustained injustices against the African American community. We must, as citizens, support and defend the right—indeed, the solemn obligation—to peacefully assemble and to be heard. These are not mutually exclusive pursuits. And neither of these pursuits will be made easier or safer by an overly aggressive use of our military, active duty or National Guard."
Mullen’s successor as Joint Chiefs chairman, Army Gen. (ret.) Martin Dempsey, tweeted this week, “America is not a battleground. Our fellow citizens are not the enemy. #BeBetter.” Also speaking out on Twitter were retired Gen. Michael Hayden, former director of the CIA and NSA, and retired Gen. Tony Thomas, former head of Special Operations Command.
This morning, Adm. William H. McRaven, who served as the ninth commander of the United States Special Operations Command (2011-2014), spoke out on the "Morning Joe" show: “I was very pleased to see Jim Mattis, and obviously Adm. Mike Mullen, and today John Kelly come out and reinforce what we know to be the principles of the U.S. military,” McRaven said. “We all raise our right hand and swear an oath to the Constitution of the United States, it is not to the president of the United States, it is to the Constitution.”
“When you are in the military, there are three criteria for every decision we make: it has to be moral, legal and ethical,” McRaven said. “Ethical –– you have to follow the rules, legal –– you have to follow the law, and then moral –– you have to follow what you know to be right. And either way, that’s just not right.”
“You’re not going to use, whether it’s the military, or the National Guard, or law enforcement, to clear peaceful American citizens for the president of the United States to do a photo op,” McRaven said. “There is nothing morally right about that.”
Marine Corps General (ret.) John Allen, former commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, wrote in Foreign Policy this week, "To even the casual observer, Monday was awful for the United States and its democracy. The president's speech (calling for military deployment on American streets) was calculated to project his abject and arbitrary power, but he failed to project any of the higher emotions or leadership desperately needed in every quarter of this nation during this dire moment."
Among other leaders of character who are standing up and expressing their outrage about the events of June 1 is Steven J. Lepper, a retired Air Force major general, who served as Deputy Legal Counsel to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Lepper wrote a thoughtful piece for The Hill about issuing and following unlawful orders and preventing misuse of the military.
"Even before Monday," Lepper writes, "(Trump) has spent much of his time lavishing praise on the military, hailing himself as its savior, or pandering to it in ways that many have found embarrassing and, in some cases, abhorrent. Rather than treating the military as the professional organization it is and the element of national power it was intended to be, he seems to want it to be his friend. How else can anyone explain why he pardoned three accused American war criminals? By his own admission, he sought to shield these men — and, by extension, the rest of the military — from accountability on the battlefield. His 'I got your back' message was actually a slap in the face of every military professional who knows that right and wrong exist in combat."
Former defense secretaries Leon Panetta, Ash Carter and Chuck Hagel joined 86 other former Pentagon leaders in an open letter published in the Washington Post today. Yesterday, former SECDEF William Perry tweeted, "I am outraged at the deplorable behavior of our President and Defense Secretary Esper, threatening to use American military forces to suppress peaceful demonstrators exercising their constitutional rights. This is a deeply shameful moment for our nation."
Navy Admiral (ret.) James Stavridis, former NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe, wrote an essay for Time, saying, "The sweeping use of a combined civil-military force – D.C. police, Park Police, National Guard, and active duty military police – against the protesters to clear the way for a Presidential photo-op was beyond the pale of American norms. It was particularly ill-advised to include active duty military personnel in that event."
As usual, Stavridis puts recent events in the context of history: "Our founding fathers feared the use of a standing army that could be used to further the aims of a dictator."
"Our active duty military must remain above the fray of domestic politics, and the best way to do that is to keep that force focused on its rightful mission outside the United States," Stavridis writes. "Our senior active duty military leaders must make that case forcefully and directly to national leadership, speaking truth to power in uncomfortable ways. They must do this at the risk of their career. I hope they will do so, and not allow the military to be dragged into the maelstrom that is ahead of us, and which will likely only accelerate between now and November. If they do not stand and deliver on this vital core value, I fear for the soul of our military and all of the attendant consequences. We cannot afford to have a future Lafayette Square end up looking like Tiananmen Square."
In the book, "Civilian Control of the Military: Theory and Cases from Developing Countries," ed. by Claude E. Welch Jr. (State University of New York Press, Albany 1976), Welch warns against using the military in domestic civilian affairs. "Domestic violence tries the loyalty of the military to the government." Steps must be taken, he says, to "foster restraint on the part of civilian leaders."
The book opens with advice from nearly two hundred years ago. General Maria von Clausewitz wrote that war is an instrument of state policy by an armed force created by the state, in our nation's case by "we, the people." Clausewitz writes what Welch calls "perhaps the strongest justification for civilian control over the military:
Mattis's op-ed, like Mullen's and Stavridis's, leans heavily on history: "Instructions given by the military departments to our troops before the Normandy invasion reminded soldiers that "The Nazi slogan for destroying us...was 'Divide and Conquer.' Our American answer is 'In Union there is Strength.' We must summon that unity to surmount this crisis—confident that we are better than our politics."
Mattis concludes, "We can come through this trying time stronger, and with a renewed sense of purpose and respect for one another. The pandemic has shown us that it is not only our troops who are willing to offer the ultimate sacrifice for the safety of the community. Americans in hospitals, grocery stores, post offices, and elsewhere have put their lives on the line in order to serve their fellow citizens and their country. We know that we are better than the abuse of executive authority that we witnessed in Lafayette Square. We must reject and hold accountable those in office who would make a mockery of our Constitution. At the same time, we must remember Lincoln's 'better angels,' and listen to them, as we work to unite."
In his op-ed, "In Union There Is Strength," Mattis wrote: "We must reject any thinking of our cities as a 'battlespace' that our uniformed military is called upon to 'dominate.' At home, we should use our military only when requested to do so, on very rare occasions, by state governors. Militarizing our response, as we witnessed in Washington, D.C., sets up a conflict —a false conflict — between the military and civilian society. It erodes the moral ground that ensures a trusted bond between men and women in uniform and the society they are sworn to protect, and of which they themselves are a part."
 |
| Mullen |
Mullen, a respected military leader, served as CNO and then as CJCS under both President George W. Bush and President Obama.
Mullen wrote, in part: "While no one should ever condone the violence, vandalism, and looting that has exploded across our city streets, neither should anyone lose sight of the larger and deeper concerns about institutional racism that have ignited this rage ... We must, as citizens, address head-on the issue of police brutality and sustained injustices against the African American community. We must, as citizens, support and defend the right—indeed, the solemn obligation—to peacefully assemble and to be heard. These are not mutually exclusive pursuits. And neither of these pursuits will be made easier or safer by an overly aggressive use of our military, active duty or National Guard."
Mullen’s successor as Joint Chiefs chairman, Army Gen. (ret.) Martin Dempsey, tweeted this week, “America is not a battleground. Our fellow citizens are not the enemy. #BeBetter.” Also speaking out on Twitter were retired Gen. Michael Hayden, former director of the CIA and NSA, and retired Gen. Tony Thomas, former head of Special Operations Command.
 |
| McRaven and Ash Carter |
“When you are in the military, there are three criteria for every decision we make: it has to be moral, legal and ethical,” McRaven said. “Ethical –– you have to follow the rules, legal –– you have to follow the law, and then moral –– you have to follow what you know to be right. And either way, that’s just not right.”
 |
| Allen |
Marine Corps General (ret.) John Allen, former commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, wrote in Foreign Policy this week, "To even the casual observer, Monday was awful for the United States and its democracy. The president's speech (calling for military deployment on American streets) was calculated to project his abject and arbitrary power, but he failed to project any of the higher emotions or leadership desperately needed in every quarter of this nation during this dire moment."
Among other leaders of character who are standing up and expressing their outrage about the events of June 1 is Steven J. Lepper, a retired Air Force major general, who served as Deputy Legal Counsel to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Lepper wrote a thoughtful piece for The Hill about issuing and following unlawful orders and preventing misuse of the military.
 |
| Lepper |
Former defense secretaries Leon Panetta, Ash Carter and Chuck Hagel joined 86 other former Pentagon leaders in an open letter published in the Washington Post today. Yesterday, former SECDEF William Perry tweeted, "I am outraged at the deplorable behavior of our President and Defense Secretary Esper, threatening to use American military forces to suppress peaceful demonstrators exercising their constitutional rights. This is a deeply shameful moment for our nation."
 |
| Panetta and Stavridis |
As usual, Stavridis puts recent events in the context of history: "Our founding fathers feared the use of a standing army that could be used to further the aims of a dictator."
"Our active duty military must remain above the fray of domestic politics, and the best way to do that is to keep that force focused on its rightful mission outside the United States," Stavridis writes. "Our senior active duty military leaders must make that case forcefully and directly to national leadership, speaking truth to power in uncomfortable ways. They must do this at the risk of their career. I hope they will do so, and not allow the military to be dragged into the maelstrom that is ahead of us, and which will likely only accelerate between now and November. If they do not stand and deliver on this vital core value, I fear for the soul of our military and all of the attendant consequences. We cannot afford to have a future Lafayette Square end up looking like Tiananmen Square."
In the book, "Civilian Control of the Military: Theory and Cases from Developing Countries," ed. by Claude E. Welch Jr. (State University of New York Press, Albany 1976), Welch warns against using the military in domestic civilian affairs. "Domestic violence tries the loyalty of the military to the government." Steps must be taken, he says, to "foster restraint on the part of civilian leaders." The book opens with advice from nearly two hundred years ago. General Maria von Clausewitz wrote that war is an instrument of state policy by an armed force created by the state, in our nation's case by "we, the people." Clausewitz writes what Welch calls "perhaps the strongest justification for civilian control over the military:
"The subordination of the political point of view to the military would be contrary to common sense, for policy has declared the war; it is the intelligent faculty, war only the instrument, and not the reverse. The subordination of the military point of view to the political is, therefore, the only thing which is possible."Welch says that, in order to sustain civilian control over the armed forces, "Civilian politicians should follow policies of restraint in periods of domestic crisis." Policing should be left to police, including to quell the relatively few unfortunate violent and destructive acts in some cities. Also, Americans are smart enough to realize both: (1) the vast majority of law enforcement people are good and often heroic, and (2) due to systemic problems, there needs to be a fundamental reshaping of how "protect and serve" is carried out.
 |
| Mattis |
Mattis concludes, "We can come through this trying time stronger, and with a renewed sense of purpose and respect for one another. The pandemic has shown us that it is not only our troops who are willing to offer the ultimate sacrifice for the safety of the community. Americans in hospitals, grocery stores, post offices, and elsewhere have put their lives on the line in order to serve their fellow citizens and their country. We know that we are better than the abuse of executive authority that we witnessed in Lafayette Square. We must reject and hold accountable those in office who would make a mockery of our Constitution. At the same time, we must remember Lincoln's 'better angels,' and listen to them, as we work to unite."
No comments:
Post a Comment