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Former Secretary of Defense James Mattis speaking publicly, criticizing Trump over handling the protests |
Former defense minister Mattis criticizes Trump
Or the first time since he left the Trump administration 18 months ago, former Secretary of Defense James Mattes broke his silence about the president's performance. On Wednesday, he issued a scathing statement criticizing Donald Trump's handling of the country's recent turmoil by being ineffective, serving himself and unconstitutional.
"Donald Trump is the first president in my life who doesn't try to unite the American people - and doesn't even pretend to try. Mattis says he's instead trying to divide us." We're seeing the consequences of three years of this deliberate effort. "
After his two-year term as Pentagon chief that ended in December 2018, Mattis did his best to avoid questions about Trump's behavior. He says what motivated him to speak now is Trump's tendency to use active duty forces to quell the violent unrest that has erupted across the country since the death of George Floyd, an unarmed black man, last week in Minneapolis police custody.
At the White House Rose Garden on Monday, Trump said he ordered every governor to “deploy the National Guard in sufficient numbers to take control of the streets,” and if local leaders did not take such steps, then I would do the deployment of the United States Army and quickly solve the problem for them. ”Then he sent officers Law enforcement to clear Lafayette Park outside the White House of over a thousand protesters with pepper balls, rubber bullets and police officers swinging riot shields.
Administration officials marched through the park before Trump stopped in front of the St. John's Parish Parish, which was vandalized the night before when protesters set fire to the basement. He stood up to the photos and asked his aides, including Defense Secretary Mark Esber and General Mark Millie, who is chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to join. In the eyes of many critics of the administration, the two men became "props" in a photograph, which had long threatened the military's reputation for impartiality.
Making it personal, Mattis called for more than 40 years in the Marine Corps, when he retired as a four-star general in 2014. "When I joined the army, about 50 years ago, I swore an oath to support and defend the constitution," he says. "I never dreamed that the forces taking the oath would under any circumstances order a violation of the constitutional rights of their citizens - let alone present a strange image of the elected commander-in-chief, with a military leadership standing by."
Mattis says he "saw the events of this week that unfolded with anger and terror." He said that the protesters are calling for equal justice for Floyd’s death while the Trump administration was wrong. "We don't need to militarize our response to the protests," Mattis said. "We need to unite around a common goal. It starts with ensuring that we are all equal before the law."
About 1,600 working soldiers from Fort Bragg, North Carolina and Fort Drum, New York have been admitted to the area surrounding District of Columbia in recent days. Law enforcement is not a task that some soldiers are trained or equipped to do. For example, the 82nd Airborne Division sent soldiers to the Washington area on Monday night, as part of a so-called "Immediate Response Force". The unit, which, like others, is on standby waiting to be called up, consists of active infantry fighting forces trained to kill enemies in a combat zone, not the streets of the police city.
Mattis left the administration after Trump's sudden decision to withdraw 2,200 soldiers fighting ISIS in Syria. For Mattis, the withdrawal was giving up a key ally, the Syrian Democratic Forces, a militia made up of Kurdish and Arab fighters that was so important in the four-year war against ISIS. It was the end of a turbulent career as defense minister, much of which was spent trying to link the needle between implementing Trump's policy goals and preserving old American principles.
Since then, the president has mocked Matisse, calling him the "most overrated general in the world" in October 2019. A month ago, during an hour-long sitting interview with TIME, Matisse said he had a "duty" to remain silent but vowed to speak at the right time.