General discontent: how the president's military men turned on Trump [View all]

[nitpicker]

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/oct/18/generals-donald-trump-military-criticism

General discontent: how the president's military men turned on Trump

Ed Pilkington in New York

Fri 18 Oct 2019 19.18 BST Last modified on Fri 18 Oct 2019 19.50 BST

Four-star US generals and admirals are a taciturn bunch: they measure their words, qualify their statements and guard their silence out of loyalty to the armed forces and to their country.

Not this week.

A torrent of raw military condemnation has been unleashed on Donald Trump, with some of the most respected figures among retired military leaders lining up to express their profound disapproval of their commander-in-chief.

The outpouring was exceptional, both for the sheer number who unloaded on the president and for the unrestrained language in which they put it. The most breathtaking words came from William McRaven, a former commander of US special operations command who oversaw the 2011 raid that killed Osama bin Laden.

In an opinion article in the New York Times, McRaven accused Trump of spreading “frustration, humiliation, anger and fear” through the armed forces and of championing “despots and strongmen” while abandoning US allies. The four-star admiral called for Trump to either shape up or ship out of the White House.
(snip)

The new sense of license to criticize Trump among military leaders originated with the president’s highly contentious decision last week to pull US troops from northern Syria. The sudden move has paved the way for a Turkish invasion that has put a prominent US ally in the fight against Isis, the Syrian Kurds, in mortal danger.

Several US generals and admirals expressed their disgust and bewilderment at Trump’s decision. Adm James Stavridis, former supreme allied commander of Nato, told MSNBC that it was a “geopolitical mistake of near epic proportion”. He said its long-term impact would be to cast doubt on the reliability of the US as an ally.

“It’s hard to imagine how one could, in a single stroke, re-enable Isis, elevate Iran, allow Vladimir Putin the puppet master to continue his upward trajectory and simultaneously put war criminal chemical-weapon user Bashar al-Assad in the driving seat in Syria.”

On the same channel, the former four-star general and battlefield commander in the Gulf, Barry McCaffrey, said the Syrian withdrawal was “inexplicable”.
(snip)

Trump’s former national security adviser, HR McMaster, agreed that the decision would destabilize the region and intensify the Syrian civil war.
(snip)