Opinion| Carmine Sabia| This is getting frightening. One of President Donald Trump’s top military advisors and a top general has stabbed the president in the back.
After outrage from Democrats about the president’s photo at the St. John’s Episcopal Church last week, General Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has apologized for being there.
“As many of you saw the result of the photograph of me in Lafayette Square last week, that sparked a national debate about the role of the military in civil society,” he said.
“I should not have been there. My presence in that moment, and in that environment, created a perception of the military involved in domestic politics.
“As a commissioned, uniformed officer, it was a mistake that I have learned from and I sincerely hope we can all learn from it.’
“We who wear the cloth of our nation come from the people of our nation. We must hold dear the principle of an apolitical military that is so deeply rooted in the very essence of our republic,” he said.
He has also made statements supporting, what he and others call, racial justice since protests on police brutality have swept the nation.
His comments come around the same time former Vice President Joe Biden threatened to use the military to remove President Trump from the White House.
“It’s my greatest concern, my single greatest concern. This president is going to try to steal this election,” Biden said on “The Daily Show.”
“This is a guy who said that all mail-in ballots are fraudulent – direct voting by mail – while he sits behind the desk in Oval Office and writes his mail-in ballot to vote in the primary,” he said.
Biden said that his campaign attorneys are prepared to step in if need be to fight for the mail in ballots.
He said he was frightened that President Trump would refuse to leave the White House if he were to be defeated.
And he said that he was thrilled with the generals who have spoken against the president since the riots have happened in the United States.
“I was so damn proud. You have four chiefs of staff coming out and ripping the skin off Trump,” the former vice president said.
“And you have so many rank and file military personnel saying: Whoa. We’re not a military state. This is not who we are.
“I promise you – I am absolutely convinced they will escort him from the White House with great dispatch,” he said.
That is a terrifying possibility and it brings fears of a military coup de tat of the President of the United States by the Democrats.
And it is even more terrifying when you consider that General James Mattis is one of the people who spoke against the president.
““I have watched this week’s unfolding events, angry and appalled,” he said. “The words ‘Equal Justice Under Law’ are carved in the pediment of the United States Supreme Court.
“This is precisely what protesters are rightly demanding. It is a wholesome and unifying demand—one that all of us should be able to get behind. We must not be distracted by a small number of lawbreakers.
“The protests are defined by tens of thousands of people of conscience who are insisting that we live up to our values—our values as people and our values as a nation.” He said. “We must reject and hold accountable those in office who would make a mockery of our Constitution.”
