General Mark Milley letter to Donald Trump: You are causing significant damage to our country

This opinion editorial published by the San Antonio Express, Texas, editorial board describes one of the most dangerous moments in the failed Trumpzi administration:  

"Trump is nuts" political cartoon published in The Week

.

General Mark Milley’s unsent letter* of resignation should haunt us all.

General Mark A. Milley is the 20th Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the nation’s highest-ranking military officer, and the principal military advisor to the President, Secretary of Defense, and National Security Council.

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff penned the note in June 2020, following the disgraceful Lafayette Square episode — when the general, dressed in fatigues, escorted then-President Donald Trump after police violently cleared peaceful protesters from the area.

That day he’d failed what he later realized “was the biggest test of his career,” according to a blistering New Yorker article that included his full draft resignation. (August 15, 2022, by Susan B. Glasser and Peter Baker.) 

In 500 words of frank language anchored by the Constitution and references to the World War II generation, the country’s most senior military officer outlined how the former president’s behavior tarnished the nation’s most fundamental principles.

U.S. Army General and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley

Milley wrote that he believed Trump “made a concerted effort over time to politicize the United States military” and was “using the military to create fear in the minds of the people.”

Those two allegations alone are damning, but the general continued.

“All men and women are created equal, no matter who you are,” he wrote. “It’s obvious to me that you don’t hold those values dear and the cause that I serve.”

That someone, especially the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, would have to articulate such points to the commander in chief is absurd and a sad wake-up call for the nation.

He wrote Trump was “ruining the international order, and causing significant damage to our country overseas.”

Milley concluded Trump didn’t understand what the U.S. was fighting in World War II: “In fact, you subscribe to many of the principles that we fought against.”

His resignation — or the fact that if he was fired, all the Joint Chiefs would’ve resigned— could’ve created a Constitutional crisis. Just imagine a nation in even deeper turmoil.

*General Milley's unsent letter of resignation:

I regret to inform you that I intend to resign as your Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Thank you for the honor of appointing me as senior ranking officer. The events of the last couple weeks have caused me to do deep soul-searching, and I can no longer faithfully support and execute your orders as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. It is my belief that you were doing great and irreparable harm to my country. I believe that you have made a concerted effort over time to politicize the United States military. I thought that I could change that. I’ve come to the realization that I cannot, and I need to step aside and let someone else try to do that.

Second, you are using the military to create fear in the minds of the people—and we are trying to protect the American people. I cannot stand idly by and participate in that attack, verbally or otherwise, on the American people. The American people trust their military and they trust us to protect them against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and our military will do just that. We will not turn our back on the American people.

Third, I swore an oath to the Constitution of the United States and embodied within that Constitution is the idea that says that all men and women are created equal. All men and women are created equal, no matter who you are, whether you are white or Black, Asian, Indian, no matter the color of your skin, no matter if you’re gay, straight or something in between. It doesn’t matter if you’re Catholic, Protestant, Muslim, Jew, or choose not to believe. None of that matters. It doesn’t matter what country you came from, what your last name is—what matters is we’re Americans. We’re all Americans. That under these colors of red, white, and blue—the colors that my parents fought for in World War II—means something around the world. It’s obvious to me that you don’t think of those colors the same way I do. It’s obvious to me that you don’t hold those values dear and the cause that I serve.

And lastly it is my deeply held belief that you’re ruining the international order, and causing significant damage to our country overseas, that was fought for so hard by the Greatest Generation that they instituted in 1945. Between 1914 and 1945, 150 million people were slaughtered in the conduct of war. They were slaughtered because of tyrannies and dictatorships. That generation, like every generation, has fought against that, has fought against fascism, has fought against Nazism, has fought against extremism. It’s now obvious to me that you don’t understand that world order. You don’t understand what the war was all about. In fact, you subscribe to many of the principles that we fought against. And I cannot be a party to that. It is with deep regret that I hereby submit my letter of resignation.