Gen. James Mattis’s public rebuke of Trump, published yesterday at The Atlantic, was extraordinary and possibly unprecedented. It also has huge implications for Trump’s continued mishandling of the ongoing protests. I’ll paste the complete statement from Mattis to the end of this post.
The relationship between the military and civilian authority is central to U.S. military culture. The military sees itself as subsurvient to civilian authority, which is a good thing — we don’t want the military to become a power unto itself. But military personnel also swear to uphold the Constitution. And this gives us the possible nightmare scenario — what do they do if civilian authority in the person of the Commander in Chief gives them an illegal or unconstitutional order?
Over the past few days there has been a lot of talk of that very thing. What would happen if Trump ordered troops to attack protesters exercising their First Amendment rights to peacefully assemble? Monday, that happened. And Trump is still ranting about using the Insurrection Act to send federal troops into U.S. cities. This is not a hypothetical question.
I have heard from many sources that career military officers hold General Mattis in the highest regard; he commands huge moral authority, even if he is retired from active duty. And the implication of yesterday’s message was clear — the military must not obey Trump if he orders troops to end demonstrations.
“Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people—does not even pretend to try. Instead, he tries to divide us,” Mattis writes. “We are witnessing the consequences of three years of this deliberate effort. We are witnessing the consequences of three years without mature leadership. We can unite without him, drawing on the strengths inherent in our civil society. This will not be easy, as the past few days have shown, but we owe it to our fellow citizens; to past generations that bled to defend our promise; and to our children.”
“We can unite without him, drawing on the strengths inherent in our civil society.” That’s an extraordinary thing for a general to say of the Commander in Chief.
“When I joined the military, some 50 years ago,” he writes, “I swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution. Never did I dream that troops taking that same oath would be ordered under any circumstance to violate the Constitutional rights of their fellow citizens—much less to provide a bizarre photo op for the elected commander-in-chief, with military leadership standing alongside.”
He goes on to implicitly criticize the current secretary of defense, Mark Esper, and other senior officials as well. “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. Keeping public order rests with civilian state and local leaders who best understand their communities and are answerable to them.
Not everyone in the military is honorable, of course, but I honestly believe this takes the option of using federal troops any way he wants out of Trump’s hands. The brass will listen to Mattis before they listen to Trump.
General Mattis has been criticized for his silence on Trump up until now. I have criticized him, and top brass generally, too. From six months ago:
One of the central values of the American military is that they are subservient to civilian authority, and civilian authority is personified in the Commander in Chief. So exposing the POTUS as a monster would be extraordinarily difficult thing for them, no question. But more difficult than, say, storming Normandy Beach?
Clearly, talk of using federal troops against civilians was a bridge too far for Mattis. It’s interesting also that he evoked Nazis —
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.
Bringing up Nazis also evokes the Nuremberg Trials and reminds us that “we were only following orders” is no excuse.
It’s not stopping with Mattis. Yesterday Gen. John Allen (U.S. Marine Corps, retired) published an op ed at Foreign Affairs that, in brief, ripped Trump another asshole. (See also Paul LeBlanc, CNN, Retired Marine Gen. John Allen: Trump’s threats of military force may be ‘the beginning of the end of the American experiment’.) I had already noted yesterday that Admiral Mike Mullen, who was chair of the Joint Chiefs during the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations, wrote that he is disgusted with the Bible Stunt.
Trump, of course, responded to Mattis with his signature juvenile insults.
…His primary strength was not military, but rather personal public relations. I gave him a new life, things to do, and battles to win, but he seldom “brought home the bacon”. I didn’t like his “leadership” style or much else about him, and many others agree. Glad he is gone!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 4, 2020
My understanding is that nobody fired General Mattis; he was head of the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) when he retired from the Marines in 2013, and he resigned as Trump’s Secretary of Defense in 2019. Also, Mattis has had the nickname “mad dog” for many years, according to Snopes, and it probably originated as a kind of term of endearment from his troops. Troops absolutely cannot stop himself from lying. It’s pathological.
See also Mattis, other military leaders close ranks against Trump at NBC News and Greg Sargent, Trump’s latest eruption just showed that Jim Mattis is entirely right.
I don’t know if there are many examples of a commanding general refusing a direct order of the President, but I do know of one. In June 1865, a U.S. district judge handed down treason indictments against former Confederate generals Robert E. Lee, James Longstreet, and some others. Under the signed surrender agreements, these officers would remain paroled and free from prosecution as long as they obeyed the laws of the United States and did not take up arms against the United States. President Andrew Johnson — to my mind, the only POTUS who comes close to challenging Trump as “worst POTUS of all time” — fully supported the traitor charges.
Ulysses Grant was the highest ranking officer in the U.S. military at the time. Johnson asked Grant when Robert E. Lee might be arrested; Grant said, “Never.” Grant made it clear to Johnson that if ordered to arrest Lee, he would resign first. Per Grant biographer Ron Chernow, such an arrest would not only have violates the surrender agreement Grant had signed with Lee at Appomattox; arresting Lee would also have likely caused a lot of former Confederate soldiers to take up arms against the government again. Johnson recognized that Grant was a whole lot more popular than he was and told the district judge to drop the indictments.
Grant spent all of the Andrew Johnson Administration walking a tightrope between his duty to obey the Commander in Chief and his duty to the law and Constitution; it’s a fascinating bit of history that Chernow explains nicely. The point is that these are issues top brass has had to contend with before. They just haven’t had to do it recently.
The statement from General Mattis:
IN UNION THERE IS STRENGTH
I have watched this week’s unfolding events, angry and appalled. 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.
When I joined the military, some 50 years ago, I swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution. Never did I dream that troops taking that same oath would be ordered under any circumstance to violate the Constitutional rights of their fellow citizens—much less to provide a bizarre photo op for the elected commander-in-chief, with military leadership standing alongside.
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. Keeping public order rests with civilian state and local leaders who best understand their communities and are answerable to them.
James Madison wrote in Federalist 14 that “America united with a handful of troops, or without a single soldier, exhibits a more forbidding posture to foreign ambition than America disunited, with a hundred thousand veterans ready for combat.” 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.
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.
Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people—does not even pretend to try. Instead he tries to divide us. We are witnessing the consequences of three years of this deliberate effort. We are witnessing the consequences of three years without mature leadership. We can unite without him, drawing on the strengths inherent in our civil society. This will not be easy, as the past few days have shown, but we owe it to our fellow citizens; to past generations that bled to defend our promise; and to our children.
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.
Only by adopting a new path—which means, in truth, returning to the original path of our founding ideals—will we again be a country admired and respected at home and abroad. — General James Mattis
Ulysses S Grant Memorial, Washington, DC
First para after the tweets, I think your text-to-speech typed Troops instead of Trump.
Mattis got the term of endearment "mad dog" from his troops? That's what I meant to type. He didn't get it from Trump.
It's not just the Constitution either. Trump is violating the Declaration of Independence in at least these particulars:
It really looks like Trump and Co. is at least sending up trial balloons for ways to stay in power. Mad Dog went public. He has been solid in not doing so for a long time. He did not do so from an uniformed or undisciplined position. That his release was done, in combination with other high level military leaders, would suggest a shoulder to shoulder agreement with high level peers.
One would have to think that Trump and company has found some loyal high level military persons who he thinks he can count upon. In normal times such thinking is rated at best as neurotic and psychotic at the conspirator theory level could not be ruled out. The question then becomes, are times abnormal enough, that one should prepare that this is a reasonable fear considering all the stress factors in play. It is hard to explain why Gens. Mathis and Allen went public for any other reason than they saw large warning signs of a problem developing.
It is considered a curse not a blessing to live in interesting times, and of late the times have been way too interesting. I am beginning to feel cursed.
In any group, like the military or religious organization, there will be two sets of people: those who have the backbone to take a stand and resist, and those who will submit to the leader. In every age, in every circumstance this is so. It's a test that divides people in any age. Mattis happened to be one who came out for the angels. There will be those who don't. In any age.
I genuinely appreciate the former leaders of our military coming out of their self-imposed codes-of-silence to spank our bunker-baby's zip-code sized fat ass-cheeks!
But with them coming out, can we hope that some Republican members in the US House and Senate will join that chorus?
Silly me. I was kidding. Of course not!
These gutless weasels are still too afraid of tRUMP's fat Twitter thumbs; and, even more importantly, his flock of Fascist MAGAt followers! Their next reelections will continue to depend on these ignorant, authoritarian MAGA brutes. Or they will until tRUMPism is crushed, or the Republican Party takes an anti-Authoritarian turn. The prior will take a long time, if it ever happens; and the latter is exremely unlikely.
No one should think that the noble efforts of these former military leaders will stifle tRUMP's Authoritarian tendencies. He never backs-down. He doubles-down!
He still has ALL of the power he had a week ago. Hopefully, him being chastised by former military leaders will give today's active military leaders pause.
But tRUMP won't skip a beat!*
There's a reelection to win!
And a long prison term to avoid!
So, if we thought this year's election was going to be filthy, that level of filth just went up astronomically!
And if we prevail in November, and tRUMP steps down, we can't rest. Ever.
tRUMPism is just America's take on Fascism. He is the template upon which others can build. tRUMPism will linger, even if tRUMP's no longer a prime-time player. The Republican Party has been shaping its own constituency ever since Nixon used his Southern Strategy – which was his strategy to appeal to disaffected bigoted Southern Democrats pissed at LBJ's CR and VR Acts. And with the path the GOP cleared for itself, a tRUMP was inevitable. And so will the next tRUMP be inevitable.
Imo, the next tRUMP is already here. His name is Tom Cotton, military veteran, Harvard Law grad, and current US Senator from Arkansas!
Read his NY Times Op-ed piece in yesterday's paper.
Read it and weep.
*It wouldn't shock me if tRUMP makes another attempt at solidifying his power and making another try before November's election. If there's a spark anywhere, look for tRUMP to try to pour gasoline on it, so he can call in his latest toy: Shock Troops – military units with no insignias to identify them.
Be afraid. Very afraid.
One other consideration is the ethos of soldiers. The loyalty soldiers have to each other is powerful. Forty percent of the active-duty US military is non-white. The military is not free of racism but you can't openly fly the flag of white supremacy if you wear a uniform. There's a lot of evidence that the military is a meritocracy (re promotions) that ignores race. This didn't happen accidentally or overnight. Race-relations training is mandatory or was.
General James Mattis, General Mike Mullen, and General John Allen gave legal cover to every soldier who is inclined to disobey an order to use force to crush protesters. The people in the military are inclined to stick together. If even ONE member of the Joint Chiefs or Staff resigns rather than give an order to deploy troops in a manner he/she considers unconstitutional, ANY member of the military has "cover" legally if charges are brought under the UCMJ to make the defense that it's the DUTY of any officer or soldier to refuse to carry out an illegal order. Substantiating the defense that the order was illegal is the trick – but three senior officers (retired) made that a slam-dunk.
An anecdote which relates:
Back , in '76 when I was in the US Navy I got in a bit of trouble (long story) and wound up in restriction on Treasure Island in SF Bay. This was enforced restriction, not quite as severe as the brig or stockade for those of you from the Army, but it was enforced by MPs in a building with bars on the windows and guards at the only entrance to the building. We were farmed out in work details (chain-gang without the chains) for menial work around the base and closely monitored. It's the only time after boot camp I ever marched in formation.
There was a short dim-witted clown in charge who fancied he was John Wayne. He really got a thrill out of asserting his authority. It grated on our nerves and we mocked him without mercy behind his back and to his face. We finished up some BS job and were on the way back to the open-bay barracks (we thought) when this joker started marching us around the island. I don't know if he thought he was disciplining us. We tolerated about three wrong turns before we marched ourselves, in formation, to the restricted barracks ignoring any and all shouts to stop, about face and all the rest. By common consent, not any plan, we waited in ranks to be dismissed to the barracks After a few minutes when it was clear we'd only obey orders we agreed with, he let us go. We returned to the building in good order.
Trump is a dim-wit. He thinks if he gives a command, all must obey. His contempt for the concepts of discipline and leadership are obvious. By now, somebody has told Trump – if you give orders to the military to apply military force against unarmed American demonstrators, it's likely the armed forces will decline. That puts Trump in the position of looking ridiculous and weak which Trump knows will be fatal in November.
I enjoyed your story of suffering under dimwits. I can relate.
if you give orders to the military to apply military force against unarmed American demonstrators, it’s likely the armed forces will decline.
That’s the question. When will somebody stand up to Trump and laugh in his face. There is nothing there but a lot of emptiness. All it takes is the perception to see this and the courage to act. Mattis demonstrated this.
To late for US baby merc's.
After they fell into line for an illegal war of conquest against Iraq plus using the war crimes of torture, illegal kidnapping and detention, mass murder, and all too many others to list any "honor" or principles they ever had went down the toilet the first time they used the nuremberg defense of "just obeying orders" whenever they were caught in criminal activities.
So after obeying illegal orders for almost almost 2 decades now why should anyone expect them to grow a back bone now?
Oh and don't forget organized movement by white supremeist's to infiltrate this baby merc force.
Trump is in violation. He bad man. I don't think he thinks at all. He only has hot air and no show. It makes me much concerened if a man of power is so upset by his ego that he try to cover it with his blusterful maniacry. We need to all unite to unite over him in November before it's too late and December is upon us with four years of marital laws.
Thank God Mattis stepped forward. Read elsewhere that the reaction from Republicans is “well, that’s his opinion”. Spineless cowards.
Frank Rich wrote about similar themes as your post, how our time isn’t 1918 + 1929 + 1968, it’s more like 1868, when Andrew Johnson and Ulysses Grant were in the national spotlight.
Rich concludes:
hen fascism arrives, it demands everyone to take a side. Mattis took his. Most religious leaders are taking theirs. Republican toadies are taking theirs. It’s a polarizing force that spares no one.
One point of clarification for an otherwise excellent commentary. Mike Mullen is an Admiral, not a General. Minor point in the larger scheme of things but important to the individuals involved.