Politics - News Analysis

General ‘Mad Dog’ Mattis FINALLY Speaks: You Can Support Trump or Your Country — Not Both

Oh my.

General James “Mad Dog” Mattis might be the most respected living military man. He is revered up and down the chain of command. He also served very honorably as Secretary of Defense, and then resigned honorably in protest. His words to Trump while walking out the door: “You’re going to have to find someone else to surrender to ISIS.”

Mattis remained maddeningly, crushingly, almost bizarrely, silent about Trump since he retired. He simply refused to comment about the “Commander in Chief” except in banal generalities. He believed that his opinion might hurt the nation because one must support the Commander in Chief. He kept quiet.

Until today.

He wrote and spoke to the Atlantic, tearing into Trump with shocking clarity, conviction, and resolve. This could shake the walls of the establishment, the Pentagon, and even the White House if they were smart enough to listen. One of the last “silent” types, one of the “best” of us, blasted Trump.

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.”

And so now we have a taste of what makes Mattis, Mattis. He is a scholar, a thinker, and a sensitive one at that, but he’s also strong as an oak in his conviction. “Trump doesn’t pretend to try.” “Three years without leadership.” “We can unite without him.” “We owe it to past generations that bled … and to our children.”

That is one of the clearest, and strangely beautiful, statements we’ve read about Trump. Mattis also made the decision clear. You can support your country, or you can support Trump, but not both. Supporting Trump is near treasonous in Mattis’ eyes.

He goes on to contrast the American ethos of unity with Nazi ideology. “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.”

He compared Trump’s tactics to Nazi tactics. There is simply no “insult” stronger than a comparison to Nazism, yet an honorable man stepped up and made the comparison.

 “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.

There it is. The “real” leader of the U.S. military, at least the heart of the military, just told everyone in the Pentagon that their oath requires them to reject an order to enter the states. Trump may order it, but the Pentagon must reject it. To accept it is like the Nazis at Nuremberg.

There is more, much more, but you should go to the Atlantic and read the article, they deserve the clicks.

We still have heroes in the United States. It makes it that much more powerful when they’ve held their silence until the country couldn’t go on without it. At that point, and only at that point, he bravely stepped up and did his duty, like he always has. He is one mad dog right now.

Thank you, General.

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Peace, y’all
Jason
[email protected] and on Twitter @MiciakZoom

meet the author

Jason Miciak is a political writer, features writer, author, and attorney. He is originally from Canada but grew up in the Pacific Northwest. He now enjoys life as a single dad raising a ridiculously-loved young girl on the beaches of the Gulf Coast. He is very much the dreamy mystic, a day without learning is a day not lived. He is passionate about his flower pots and studies philosophical science, religion, and non-mathematical principles of theoretical physics. Dogs, pizza, and love are proof that God exists. "Above all else, love one another."

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