Will the Generals Ever Crack?
James Mattis doesn’t want to talk about it—except when he does. The retired four-star general who resigned on principle as Donald Trump’s secretary of defense has said ever since that he will not publicly criticize the sitting president, because he owes a “duty of silence.” But his public resignation letter was a clear airing of policy differences. And then there was this swipe he took at the president in a recent speech: “I earned my spurs on the battlefield … And Donald Trump earned his spurs in a letter from a doctor.”
While Mattis maintains his semi-silence—which he cryptically promised The Atlantic’s editor in chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, is “not going to be forever”—a small but growing number of retired senior officers have come forward, taking the rare step of criticizing the president despite the military’s strong apolitical tradition. Three retired generals who spoke with us underscored why this is so rare, and why they take this tradition so seriously. The military is one of the most overwhelmingly respected institutions left in a bitterly divided country; one reason is that its current and former leaders tend to stay out of partisan politics. As such, the exceptions are extraordinary. What follows is a running list of retired senior officers who have criticized Trump or his policies—plus a few who explained why they won’t.
William H. McRaven
Rank: Four-star admiral
Notable experience: Head of United States Special Operations Command, and architect of the raid that killed Osama bin Laden in 2011
Retirement: From the Navy in 2014
: Last year, McRaven after Trump threatened to revoke former CIA Director John Brennan’s security clearance, asking the president to revoke his as well, “so I can add—right up to the verge of calling for the president’s removal from office: “If we don’t care about our values, if we don’t care about duty and honor, if we don’t help the weak and stand up against oppression and injustice—what will happen to the Kurds, the Iraqis, the Afghans, the Syrians, the Rohingyas, the South Sudanese and the millions of people under the boot of tyranny or left abandoned by their failing states? … President Trump seems to believe that these qualities are unimportant or show weakness. He is wrong … If this president doesn’t demonstrate the leadership that America needs, both domestically and abroad, then it is time for a new person in the Oval Office—Republican, Democrat or independent—the sooner, the better. The fate of our Republic depends upon it.”
