Admiral McRaven in NYT: Remove Trump from Office ‘The Sooner, the Better’

The admiral, well-respected for his role in overseeing the operation to kill Al Qaeda terrorist Osama bin Laden in 2011, argues that senior military leaders have lost confidence in the president and feel he is a threat to the nation.

“As I stood on the parade field at Fort Bragg,” McRaven recalled, “one retired four-star general, grabbed my arm, shook me and shouted, ‘I don’t like the Democrats, but Trump is destroying the Republic!’”

McRaven does not argue that President Trump has done anything wrong in particular, but that he has no respect for America’s values. These values, McRaven declares, involve a commitment to “help the weak and stand up against oppression and injustice” around the world.

“[W]hat 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?” McRaven asks, without explicitly calling for military intervention in any of the regions mentioned.

His criticism goes beyond that voiced in a Washington Post op-ed last year, in which he merely promised “criticism” of the president in the wake of the removal of former CIA director John Brennan’s security clearance.

The admiral is unwilling to wait for the 2020 presidential election to see a change of power. He declares (emphasis added): “[I]t 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.”

Moreover, McRaven makes no reference to voting, or elections — or even impeachment.

Article 88 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice bars “contemptuous words against the President,” and applies to retired members of the armed forces entitled to pay.

Read McRaven’s full op-ed here.

Story cited here.

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