>7:10 = 17
<"top General"
<"Remember this date"
WOMP WOMP
this aged well…
> https://www.yahoo.com/news/retired-marine-general-john-allen-trump-military-beginning-of-the-end-america-152143340.html
Retired top general joins Mattis dissent from Trump, warns of 'beginning of the end' for democracy if troops are used against protests
Dylan Stableford
Dylan Stableford·Senior Writer
June 4, 2020·5 min read
Retired Marine Gen. John Allen on Wednesday said President Trump’s threats to use the U.S. military on protesters “may well signal the beginning of the end of the American experiment.”
“The slide of the United States into illiberalism may well have begun on June 1, 2020,” Allen wrote in a scathing essay published online by Foreign Policy magazine. “Remember the date.”
Allen, the former commander of the NATO International Security Assistance Force and U.S. forces in Afghanistan, said Trump’s halting Rose Garden speech in which he declared himself the “president of law and order,” the use of tear gas on protesters outside the White House and the church photo op that followed Monday was a “stunning” moment and potentially a pivotal one.
“Donald Trump expressed only the barest of condolences at the murder of George Floyd, but he also said nothing about the fundamental and underlying reasons for the unrest: systemic racism and inequality, a historic absence of respect, and a denial of justice,” Allen wrote. “Yes, he mentioned George Floyd, but he did not touch on long-standing societal problems at all. He sees the crisis as a black problem — not as something to be addressed by creating the basis and impetus for a move toward social justice, but as an opportunity to use force to portray himself as a ‘law and order’ president.
“…Trump was clear he views those engaged in the unrest and criminal acts in these riots as terrorists, an enemy,” Allen continued. “He said so, ostensibly as justification to deploy the U.S. military to apply federal force — his ‘personal’ force — against the riots.
“…Donald Trump isn’t religious, has no need of religion, and doesn’t care about the devout, except insofar as they serve his political needs,” he added. “He failed to project any of the higher emotions or leadership desperately needed in every quarter of this nation during this dire moment.”
Allen — who retired from the military in 2013 and is now president of the Brookings Institution — was particularly struck by the juxtaposition of Trump’s claim to be “an ally of peaceful protesters” and the removal of those peaceful protesters to clear the street in front of St. John’s Church.
“Fully equipped riot police and troops violently, and without provocation, set upon the peaceful demonstrators there, manhandling and beating many of them, employing flash-bangs, riot-control agents, and pepper spray throughout,” he wrote. “These demonstrators had done nothing to warrant such an attack. Media who were watching over the scene craned their cameras to try to understand what had happened to justify this violence, until it became clear for all to see. The riot police had waded into these nonviolent American citizens — who were protesting massive social injustice — with the sole purpose of clearing the area around St. John’s Episcopal Church, on the other side of the park, so the self-proclaimed 'ally of peaceful protesters,' Donald Trump, could pose there for a photo-op.”
Allen’s essay echoed a statement issued Wednesday by former Secretary of Defense James Mattis, who said he was “angry and appalled” at the White House’s response to the protests.