صراط عشق صراط عشق
WASHINGTON (Dispatches) — U.S. President Donald Trump told his advisors at one point this past week he wanted 10,000 troops to deploy to the Washington D.C. area to halt civil unrest over the killing of a black man by Minneapolis police, according to a senior U.S. official.
The account of Trump’s demand during a heated Oval Office conversation on Monday shows how close the president may have come to fulfilling his threat to deploy active duty troops, despite opposition from Pentagon leadership.
At the meeting, Defense Secretary Mark Esper, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, and Attorney General William Barr recommended against such a deployment, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. The meeting was “contentious,” the official added.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Trump has since appeared satisfied with deployments by the National Guard, the option recommended by the Pentagon and a more traditional tool for dealing with domestic crises. Pentagon leaders scrambled to call governors with requests to send Guard forces to Washington. Additional federal law enforcement were mobilized too.
But also key for Trump appears to have been Esper’s move to preposition — but not deploy — active duty soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division and other units in the Washington D.C. area in case they were needed. Those troops have since departed.
“Having active duty forces available but not in the city was enough for the president for the time,” the official said.
Trump’s bid to militarize the U.S. response to the protests has triggered a rare outpouring of condemnation from former U.S. military officials, including Trump’s first defense secretary, Jim Mattis, and retired four-star generals who normally try to steer clear of politics.
Those comments reflect deep unease inside and outside the Pentagon with Trump’s willingness to inject the U.S. military into a domestic race relations crisis
following the killing of George Floyd, 46, who died on May 25 after a Minneapolis policeman knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes.
Floyd’s death has led to a wave of protests and national soul-searching over the country’s legacy of violence and mistreatment of African Americans and other minorities.
It has also led some Pentagon leaders of color to issue unprecedented statements about their experiences dealing with issues of race in the U.S. military.
The account of Trump’s demand during a heated Oval Office conversation on Monday shows how close the president may have come to fulfilling his threat to deploy active duty troops, despite opposition from Pentagon leadership.
At the meeting, Defense Secretary Mark Esper, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, and Attorney General William Barr recommended against such a deployment, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. The meeting was “contentious,” the official added.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Trump has since appeared satisfied with deployments by the National Guard, the option recommended by the Pentagon and a more traditional tool for dealing with domestic crises. Pentagon leaders scrambled to call governors with requests to send Guard forces to Washington. Additional federal law enforcement were mobilized too.
But also key for Trump appears to have been Esper’s move to preposition — but not deploy — active duty soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division and other units in the Washington D.C. area in case they were needed. Those troops have since departed.
“Having active duty forces available but not in the city was enough for the president for the time,” the official said.
Trump’s bid to militarize the U.S. response to the protests has triggered a rare outpouring of condemnation from former U.S. military officials, including Trump’s first defense secretary, Jim Mattis, and retired four-star generals who normally try to steer clear of politics.
Those comments reflect deep unease inside and outside the Pentagon with Trump’s willingness to inject the U.S. military into a domestic race relations crisis
following the killing of George Floyd, 46, who died on May 25 after a Minneapolis policeman knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes.
Floyd’s death has led to a wave of protests and national soul-searching over the country’s legacy of violence and mistreatment of African Americans and other minorities.
It has also led some Pentagon leaders of color to issue unprecedented statements about their experiences dealing with issues of race in the U.S. military.
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Colin Powell: U.S. in a ‘Turning Point’
Colin Powell, who served as America’s top military officer and top diplomat under Republican presidents, accused Trump Sunday of drifting from the U.S. constitution.
In a scathing indictment of Trump on CNN, Powell denounced the U.S. president as a danger to democracy whose lies and insults have diminished America in the eyes of the world.
“We have a constitution. We have to follow that constitution. And the president’s drifted away from it,” Powell said.
A former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Powell was the latest in a series of retired top military officers to publicly criticize Trump’s handling of the mass anti-racism protests.
“We are in a turning point,” Powell said, blasting Republican senators for not standing up to Trump. “He lies about things. And he gets away with it because people will not hold him accountable,” he said.
Powell, who served as secretary of state under George Bush, also rebuked Trump for offending “just about everyone in the world.”
“We’re down on NATO. We’re cutting more troops out of Germany. We have done away with our contributions to the World Health Organization. We’re not happy with the United Nations.
“And just about everywhere you go you’ll find some kind of disdain for American foreign policy that is not in our interests,” he said.
Colin Powell: U.S. in a ‘Turning Point’
Colin Powell, who served as America’s top military officer and top diplomat under Republican presidents, accused Trump Sunday of drifting from the U.S. constitution.
In a scathing indictment of Trump on CNN, Powell denounced the U.S. president as a danger to democracy whose lies and insults have diminished America in the eyes of the world.
“We have a constitution. We have to follow that constitution. And the president’s drifted away from it,” Powell said.
A former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Powell was the latest in a series of retired top military officers to publicly criticize Trump’s handling of the mass anti-racism protests.
“We are in a turning point,” Powell said, blasting Republican senators for not standing up to Trump. “He lies about things. And he gets away with it because people will not hold him accountable,” he said.
Powell, who served as secretary of state under George Bush, also rebuked Trump for offending “just about everyone in the world.”
“We’re down on NATO. We’re cutting more troops out of Germany. We have done away with our contributions to the World Health Organization. We’re not happy with the United Nations.
“And just about everywhere you go you’ll find some kind of disdain for American foreign policy that is not in our interests,” he said.
