The president of the United States Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, has assured that the Army has sworn to defend “the Constitution” and not “a dictator”, in his first statements after the cascade of resignations this week in the Pentagon .
A day after the president of the United States, Donald Trump, made effective the dismissal of Mark Esper as Secretary of Defense, several senior Pentagon officials presented their resignation on Thursday, among them the undersecretary of Defense, James Anderson.
Along with Anderson, the chief intelligence official, Joseph Kernan, and Esper’s chief of staff, Jen Stewart, resigned a day after Trump replaced Esper with Christopher Miller, who until then served as director of the National Counterterrorism Center. .
“We are unique among armies. We have not sworn to defend a king or queen, a tyrant or a dictator. We have not sworn to defend an individual. We have not sworn to defend a country, a tribe or a religion. We have sworn defend the Constitution, “said Milley, accompanied precisely by Esper’s successor, during the inauguration this Thursday of an Army museum, according to CNN.
Before the election, General Milley raised concerns about Trump’s, until then, recent Pentagon appointments: political officials loyal to the president who came from the White House National Security Council with the aim of imposing the presidential agenda on the Department of Defense.
Precisely these appointments, according to Pentagon sources to CNN, forced the dismissal of Esper, who expressed his disagreement with the president’s intention to accelerate the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan despite the fact that the secretary understood that the conditions on the ground did not they were the most favorable.
Recent appointments include those of two advisers to the new defense secretary and a controversial past: Douglas MacGregor, who once advocated the use of deadly force to deter migrants from crossing the border illegally, and Anthony Tata, who once called former President Barack Obama a terrorist leader.
In response to Milley’s statements, the new Secretary of Defense thanked his colleague’s words with a certain derision. “Thank you for setting the bar so high for the new kid. I think all I can say to your remarks is amen, and well done,” Miller said.
