Cnn
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In a dramatic Friday evening purgePresident Donald Trump has taken decisive measures to avoid rehearsal of his first mandate when he fought with higher military leaders, dismissing the best American general and removing the others in order to ensure that He has a fully consistent Pentagon.
In the right time to try to bury the big news – Trump’s most senior military advisor, President General Charles, General Charles “CQ” Brown and the first US Navy officer, the head of naval operations, Admiral Lisa Franchetti was dismissed. Trump’s defense secretary Pete Hegseth also announced that he was looking for appointments to replace the best Air Force, army and naval military lawyers who are part of the legality of military operations American.
None of these civil servants seem to have been dismissed for a cause, such as poor performance on the battlefield or insubordination, other than the alleged obsession with Dei in the case of General Brown, according to Hegseth’s book in 2024.
Trump wants to redo the Pentagon, so he has total control about it. Of course, he is the commander -in -chief, it is therefore his prerogative to do so, but in dismissing Brown who is black and Franchetti who was the first woman to manage the navy, Trump reported that undisputed loyalty will be qualification key to these jobs rather than provide the best military councils to the president regardless of American domestic policy, which is supposed to be The key function roles.
Trump was Obsessed by the American army From an early age. He frequented a military style boarding school in New York and one of his heroes is General George Patton, an aggressive commander of the battlefield during the Second World War.
Thus, when Trump took office during his first mandate, he quickly surrounded himself with superior generals; The general of four retired stars John Kelly was his second chief of staff; The four-star retired general James Mattis was his first defense secretary and the lieutenant-general of three stars in active service, HR McMaster, was his second national security advisor.
Trump was delighted Talk about “my generals“Like” Mad Dog “Mattis, and he also had a childish pleasure in the ceremonial aspects of Commander -in -Chief. Trump was seduced by the French display of military equipment he saw during the celebration of the Bastille Day in Paris on July 14, 2016.
Trump ordered the Pentagon to present a similar program for his speech on the day of independence “Haute To America” on July 4, 2019, and the generals did not disappoint. During his speech, Trump made a play-only story of a fly of advanced planes of air force planes flying over the head, announcing: “You will soon see beautiful Raptors F-22 Brand New Bomber stealth. “”
But Trump’s bromances with his generals have embellished over time (Note, Elon!) Because Kelly, Mattis and McMaster would not respect Trump’s wishes, as I discovered when I was Report my book“Trump and his generals: the cost of chaos.”
McMaster exhausted his welcome With Trump, in part, because he pleaded to stay in the course in Afghanistan and expand the presence of American troops. Trump had long wanted to get out of Afghanistan and after McMaster was released after a little more than a year of work, Trump authorized his team to start negotiating with the Taliban a total American withdrawal from Afghanistan.
For his part, Mattis worry that Trump The Second World War would begin and when in 2017, Trump increased his rhetoric against the North Korean dictator with nuclear arms, Kim Jong Une, Mattis “slow” offering potential military options against North Korea. Mattis also delayed the supply of military options, for any type of potential conflict with Iran.
Trump final break with mattis came in the fight against the Islamic State in Syria. Mattis thought that American troops should stay in Syria after the defeat of the Islamic State there to prevent any return from the terrorist group, while Trump insisted to withdraw from Syria. Mattis also considered that it had left the Syrian Kurdish forces which fought against the Islamic State vulnerable to attacks by the powerful Turkish military and would mean abandoning an ally on the battlefield.
On December 19, 2018, Trump tweeted his In order to withdraw all American troops from Syria. The next day, Mattis met Trump in the oval office and tried to persuade the president to overthrow his decision. Trump would not move Mattis then resigned.
Kelly, Trump’s chief of staff, saw his time in the White House by what he had managed to prevent on his watch, for example, Trump suddenly pulling American troops from Afghanistan or withdrawing from NATO. Trump hates being “managed” so his relationship with Kelly also embittered and he left the White House in December 2018.
A decisive break between Trump and numerous officers of the American flag came during the national demonstrations launched by the murder by the police of Minneapolis of George Floyd on May 25, 2020. Just outside the White House field on June 3, The police, with troops from the National Guard in reserve, attacked peaceful demonstrators near the St. John’s church. In church, Trump held a bible for cameras.
After resigning, Mattis had said little about Trump. Now he published an overwhelming declaration To say: “Donald Trump is the first president of my life who does not try to unite the American people – does not even pretend to try. Instead, he tries to divide us. »»
Trump’s defense secretary Mark Esper, a former American army officer who had replaced Mattis, publicly said that he would not support the use of American troops in active service To suppress the demonstrations that Trump had recently threatened to do. Esper was tweet Six months later.
Another break with the Pentagon occurred after January 6, 2021, Riot at the American Capitol by Trump supporters. The president of the joint chiefs, General Mark Milley, called his Chinese counterpart to assure him that there was no chance that the United States will launch a military attack on China. On Twitter Trump then suggested that Manye be executed For his conversation with the Chinese general.
Trump’s past scar fabric with Pentagon leaders led to Trump’s intention to take total control of the Ministry of Defense. We have seen a suspicion of this in the last months of his first mandate when Trump installed an ultra-user, Kash Patel, to the powerful work of Pentagon chief of staff. Patel was recently elected by the Senate to become the new director of the FBI.
Trump is not expecting nothing less than levels of loyalty to the patel in his generals and senior Pentagon officials. And the purge of Friday evening of six superior military officers will probably only be only the aperitif since Hegseth is now looking Tens of billions of dollars in cutting in his department and he will probably have to lose a large number of staff.