Remember When Señor Trumpanzee Loved "His" Generals?

I think Trump finally figured out that none of the generals love him and that none would fit into his schemes. It appears that Michael Flynn testified against him and his crooked offspring. And he wound up firing James Mattis, John Kelly and H.R. McMaster after dragging each one of them through the mud and tarnishing their careers with their proximity to his stench. They're all gone now-- replaced by an ambitious Nazi with bad hair who wormed and flattered his way into Trump's good graces and now pretty much sets all U.S. policy emanating from the White House.

No more "moderate" adult generals with steady hands on the till. "I see my generals-- generals are going to keep us so safe. These are central casting-- if I'm doing a movie, I pick you, general." Now the clown has faced the reality that there are some generals who don't get sucked into treason by the jingling of a little cash and that "Mad Dog" Mattis isn't a mad dog the way Trump expected him to be.

Yesterday, the L.A. Times published an interview with John Kelly defending his time at the White House by "arguing that [his tenure at the White House] is best measured by what the president did not do when Kelly was at his side." Kelly was referring to Trump's desire to please Putin by pulling out of NATO and by with withdrawing from Afghanistan. Commenting on the two kidnapped Guatemalan children who died in Trump's custody, Kelly seemed to separate himself from Trump, while blaming the whole family separation policy. I can imagine Trump didn't like this: "Illegal immigrants, overwhelmingly, are not bad people. I have nothing but compassion for them, the young kids." Trump's official response to the same question had Miller's paw prints all over them:

Kelly, who doesn't leave Trump's employ until later in the week, seemed to castigate him by reminding him that "If you want to stop illegal immigration, stop US demand for drugs, and expand economic opportunity [in Central America]." Remember, last week Trump had a different idea that he tweeted, threatening to cut off all aid to Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador if they don't stop the refugees from leaving their countries.

Meanwhile we have Marco Rubio tisk-tisking that "It makes abundantly clear that we are headed toward a series of grave policy errors which will endanger our nation, damage our alliances and empower our adversaries." Has he retired from the Senate to become an observer and casual commenter on current events? As far as I know, he's still a united States Senator. Unfortunately, his Trump adhesion score is 94%. Maybe if it were 74 or 64% Trump would notice when he says something.

Another big name retired General, Stanley McChrystal (4 stars) went after Trump on This Week yesterday in no uncertain terms, characterizing him as an immoral liar, a sentiment that is shared by most Americans but is which is pretty heavy to say about a commander-in-chief. When Martha Raddatz asked him if he thinks Trump is a liar he said, "I don’t think he tells the truth."

“Is Trump immoral, in your view?” Raddatz asked.

“I think he is,” he said.

McChrystal said he couldn't tell any of Trump's supporters "that they are wrong," but added, "What I would ask every American to do is... stand in front of that mirror and say, 'What are we about? Am I really willing to throw away or ignore some of the things that people do that are-- are pretty unacceptable normally just because they accomplish certain other things that we might like?'



"If we want to be governed by someone we wouldn't do a business deal with because their-- their background is so shady, if we're willing to do that, then that's in conflict with who I think we are. And so I think it's necessary at those times to take a stand."

...McChrystal, who recently published a book on leadership styles throughout history called, Leaders: Myth and Reality, criticized Trump for not embodying effective leadership.

“The military talks about would they come for you. And what that means is if you're put into a difficult military situation, would that leader sacrifice himself, put himself and others at risk to come for you? I have to believe that the people I'm working for would do that, whether we disagree on a lot of other things. I'm not convinced from the behavior that I've seen that that's the case here,” said McChrystal.



He also cautioned anyone who might fill the vacancy left by Defense Secretary James Mattis’ departure, to consider if their values sufficiently align with those of the president.

"I think maybe it causes the American people to take pause and say, wait a minute, if we have someone who is as selfless and as committed as Jim Mattis resign his position, walking away from all the responsibility he feels for every service member in our forces and he does so in a public way like that, we ought to stop and say, 'OK, why did he do it?,'" McChrystal said on This Week.

“I would ask [potential candidates] to look in the mirror and ask them if they can get comfortable enough with President Trump's approach to governance, how he conducts himself with his values and with his worldview to be truly loyal to him as a commander in chief and going forward,” McChrystal said. “If there's too much of a disconnect then I would tell him I think it’s-- it would be a bad foundation upon which to try to build a successful partnership at that job.”

McChrystal said he would not take a job in the Trump administration if he were asked.

"I think it's important for me to work for people who I think are basically honest, who tell the truth as best they know it," he said. "I'm very tolerant of people who make mistakes because I make so many of them-- and I've been around leaders who've made mistakes ... but through all of them, I almost never saw people trying to get it wrong. And I almost never saw people who were openly disingenuous on things."

He also disagreed with Trump’s approach to his visit to Iraq last week to address troops, saying the president was wrong to politicize a usually non-political occasion. In addition to talking extensively about domestic political issues in his speech to troops, Trump autographed troops' “Make America Great Again” hats. The president said in a tweet that the hats were not provided by the White House.

McChrystal said he understood why many young troops would want signed memorabilia from the president, comparing it to meeting a celebrity, but also warned that it “violated the spirit” of the military code and that the military’s apolitical status should be preserved.

“If we encourage young military members to be Republicans or Democrats or anything particular, you start to create schisms in an infantry platoon,” McChrystal told Raddatz on This Week.

“I never knew who was a Democrat or Republican and even when we were generals, when you got in a room, you never talked about politics because it was just considered bad form," he said. "I think if we allow it or encourage it, I think we are going to create something that could be a slippery slope.”

McChrystal also disagreed with Trump's announcement to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria, warning it would lead to "greater instability" in the Middle East.

"What difference does it make-- does it really make, if those 2,000 U.S. forces leave?" Raddatz asked.

“If you pull American influence out, you're likely to have greater instability and of course it'll be much more difficult for the United States to try to push events in any direction. There is an argument that says we just pull up our stuff, go home, let the region run itself. That has not done well for the last 50 or 60 years,” McChrystal said.

In announcing the withdrawal from Syria earlier this month, Trump touted victory over the Islamic State, or ISIS, there, declaring, “We have defeated ISIS in Syria.”

McChrystal disagreed, citing the continued threat of ISIS’ ideology.

“I don't believe ISIS is defeated,” McChrystal said. “I think ISIS is as much an idea as it is a number of ISIS fighters. There's a lot of intelligence that says there are actually more ISIS fighters around the world now than there were a couple of years ago.”

ABC News has also reported that Trump plans to reduce U.S. forces in Afghanistan by half, about 7,000 troops. In a statement to Bloomberg Friday, Garrett Marquis, a spokesperson for the National Security Council said Trump "has not made a determination to" to withdraw troops from Afghanistan or "directed the Department of Defense to begin the process of withdrawing" troops. Marquis did not respond when ABC News requested further comment.

"Do you see that as a problem?" Raddatz asked McChrystal.

“I think the great mistake in the president's leaked guidance is that just when we were starting to sit down with the Taliban, just we were starting to begin negotiations, he basically traded away the biggest leverage point we have. If you tell the Taliban that we are absolutely leaving on a date... their incentives to try to cut a deal dropped dramatically,” McChrystal said.

McChrystal added that the decision could have a lasting impact on the trust in the alliance between the United States and the democratically-elected Afghan government it supports.

“Of course I was worried about the confidence of the Afghan people because at the end of the day, that's what determines who wins in Afghanistan,” McChrystal said. “And I think we probably rocked them-- we rocked them in their belief that we are allies that can be counted on.”