Editor's Note:
Carlos Alberto Montaner is a writer, journalist, and CNN contributor.
His columns are published in dozens of newspapers in Spain, the United States and Latin America.
Montaner is also vice president of the Liberal International.
The opinions expressed here are solely his.
(CNN Spanish) -
Former President Donald Trump believes that General Mark Milley is a traitor.
He has the worst opinion of the general, despite the fact that he insisted on placing him in that position against the criteria of also General James Mattis, then recently appointed Secretary of Defense.
And later, when the official had already presented his letter of resignation, the president dismissed him earlier.
General Mark Milley, head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, called General Li Zuocheng, his Chinese counterpart - whom he had met and met sporadically five years earlier - and assured him that the US would not attack.
In the event of an attack, Milley told him that she would warn him first.
The story is told in the book "Peril" (Danger) by authors Bob Woodward and Robert Costa.
Let's assume that the investigation is rigorous. We don't have to think otherwise. After all, Bob Wooward published, together with Carl Bernstein, the reports that contributed to liquidating the presidency of Richard Nixon in what is known as Watergate. They would then be the basis of the book All the President's Men. Now he is accompanied by the young Robert Costa, an investigative journalist for The Washington Post.
There is an important precedent for the worst moment of Watergate, in which Richard M. Nixon was constantly drinking, according to historians such as Michael Dobbs, who used material from secret White House recordings for his book King Richard. Furthermore, Nixon is said to have been in a very bad mood as he waited to be fired from the presidency by impending impeachment. At that time, his Secretary of Defense, James R. Schlesinger, called the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and ordered him not to carry out any attack without his signature. He was simply afraid that the US president would unleash a nuclear war, given the coincidence of his enormous power and his personal crisis, according to The Atlantic.
The Daily Beast titled its feature article "The Most Patriotic Act of Treason in American History."
To judge General Mark Milley, I think you have to step into his shoes.
President Donald Trump was trying to ignore the November 2020 elections. He was pressuring his Vice President Mike Pence to ignore the Electoral College's decision.
Sgún Gina Haspel, director of the CIA, feared that a coup by the right wing was taking place.
The general had a great responsibility upon himself. What would he do if Trump gave him the order to attack China? The chain of command was evident: he had to meet with the heads of the Army, Marine Corps, Navy and Air Force to carry out the order. But there was a contradiction. He knew, or thought he knew, that the president was acting for his own cause.
The White House and other Trump administration officials have supported Milley's actions. Jen Psaki, Biden's press secretary, said the general was a "man of honor" and Joe Biden himself said he had "great confidence in General Milley." John Bolton, who was Trump's Secretary of Homeland Security, also spoke in defense of Milley. The general's representative released a statement saying that Milley had acted appropriately.
You had probably read the book by Mary L. Trump, psychologist and niece of Trump, about his egregious uncle: "Too Much and Never Enough. How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man." the most dangerous man in the world). There were the keys to what Mary L Trump has diagnosed as a pathological narcissism of the US president. If he was, as his niece said, "the most dangerous man in the world," he was capable of attacking China in order to get his way.
Perhaps the problem is in the US Constitution, created at the end of the 18th century, when all international affairs could be placed in the hands of a mere mortal: the president of the country.
Hence the pathetic briefcase that always accompanies the president with the keys to unleash a nuclear attack.
It is preferable that there is a small group that owns "the key of the rays" (pun intended).
The fear of uncontrollable anger, Alzheimer's, a brain tumor or any of the common neurological diseases would be avoided.
The rules of engagement, the rules of the game, would have to be changed, but that would be easy.
When it is known that perhaps we were seconds away from total war, one feels infinite sadness.
Perhaps that was what the general felt.
