Retired four-star general Barry McCaffrey did not explicitly endorse Hillary Clinton in this op-ed written for the Seattle Times, but he did make it crystal clear what he thinks about Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.
While the final straw for General McCaffrey was attacking the Khan family, he lists many other reasons why Trump must not become president.
In my judgment, Trump, if elected, would provoke a political and constitutional crisis within a year. He has called for the illegal torture of enemy detainees. He has called for the deliberate targeting and murder of civilians as retribution. He has questioned whether the U.S. should actually fulfill our defense obligations under the NATO pact. These NATO obligations are a U.S. Senate-ratified treaty that Trump should know is the highest law of the land.
Further, Trump has implied that the U.S. should encourage the proliferation of nuclear weapons — allies like Japan and South Korea were urged to become nuclear powers. He has praised Saddam Hussein as an effective anti-terrorist fighter. Hussein was a mass murderer who targeted his own people with an inhumane vengeance to include employing chemical weapons.
Trump has publicly praised Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has become a major threat to Western Europe with his invasion of Ukraine and muscular threats to the Baltic States and NATO regional military forces. Putin has also managed to reverse Russia’s earlier steady march toward a law-based state and is turning that magnificent country into a criminal oligarchy.
Just imagine the category five shitstorm that would erupt if a Democratic nominee was guilty of all the things listed by General McCaffrey.
The entire political establishment, left and right, and the overwhelming majority of the media, would be apoplectic. But as things stand, most elected Republicans cannot bring themselves to disavow Trump or rescind their endorsements.
For the GOP, repealing Obamacare is still more important than preventing Trump from ushering in the apocalypse.
The GOP's embrace of Trump will be remembered for decades, assuming we're all still here.