'Moral rot': Retired military leaders take on Trump's 'failing empire'

Donald Trump is taking this country down a bad path, according to a couple of retired military leaders.

Retired Air Force officer William J. Astore on Sunday published an article in Salon called, "Our ailing, flailing, failing empire is lashing out," in which he argues, "To fight Trump, tyranny and war, America must have profiles in courage — not cowardice."

"As a retired U.S. Air Force officer, I firmly believe in civilian control of our military. This country should be a nation of laws — not of special interests, oligarchs or kings. Before committing our forces to battle, Congress should always declare war in the name of the people. Our military should indeed be a citizen-soldier force, not an isolated caste driven by a warrior ethos. And above all, the United States should be a republic ruled by law and shaped by sound moral values, not a greed-driven empire fueled by militarism," according to Astore. "Yet when I express such views, I feel like I’m clinging to a belief in the tooth fairy, the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus. It feels idealistic, naïve, even painful to think that way. Yes, I served this country in uniform for 20 years, and now, in the age of Donald Trump, it has, as far as I can tell, thoroughly lost its way. The unraveling began so long ago — most obviously with the disastrous Vietnam War of the 1960s and 1970s, though in truth this country’s imperial desires predated even the Spanish-American War of 1898, stretching back to the wanton suppression of Indigenous peoples as part of its founding and expansion."

He goes on to say that, "Signs of moral rot are everywhere" when it comes to the president.

"Our president, who would like to be known for his budget cuts, nonetheless giddily celebrates a record trillion-dollar war budget. Our secretary of defense gleefully promotes a warrior ethos. Congress almost unanimously supports or acquiesces in the destruction of Gaza. Images from the region resemble bombed-out Stalingrad in 1942 or Berlin in 1945. Meanwhile, for more than two decades now, America’s leaders have claimed to be waging a successful global 'war on terror' even as they fuel terror across the globe. What do they think all those U.S. weapons are for — spreading peace?" Astore asked.

And he's not the only one.

He adds, "For tyranny to be stopped, for a catastrophic war with China (and who knows what else) to be avoided, America must have profiles in courage, not cowardice. Yet even despair is being weaponized. As a retired colonel and friend of mine wrote to me recently: 'I don’t even know where to start anymore, Bill. I have no hope for anything ever improving,'" the veteran wrote. "And don’t think of that despair as incidental or accidental. It’s a distinct feature of the present system of government."

Read the full report here.