Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” former NATO Supreme Allied Commander Admiral James Stavridis said he was concerned President Donald Trump has caused America to lose it’s “international moral authority.”
Stavridis said, “This is a moment when I think many of us watched the use of active-duty military to clear peaceful protesters out of Lafayette Square, and it rang echoes of what the Founders feared more than anything, which was the use of armed active-duty military against citizens, and they built safeguards in, including the First Amendment.”
Host Chick Todd said, “I am curious, it struck me today being NATO Supreme Allied Commander, you didn’t live in the United States. You lived overseas being an American diplomat overseas, say, in Hungary, say in China, say in Brazil, you get where I’m going here. Are you concerned about our loss of international moral authority?”
Stavridis said, “I am, Chuck, and it often—before I was NATO commander I spent four years, four stars in charge of all military south of the United States. It is called U.S. Southern Command. I spent a lot of time with the governments and militaries of Latin American and the Caribbean who, let’s face it, have a long history of dictatorships and oppression. They’ve come a long way since the ’60s and ’70s, but I’ve spent a lot of time talking to those leaders, making sure that they continued on that path. I never thought I would be criticizing my own government in that regard. It’s a shocking turn, and to your point, yes, it reduces our moral influence and our leadership role in the world. We ought to worry about that deeply.”
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN
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