Serious tension hangs over US President Donald Trump's relationship with the military after Defense Secretary Mark Esper rejected the White House master's call to deploy the military to control the protests, while former senior Pentagon figures including Jim Mattis criticized Trump's handling of the demonstrations.
And Esper's announcement on Wednesday that it opposed the deployment of soldiers on duty to control protests against the use of force by the police constituted an exceptional confrontation with the commander-in-chief of the country's armed forces.
"I do not support resorting to the law of the uprising," Esber said, referring to the law dating back to the year 1807 that Trump sought to enforce with the aim of deploying armed elements of the army to take control of the cities in protest.
Hours later, Esper's predecessor Jim Mattis launched an attack on Trump.
"When I joined the army about 50 years ago, I swore to support and defend the constitution ... I never imagined that soldiers who take the same oath could receive the matter, whatever the circumstances, for violating the constitutional rights of their citizens," he wrote, referring to the right to demonstrate.
Mattis, who served as Trump's defense minister for two years before resigning after disagreements with the president, noted that the Nazis in Germany believed in the slogan "divide and rule."
"Donald Trump is the first president in my life not to try to unite Americans, but he doesn't even pretend that he's trying to do that," he said. "Instead, he is trying to divide us."
Two former chiefs of staff of the Joint Chiefs of Staff - top-ranked personalities currently in the Pentagon - are on the sparring streak. "America is not a battlefield," said retired general Martin Dempsey, who was chief of the General Staff from 2011 to 2015. Our citizens are not the enemies. ”
In turn, his predecessor, retired Admiral Mike Mullen, wrote, "I am deeply concerned that our army personnel will be re-employed while they are given orders for political ends."
The apparent opposition of the president to non-political personalities has reinforced the risk of a rift in civil and military relations.
It could also mean that the position of Esber is at stake. White House spokeswoman Kylie McKinney declined to respond to the question of whether he still had full Trump confidence.
These developments actually shake the image that Trump has repeatedly insisted on regarding his alliance with the military, which is promoted in his political propaganda as an indication of his hardness.
Signs of resistance have appeared against Trump since last week when he threatened to send regular armed forces, instead of merely reservists from the National Guard, to stop the protests that followed the death of an African-American named George Floyd during his arrest.
Esper appeared to agree with the president when he ordered that 1,600 military police be sent to the Washington area to prepare for the event of increased riots, before calling on state governors to "take control of the battlefield."
When Esper and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Millie appeared next to Trump on Monday to take memorial photos at a church near the White House, minutes after the security forces cleared the area of the protesters, they seemed to agree with Trump's desire to deploy the soldiers.
But the US defense secretary retracted his position on the accusations that he was turning the military into a political tool in Trump's hands.
On Wednesday, Esber firmly reiterated his opposition to the use of soldiers on duty to deal with protesters.
He told reporters at the Pentagon that "the option of using soldiers on duty should only be a last resort and only in more serious cases."
"We are not in a situation like this at the moment," he added.
In an effort to clarify their positions, Esber, Millie, and other senior Pentagon officials assured the soldiers that they had sworn to defend the US constitution, especially the right to freedom of expression.
A former Pentagon spokesman, David Laban, said he had never seen a position so opposed to the master of the White House, especially by a figure in Mattis' shrine.
"The president politicized the army in unprecedented ways," said Laban of the Two-Party Policy Institute.
He added that Esber and Milli were "very late and allowed the situation to worsen."
He continued, "During this week, they lost some confidence from the forces and the American people" together.
He stressed that Mattis, Dempsey and Mullen did not try to feed an insurgency within the ranks of the army, but they considered that the reputation of the military establishment among the American people is at stake, indicating that the situation "was exacerbating."