President Trump’s decision to send as many as 15,000 troops to the southern border has drawn sharp and unusual criticism from former military leaders, who have called the deployment “wasteful” and raised worries that the president might be using the military as a political tool to influence the midterm elections just days away.
“The military has all of a sudden been placed in a highly politicized environment regarding immigration,” retired Lt. Gen. David Barno, who commanded U.S. forces in Afghanistan, said of the surge of troops to the border.
The blunt criticism of the mission to block what Trump contends is a threatening caravan of migrants encouraged by Democrats reflects the strain that his unusual presidency has put on one of America’s most important norms: the tradition of an apolitical military.
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