In an impassioned and sometimes angry speech, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, defiantly declared that the US military does not swear an oath to an “aspiring dictator”, according to CNN.

It was a scathing retort that appeared to be squarely aimed at former President Donald Trump, who in recent days has accused Milley of “treason” and suggested he be executed for his behavior in Trump’s bid to remain in office in 2021, even if he lost the presidential election.

“We are unique among militaries in the world,” Milley said. “We do not swear to the country, we do not swear to the tribe, we do not swear to the religion. We do not swear allegiance to a king, queen, tyrant or dictator.”

“And we don’t take an oath in front of a potential dictator,” he mocked. “We swear by the Constitution and we swear by the idea of ​​what America is — and we’re willing to die to defend it.”

It was his last speech as the president’s senior military adviser and the country’s top general.

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General Mark Milley left his position as the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the US armed forces on Friday after the end of a mandate marked by numerous crises both abroad and on the territory of the United States, according to the AFP agency.

Charles “CQ” Brown, currently in command of Air Force One, will take his place. After Colin Powell in the 1990s, he will become the second African-American to hold such a high post in the US military.

Since taking office in October 2019, “crises have followed one another” non-stop, Mark Milley told AFP recently. Along with Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, Mark Milley coordinated US military assistance to Ukraine in the face of Russian invasion.

His mandate was marked by the American disaster in Kabul, when the Taliban took control of Afghanistan and its capital in August 2021 after a 20-year war that Mark Milley himself described as a “strategic failure”.

He was also in the spotlight at the end of the “Trump era”, when it was revealed after the publication that he had contacted his Chinese counterpart several times to reassure him of the American position. And that’s without warning Donald Trump, the current president he was worried about.

Gen. Milley regretted being present with Donald Trump when the president ordered a Black Livers Matter demonstration outside the White House to be disbanded in order to pose for a photo in front of a church with a Bible in hand.