Brian: I had to come back again to this article, wondering if I had misread it. Nope, I didn't. According to this general, the military has not gone to the dark side--yet. What about other generals?

This article brought me to Patrick Watson's "The Struggle for Democracy" series circa 1990. Part of the story was in Argentina. He spent time in the military academy and found out that the military officers spend a lot of time studying the humanities, for these are the tools officers will need to run the country, if "called" to do so. From the tone of your article, it seems the US military is also prepared in this way. Maybe not "running the country" is their goal, but they will have to pick a side.

I am coming to the conclusion that the next five years of American history has already been cast in stone. There are forces in play that need to reach their natural conclusion, and there is little anyone can do about that.

We may not know what that natural conclusion is yet, but things will not be fully settled regardless of a "good" or "bad" conclusion.