Suffocating? How? Is someone stopping you from expressing yourself? If anything, IK's government was suffocating by forcing off journalists off channels, favoring certain chosen channels & journalists, & not following up / investigating / prosecuting attacks on journalists. Look at PECA ordinance to see what is suffocating.
I think that we need to stop putting retired servicemen on some sort of pedestal. They spent their insulated lives a certain way & they can not properly analyze either politics, or economics, or social issues. Why should they get to have a wide audience just because they have opinions that often are wrong (re. politics, economy, larger society) because they have nothing approaching subject-matter expertise? I have opinions too, but I would not assume that I get to be an expert at all about things I know very little about.
Anyways, take opinions of retired generals like those of any old uncle talking in a drawing room to fellow uncles. They are nothing more than just random opinions, devoid of expertise.
I wonder if he had the guts & foresight to ask similar questions in 2017-2018? If he never did that, he does not get to speak up now. If you never supported principles earlier, you do not get to find them out now, only because your messiah has been ousted in a constitutional manner.