Insurrection?
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More:
"In a pair of secret phone calls, Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, assured his Chinese counterpart, Gen. Li Zuocheng of the People’s Liberation Army, that the United States would not strike, according to a new book by Washington Post associate editor Bob Woodward and national political reporter Robert Costa.
One call took place on Oct. 30, 2020, four days before the election that unseated President Trump, and the other on Jan. 8, 2021.
“General Li, I want to assure you that the American government is stable and everything is going to be okay,” Milley told him. “We are not going to attack or conduct any kinetic operations against you.”
In the book’s account, Milley went so far as to pledge he would alert his counterpart in the event of a U.S. attack, stressing the rapport they’d established through a backchannel. “General Li, you and I have known each other for now five years. If we’re going to attack, I’m going to call you ahead of time. It’s not going to be a surprise.”Believing that China could lash out if it felt at risk from an unpredictable and vengeful American president, Milley took action. The same day, he called the admiral overseeing the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, the military unit responsible for Asia and the Pacific region, and recommended postponing the military exercises, according to the book. The admiral complied.
Milley also summoned senior officers to review the procedures for launching nuclear weapons, saying the president alone could give the order — but, crucially, that he, Milley, also had to be involved. Looking each in the eye, Milley asked the officers to affirm that they had understood, the authors write, in what he considered an “oath.”
In other words, Milley instructed senior officers to obey his orders and to ignore those given by the President Trump, the duly elected commander-in-chief. "
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Milley needs to go.
Now.
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@copper said in Insurrection?:
Lock him up
Really
Now
In a lot of countries they wouldn't lock him up, they'd stand him against a wall.
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That bastion of Trumpism, National Review says, "fire his ass."
(emphases in original)
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Now, what General Milley did in this instance is not, in the proper sense of the word, treason, given that China is not an open enemy in war. [UPDATE: On further reflection, however, it could be construed as an offer to commit treason, given that the promise to give notice of a future attack presupposes action at odds with a direct, armed conflict ordered by the commander in chief.] It probably violates the terms of the Logan Act, but that statute is possibly unconstitutional and should be repealed. (I confess I do not know enough of the Uniform Code of Military Justice to say whether or not this violates any of its provisions.) It is not even quite a military coup. But it skates awfully close to that line.
There is no circumstance in which an American military officer should be conducting his own rogue foreign policy without informing the civilian leadership. That strikes directly at the heart of our democratic, constitutional system, in which the elected president and Congress — and the appointees who are chosen by the president and report to him — make the major foreign-policy decisions, and the military must carry them out. An officer who will not carry out an order has an honorable option: resign and go public, choosing his moral duty as a citizen over his duty as an officer — but as of that moment, he can no longer serve as an officer. A frontline commander might have some leeway around this principle at the level of detail — say, talking to an adversary about how to propose or conduct a prisoner exchange — but if the president decides to convey a particular message to a hostile nation as a matter of foreign policy, it is never the job of the military brass to override or thwart that.
The primacy of civilian leadership was the principle on which Abraham Lincoln countermanded orders by some of his generals that moved faster on freeing slaves than Lincoln could politically manage, a conflict that led to John C. Frémont being relieved of his command. It is the principle on which Harry Truman properly relieved Douglas MacArthur of his command in Korea; MacArthur wanted to widen the war into a direct conflict with China, and had begun telling foreign governments this without involving Truman. Those decisions were Truman’s to make.
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And Pence gets drug into it. Personally, I don't find it at all surprising that he looked into whether or not he could legally do what his president asked. Rather I find it responsible.
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Scapegoat.
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https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/15/milley-held-secret-calls-with-china-others-as-trump-pushed-election-lies.html
…
“His calls with the Chinese and others in October and January were in keeping with these duties and responsibilities conveying reassurance in order to maintain strategic stability,” said the spokesman, Col. Dave Butler.All of Milley’s calls were coordinated with the rest of the Department of Defense and other relevant agencies, Butler added.
Milley did not tell Trump about the calls.
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When a reporter asked Biden on Wednesday whether Milley did “the right thing,” Biden replied: “I have great confidence in General Milley.”— — — —
Between a “World War 3” launched by a despotic head-of-state who has lost the election to a “rogue general” preventing it, I will take the “rogue general.”
If the newly elected head-of-state wants said general to stay, he stays. Otherwise he goes.
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Ain't the way it works. There is a mechanism for the President, the 25th Amendment. Use it if needed.
There is no excuse for the military to circumvent civilian control. None.
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@axtremus said in Insurrection?:
despotic head-of-state
What? You're not serious.
Oh, wait. It's Ax...
So, telling "lies" about the election is worse than usurping power by an unelected military leader? Really?
As posted earlier, when you've lost Vindmann.
Oh, wait. It's Ax..
One could easily make a case that doddering and incoherent Biden has no business running the country. But that’s up to the people, not Milley or any other general or bureaucrat. Because running a shadow government is far closer to the definition of a “coup” than anything else that’s happened over the past five years.
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Other stuff the Woodward-Costa book says about Milley:
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@axtremus said in Insurrection?:
Other stuff the Woodward-Costa book says about Milley:
https://www.businessinsider.com/milley-fucking-done-shit-trump-bible-photo-lafayette-george-floyd-2021-9Unseemly? Perhaps.
Illegal? Certainly not.
Powell was one of several former top military officials to criticize the photo op. "We have a Constitution. And we have to follow that Constitution. And the President has drifted away from it," Powell told CNN.
This is funny in the context of what Milley allegedly did, isn't it?
"We're the ones with the guns," he said. So much for civilian control of the military.
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https://www.politico.com/news/2021/09/19/milley-china-contacts-trump-mullen-512752
Former Joint Chiefs chair (Michael Mullen): Nothing unusual about Milley’s contacts with China
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Sure.
