09-16-2021, 04:07 AM
(09-15-2021, 05:50 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: ** 15-Sep-2021 World View: Milley going rogue
Cool Breeze Wrote:> John, what do you think of this Milley story?
John Wrote:> ** 14-Sep-2021 World View: Milley story
> From Trump ultra-haters like Woodward and Costa, based on reports
> from ultra-Trump-hating CNN? I'll wait for more evidence.
Guest Wrote:> The Whitehouse and Joint Chiefs are all circling the wagons and
> spinning but not denying. Does this count as more anything?
> https://www.zerohedge.com/political/shou...ieved-duty
- At this afternoon's press conference, Pentagon spokesman John
Kirby said that if a Joint Chief had a consequential conversation with
a foreign general, then the President should be informed. However, he
said that he cannot comment on specific details in the previous
administration.
- Bob Woodward, who has a reputation for making things up to sell
books, claims that Milley thought that Trump was unstable, and so he
went around the president and had a consequential conversation with
his Chinese counterpart, wherein he promised that China would be
forewarned in case of a military threat.
- According to the reporting, which is somewhat vague, Milley was
motivated by hysterical screaming by Nancy Pelosi who demanded that
Milley take the nuclear "football" away from Trump so that he couldn't
start a nuclear war.
- As a result, Milley spoke to other Pentagon generals and demanded
that he be put into the chain of command in case there was a threat of
a military strike. Milley is an advisor to the president, but is not
in the chain of command.
- Trump says that if this story about Milley is actually true, then
Milley committed treason.
- There is no evidence at all that Trump was unstable, or that he
was planning a nuclear strike on China to get even for losing the
election. That whole concept is completely absurd, and doesn't make
sense. Trump left office on January 20, without incident.
Woodward, Pelosi and Milley were/are all vitriolic Trump haters, and
Pelosi is a particularly hysterical and unstable Trump hater.
Remember when she tore up Trump's state of the union address as he was
delivering it. Pelosi is a total shithead.
If Woodward and Trump are telling the truth, and Kirby is correct,
then Milley has committed a crime.
In my opinion, the most likely scenario is that Woodward is lying (as
usual) to sell books, or at least took fairly standard events and blew
them way out of proportion for his book, and that Milley showed bad
judgment but did not commit a crime.
Admiral Wilhelm Canaris is generally recognized in Germany as a hero for thwarting some possible acts of Nazi aggression that would have given the Third Reich transitory advantages that would have been disastrous for the country induced into pro-Nazi acts of aggression. So Germany and Franco's Spain could have cut off Gibraltar... but at the cost of creating a vulnerable ally that would have been easy pickings for the Anglo-American alliance. Let's not even discuss Turkey which eventually declared war on the Third Reich late in the war. Yet his deeds got him executed in the wake of the July 20 plot. Canaris figured it out.
General Milley thwarted acts of overt aggression that could have started World War III with two nuclear powers as protagonists... and, with Donald Trump extending his term of office illegally, with two dictators with no moral compass. America would have had no meaningful allies. NATO would disintegrate. South Korea would sell out an unreliable USA under a capricious ruler for its survival. Japan -- likewise. Japan does not want Okinawa nuked just because it has a US military base.
For the millions of dead on both sides, guilt and culpability would be irrelevant. For the rest... I can imagine China cutting some deals. I cannot tell you whether America would have the same sort of government after the fact, but I can imagine Donald Trump getting much the same treatment as Benito Mussolini or Nicolae Ceausescu once the dust settles.
Face it: Donald Trump is erratic and amoral. This is a man without the capacity to bond to anyone. We have never had a President like him, and would that we never have one like him again! This man has his rhetorical knives out for George W. Bush just like he had them out for Barack Obama -- and John McCain. How can anyone now trust him?
The Uniform Code of Military Justice makes clear that war crimes are absolutely unacceptable, and that anyone who thwarts them will be understood to have full justification after the fact. That is proven in the wake of the field massacre at My Lai. We have never had a situation in modern times in which the US does overt aggression against a political order that does not deserve it (I accept the US invasions of Panama, Grenada, Iraq, and Afghanistan as having some justification). Mistakes can happen, but all in all -- mess with the best and die like the rest. As for the President and top diplomats or military officials, US participation in the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials of the major offenders of such regimes indicates that leadership of FDR and Truman understood they might be signing the death warrants for any future American leader who becomes another Hideki Tojo, Wilhelm Keitel, or Joachim von Ribbentrop. Turning over someone like Ferenc Szalasi, a Nazi puppet ruler of Hungary to Hungary for trial and execution for crimes against humanity suggests what could befall an American.
...On January 6, the Joint Chiefs of Staff made clear that Donald Trump had been defeated fairly in the 2020 election and would not remain President The Joint Chiefs knew what they were doing. A delusional person should not be in charge of the "nuclear football".
The military was not going to remove Donald Trump. That role would have been left to the federal marshals.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
