Tag Archives: General Milley

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Posted on Twitter by Victor Davis Hanson:

Victor Davis Hanson
@VDHanson
As Gen. Milley leaves office of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, on his last day  he goes out ranting about his loyalty to the Constitution and not  to a “dictator,”—blasting Trump without mentioning Trump, and thus trumping as it were Trump’s own excesses with those of his own. So transits the most politicalized and weaponized 4-star CJS since the office was created. Would that instead Milley had at least explained the 2021 historically disastrous flight from Kabul and defeat in Afghanistan, or the radical implementation of woke agendas into the Pentagon retention and promotion policies, or why he felt the illustrious and renown Professor Kendi, of current Boston University “Center for Antiracist Research” infamy, should be required reading for the U.S. military at time when its recruitment is descending into historical lows and its deterrent reputation is seriously questioned. So what about Milley’s own “constitutional” legacy? Is it that an officer who deems his civilian President and Commander in Chief dangerous—as diagnosed by 4-star psychiatrist, state department diplomat, and now theater commander Milley—has a right to commandeer the chain of command, usurp powers that are expressly by law denied to him, and then take it on himself in a time of Chinese-American tensions to freelance, by contacting his communist counterpart to warn him about his own president’s diagnosed volatility,  and to reassure the hardened Stalinist that Dr/Gen. Milley will inform him first of any precipitate action from the White House. Dictatorial much? Americans might ask the departing Milley, two questions, 1) if Trump is reelected in 2024, will a retired General Milley, as did his retired 4-star colleagues in 2020, violate the Uniform Code of Military Justice and repeat his current charges against a second-term President Trump—matching the previous invective of his colleagues’ accusations of “liar”  or “Mussolini”?. And 2) what would Milley have done had a subordinate like himself, say a 3-star general, decided that Gen. Mark Milley’s Beijing gambit and his arrogation of command powers that were not legally his own, posed a grave threat to the republic? And thus would such a 3-star call up theater commanders to warn them to resist Milley’s reckless orders and to report to him first, followed by his  phone call to the top Chinese PLA general to assure them that if Milley somehow gave an order deemed by the 3-star to be dangerously provocative, then he would not only not obey it but rather first warn the Chinese military of Milley’s unstable state of mind. Is that the kind of military Milley wishes to leave as his legacy, as he departs barking accusations at the moon?

Another Voice In The Current Scandal

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The Red State Observer reported yesterday that former acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller, who was in charge of the Pentagon during the time General Milley made his calls to Chine, has stated that he never authorized those calls.

The article reports:

In a statement to Fox News, Miller said that the United States Armed Forces, from its inception, has “operated under the inviolable principle of civilian control of the military.”

“The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is the highest-ranking military officer whose sole role is providing military-specific advice to the president, and by law is prohibited from exercising executive authority to command forces,” Miller said. “The chain of command runs from the President to the Secretary of Defense, not through the Chairman.”

…The book (“Peril,” co-written by Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Robert Costa) claims Milley contacted Li after he had reviewed intelligence that suggested Chinese officials believed the United States was planning an attack on China amid military exercises in the South China Sea. The authors of the book also claim Milley contacted Li a second time to reassure him that the U. S. would not make any type of advances or attack China in any form, as Milley promised, “We are 100% steady. Everything’s fine. But democracy can be sloppy sometimes.”

But Fox News spoke with multiple individuals who were in the room during the two phone calls Milley had with Li. The calls, in October, were coordinated with then-Defense Secretary Mark Esper’s office.

“They were not secret,” a U. S. official told Fox News about the calls, which took place over video teleconference.

The article continues:

Fox News has learned there were about 15 people present for the calls. Sources told Fox News that there were multiple notetakers present, and said the calls were both conducted with full knowledge of then-Defense Secretary Mark Esper and then-acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller – something Miller denied.

“If the reporting in Woodward’s book is accurate, it represents a disgraceful and unprecedented act of insubordination by the Nation’s top military officer,” Miller said, adding that if the story of Milley’s “histrionic outbursts and unsanctioned, anti-Constitutional involvement in foreign policy prove true, he must resign immediately or be fired by the Secretary of Defense to guarantee the sanctity of the officer corps.”

“Pursuit of partisan politics and individual self-interests are a violation of an officer’s sacred duty and have no place in the United States military,” Miller said, adding that “a lesser ranking officer accused of such behavior would immediately be relieved of duty pending a thorough and independent investigation.”

“As secretary of defense, I did not and would not ever authorize such conduct,” Miller said.

I should note here that sources in the Defense Department (and our military) are not always reliable.

The article notes:

And former chief of staff for the Department of Defense Kash Patel told Fox News that “the law governing the Joint Chiefs of Staff specifically forbids the chairman from exercising any operational command authority.”

“Congress put this in the statute because the U. S. military is to be led by a civilian, the commander-in-chief,” Patel continued. “Furthermore, by law, the national command authority goes from the president to the secretary of Defense to include anything relating troop deployments, operations in theaters of war, and nuclear command.”

Patel added that if the calls with China are true, Milley “has violated the law regarding operational authority.”

Stay tuned.

Is The Uniform Code of Military Justice Still In Effect?

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The media is abuzz with stories about Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman General Mark Milley and his conversations with the Chinese Communists.There are a few things that need to be emphasized about this story. In America our military is led by a civilian–the President. Our military is answerable to the President as the President is the Commander-in-Chief. In our military there is a chain of command that all members of the military are supposed to honor. In his conversations with the Chinese Communists, General Milley went outside his chain of command. That is the problem.

I have five questions about the uproar over General Milley:

1. Is it true?

2. If it is true, why did Bob Woodward not disclose it before now?

3. Is this a set up to make General Milley the fall guy for the Afghanistan debacle?

4. Does the military still honor the Uniform Code of Military Justice?

5. Is this dust-up being put out to distract us from something else?

Yesterday Townhall posted an article about what General Milley has done.

The article reports:

New reporting from The Washington Post, detailing the contents of a new book, shows General Mark Milley reassured China’s People’s Liberal Army General Li Zuocheng that he would give the communist country a heads up if President Donald Trump launched an attack in the final months of his presidency. He did so in a series of reported phone calls and reassured Li he would stand between Trump and an attack on Chinese assets. 

What would have been the reaction if someone in the Roosevelt administration had told the Germans he would warn them before the allies invaded France? On the surface, this looks an awful lot like treason.

The article quotes The Washington Post:

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.”

The last paragraph is troubling. That’s not officially a coup, but it sure sounds like one. General Milley was putting himself in a position where the senior officers needed his approval to follow the orders of the Commander-in-Chief. That is not the way it is supposed to work. This is nuts.