{"id":58604,"date":"2025-03-02T17:17:55","date_gmt":"2025-03-02T22:17:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=58604"},"modified":"2025-03-02T17:17:55","modified_gmt":"2025-03-02T22:17:55","slug":"the-result-of-losing-accountability","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=58604","title":{"rendered":"The Result Of Losing Accountability"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Friday, The Federalist<\/a> posted an article about President Trump’s recent firing of a number of\u00a0 high-ranking military officers.<\/p>\n

An article posted at Military.com<\/a> in August 2020 reported:<\/p>\n

…In April 1945, when we had four five-stars and 13 four-stars…<\/strong><\/p>\n

Wikipedia<\/a> states:<\/p>\n

There are currently 38 active-duty four-star officers<\/a> in the uniformed services of the United States<\/a>:<\/strong><\/p>\n

We won a major war with 17 generals. We haven’t won one since.<\/p>\n

The article at The Federalist points out:<\/p>\n

An \u201cAppeal to Congress<\/a>\u201d from five former secretaries of defense warns that Donald Trump is firing flag officers, which is unprecedented and an assault on American political norms. This letter is an appalling package of dangerous claims and dumber than a box of rocks. But let\u2019s take a helpful detour before we get into the details.<\/strong><\/p>\n

An\u00a0essay<\/a>\u00a0Thursday from a\u00a0professor<\/a>\u00a0at the U.S. Naval War College makes a similar argument and perfectly represents the moment:<\/strong><\/p>\n

…The president does have the authority to remove these officers; three- and four-star officers hold that rank only while they possess the position of importance and responsibility<\/a>\u00a0to which they have been specifically nominated by the president, and they serve at the\u00a0pleasure of the president<\/a>. But just because something is legal does not make it wise.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The article summarizes problems with the case made by the generals protesting their firing:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. These measures constitute a crisis;<\/strong><\/li>\n
  2. The president does have the authority to remove these officers\u2026 and they serve at the pleasure of the president.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    It\u2019s a crisis that the president of the United States is exercising authority that he has.<\/strong><\/p>\n

    The article at The Federalist concludes:<\/p>\n

    Ricks (Thomas Ricks, who wrote A History of American Generals<\/span>) asked three important questions as he noted the sharp trend away from the view that generals can be fired: \u201cHow and why did we lose the longstanding practice of relieving generals for failure? Why has accountability declined? And is it connected to the decline in the operational competence of American generals?\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

    The current president\u2019s decision to fire flag officers isn\u2019t a break with American law and tradition. The \u201cAppeal to Congress\u201d from former secretaries of defense certainly is. The warning about a crisis is the crisis. This dangerous argument needs to be hammered into its grave, quickly and forcefully.<\/strong><\/p>\n

    It is time to clean house ALL through the government.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    On Friday, The Federalist posted an article about President Trump’s recent firing of a number of\u00a0 high-ranking military officers. An article posted at Military.com in August 2020 reported: …In April 1945, when we had four five-stars and 13 four-stars… Wikipedia … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[17771,17770,10589,11815,1875],"class_list":["post-58604","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-high-ranking-military-officers","tag-miltary-com","tag-president-trump","tag-the-federalist","tag-wikipedia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58604","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=58604"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58604\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58605,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58604\/revisions\/58605"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=58604"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=58604"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=58604"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}