The General Milley imbroglio

For John, BLUF:  Here is a view of the imbroglio swirling around Joint Chiefs Chairman, GEN Mak Milley.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Deep State, Deep Trouble

Here is the sub-headline:

America’s woke generals and the Military-Industrial Complex must be purged to save the nation.

From The Ame3rican Mind, by Mr Josiah Lippincott, 15 September 2021.

Here is the lede plus three:

Revelations from a new book, Peril, by Bob Woodward and Rob Costa, reveal just how deep the spiritual rot in the military goes.  In the days after the January 6 protest, General Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, promised, in the event of a war, to give aid and comfort to China.  According to the Washington Post, after the Capitol protest, Milley sent secret communiques to the head of the People’s Liberation Army, promising that “If we’re going to attack, I’m going to call you ahead of time.  It’s not going to be a surprise.”

In a decent country such a brazen act of collusion with a foreign power by one of the most prominent leaders of the armed forces would be met with immediate and unrelenting backlash.  Instead, this betrayer of the Constitution and the principle of civilian leadership of the military is a liberal darling.  At the inauguration, Joe Biden thanked Milley for undermining President Trump in the final weeks of his presidency.

Milley, before reaching out to China, sat down with the service’s top officers and demanded from them what amounted to an oath—none of them would launch a nuclear weapon without his approval.  The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff went behind the President’s back to secure control over the nation’s most important weapons.

Our generals are losers abroad, and grifters at home.  They parrot MSNBC talking points on Twitter and grovel before Fauci. This is bad enough.  But Milley’s actions show that America’s top military officers have reached another level of delusion.  They fancy themselves a new praetorian guard to protect the nation—as construed by elite editorial boards—from the people’s elected representatives.

A new Praetorian Guard?  The idea of a Praetorian Guard is anamthma to the the traditions of our Republic.  We should not encourage this kind of bureaucratic approach in our Nation's Capitol.  We should not even encourage talk about it.  Even applause for GEN Milley and his actions during the twilight days of the Trump Administration is encouraging the wrong way to go, for the implications for the future.  No matter how much you may have disliked President Trump, the idea of the military "keeping an eye on him" should be anathma to you.

Another view on this issue can be found at the Lawfire Blog, by retired Air Force Major General Charlie Dunlap, "America needs to know exactly what General Milley said to his 'Chinese counterpart'”.  When he was a student at National War College then Colonel Dunlap won the Chairman's Essay Competition (co-won), with "The Origins of the American Military Coup of 2012".♠  Professor Dunlap has studied this issue for some time and is an expert in the field.

My guess is that this will quietly slip away, with no adverse action against anyone.  That is fine, as long as we don't have repeats.  None.♥

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  Interestingly enough, this paper was the co-winner of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff 1991-92 Strategy Essay Competition.  I was lucky enough to be the "thesis" advisor, which involved no work on my part.
♥  For sure, if President Trump comes back in 2024, he will have this in the back of his mind and make appointments accordingly.  Promising careers may be crushed, but then that happens every four years anyway.