"America's top general is apologizing for appearing in a photo-op with President Donald Trump after the forceful dispersal of protesters outside the White House last week, saying the move was a "mistake."
Gen. Mark Milley, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff also said that he was "outraged" by the killing of George Floyd and added that the protests it sparked spoke to "centuries of injustice toward African Americans."
https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/11/politics/milley-trump-appearance-mistake/index.html
—————
Does Millet think that this speech leaked to CNN is not "involvement of the military in domestic politics?"
Well pilgrims, Mark Milley does not know his place. It is not his privilege to denigrate the CinC to anyone in public, much less a group of War College graduates on the occasion of their commencement. These fellows will all hold very responsible positions in government and he has spoken to them in such a way as to encourage insubordination in the chain of command. He should be retired immediately. He can then go to work for CNN/MSNBC where he can wait for a putative President Joe Biden to appoint him SECDEF or some such thing.
Trump has IMO lost control of the Defense Department. He should take decisive action to regain that control. IMO Esper cannot be fired so close to the election, but he and the other "squirrels" in the five sided mix-master have to be limited in what kind of mischief they can accomplish.
I understand that a retired brigadier general who is a Trump supporter is being placed in OSD as the policy head. Fine. To the extent that the "mutineers" do not cut him out of the loop, he can tell Trump what devilment they are up to, but more is needed.
I suggest that a genuine intellect sit in the WH where he can monitor ALL actions and policies proposed by DoD BEFORE they are issued to the world
IMO Victor Davis Hanson is the man for that job. pl
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Davis_Hanson
Wasn’t it once, if not policy, a culture in the military that professional officers not vote or at least keep quiet about political matters?
Execute the leaders of the praetorian guard and the rest will fall in line….
Col. Lang,
Would I be right in thinking that if Gen. Milley is NOT removed immediately then President Trump has lost control of the executive arm of government?
My immediate concern is with the nuclear deterrent and the signals Gen. Milley just sent to both allies and enemies alike. Any thinking staff at the State Department will have their hair on fire by now.
I would be surprised if anyone here at SST needed further elaboration.
walrus
I think you are right about that. Milley must expect to be removed.
A. Pols
Yes. It was.
Sir,
Isn’t the issue that Trump never really took control of his administration?
It seems the SOP in his administration is that he hires people who do their own thing, many times undermining whatever Trump is tweeting about. He hired Rosenstein and Wray, who turned around got Mueller going and buried all the malfeasance under classification. All Trump did for over 2+ years is cry on Twitter about “witch hunt”. He never took actions with the authority vested in his office.
It is not just the DoD, but DOJ, FBI, CIA and on & on. It would appear that he never really paid much attention to who he hired and if his hires fit into his program which it is not clear he knows. Just look at all the NSAs he’s hired. He fired Flynn because he couldn’t take the heat. Then he got McMaster and when that didn’t work out straight into the fire with Bolton. Who’s got a whole book out of it. Now there’s another guy.
The bigger question is, does Trump really care about running the nuts and bolts of the governmental apparatus? The other is, how do you run the executive branch by tweet?
Is there something peculiar about Trump that so many insiders – those that he hired – have turned around and said his administration is all chaos?
I agree. It looks like the Barr-Durham investigators are closing in on the coup plotters and more were either involved, or complicit by their silence, than was thoght.
Trump has left it much too late to clean out the snake pit of the joint chiefs. It is too bad Milley can’t be reassigned, with limited phone and no internet privileges, to manage the fuel depot at Earecksen Air Station
I’ve read most of Hanson’s books. Generally he seems to know his stuff.
Although I do not like his glorification of Sherman and his march to the sea. He plainly calls Sherman a ‘saviour’ in two of his books. What dribble! Sherman’s march was largely unopposed, thanks to the generalship of George Thomas who had defeated Hood both during the Atlanta Campaign and later the Franklin/Nashville Campaign.
Hanson also glorified Petraeus in his book ‘The Saviour Generals’. Petraeus now is advocating renaming Ft Bragg and Benning. If they rebrand Ft Benning as Ft Sherman or Ft Petraeus then I’m gonna raise hell.
VDH?
GREAT idea.
Get rid of Esper ASAP, another empty suit swamp creature.
It would probably take more than 1 term to clean out the rot in the DOD and Trump managed to waste 3 years.
His seeming adoration of generals got him into some very bad appointments.
He thought that the generals were apolitical military leaders who had been pushed under the bus by Obama.
SURPRISE: the generals and admirals are just more swamp creatures – dressed up like doormen – looking for a fat corporate board position after their years of “service” and fully willing to follow the political winds to get it.
Mattis, with his PR machine, is worth millions and still playing the “warrior monk” act.
Jack,
I agree with your points: Trump has been a poor chief executive; worse administrator; and awful politician (if politics is the art of getting to 50.1%). He never understood the importance of having a Dick Cheney to vet his appointments for political/policy allegiance, organize his administration and make sure it ran smoothly (whatever one might think of Dick Cheney, he could do all those things).
On the political front, he lost the house by making a tax cut and repealing Obamacare his number one priorities, when his base wanted infrastructure and a wall. This led to the enabling of Russia gate, impeachment and collapse of his policy agenda.
Yes, the MSM and elites have been out for his scalp, but he has put his head on the platter too many times to ensure his survival.