General Mark Milley contacted China to Avoid 'Surprise' War

PeaceMaker 03

Well-known member
He served in Panama (Just Cause in 1989) and IFOR in Bosnia in the 1990s, then Iraqi Freedom.

The Purple Heart is for individuals who are wounded in combat, not for anyone who served in a war zone. Him not getting one just means he was lucky enough not to get shot.

That said, that he even thought this was a good idea let alone did it is absolutely insane. He needs to either resign or be relieved. He didn't *technically* commit treason, but he came AWFULLY close to suborning it.
How is telling a foreign power that he will not attack them when if his commander tells him to attack not treason?

You can church it up, but telling a foreign power you will inform them of your plans if ordered to attack falls under the heading of disloyalty to your oath as an officer.

An Army officer telling anyone the president is mental is cause for Court Martial. Commissioned officers have less freedom of speech as part of their commission, and speaking in such away as to disparage a superior is verboten.

. If it is stated in an email or recorded then he is screwed. UCMJ is not the civil legal system. A soldier is guilty until proven innocent.
 

Zachowon

The Army Life for me! The POG life for me!
Founder
In a just world Milley would hang until dead.

But then in a sane world, Trump would have gutted the top ranks of the Pentagon when they concealed US troop deployments from him and refused to pull out US troops.

As for what actually happens? Biden isn't going to fire him and the Biden led executive branch isn't going to bring any charges against him. But he might end up resigning depending on how much backlash he suffers from both Congress and the public.

The Senate Armed Services Committee questioning of him at the end of the month is what to watch, because you know that they are going to ask him about it and he will be under oath.

"General, did you tell a PRC general that you would let him know if the President of the United States decided to engage in military action against the PRC?"

If he says no then you throw up the Five Eyes intercept of the call, if he says yes but that he had authorization then the question becomes who did the authorizing. Because the then SecDef says he never authorized it, and somehow I doubt Trump, Pence, or Pompeo did either.

Force the Yes/No answer out of him and then go from there.
That is actually a very good point.
Looking at how is on Senate Armed Services committee, more of them served then didn't.
Highest rank I saw was colonal/Captain (Navy).
They probably won't be as easy on him.
The ones that didn't serve? Perhaps will be.
 

Sobek

Disgusting Scalie
Let's hope there are still some fucking spines left in the higher ranks, because if they let this slide I would seriously consider quitting or at least making plans to go AWOL if push comes to shove.
 

Airedale260

Well-known member
How is telling a foreign power that he will not attack them when if his commander tells him to attack not treason?

Because the definition of treason requires us to actually be at war with them. My point is from a technical perspective, he isn't actually committing it; however he is arguably OFFERING to do so. Which is still, shall we say, "a bad thing." /Understatement

You can church it up, but telling a foreign power you will inform them of your plans if ordered to attack falls under the heading of disloyalty to your oath as an officer.

An Army officer telling anyone the president is mental is cause for Court Martial. Commissioned officers have less freedom of speech as part of their commission, and speaking in such away as to disparage a superior is verboten.

If it is stated in an email or recorded then he is screwed. UCMJ is not the civil legal system. A soldier is guilty until proven innocent.

If they can ascertain (as in, would stand up to scrutiny) that he, in fact, did do just this then he should absolutely be fired. An actual court martial, however, could be a mess, as it might end up uncovering issues nobody wants to touch, and there isn't a guarantee he'd be convicted.

I'm not saying he shouldn't be, mind you; I'm pointing out that it could turn into a circus over Trump and the events of January 6th, which would not help any prosecution.
 

sillygoose

Well-known member
If this turns out to be lies, the fact people like CNN and WaPo are publishing it and then making it sound good for Miley is even worse. They not only published fake news, but news about a US General committing Treason and then praised the treason.
At this point that is just a matter of course for those 'news' agencies.
 

Zachowon

The Army Life for me! The POG life for me!
Founder
Technically it isn't treason, but still collaborating with an adversary and going against orders.
Except he was ordered by Esper.
 

sillygoose

Well-known member
Technically it isn't treason, but still collaborating with an adversary and going against orders.
Except he was ordered by Esper.
So technically does that mean it wasn't against orders, he took orders from his direct civilian commander?
 

Airedale260

Well-known member
Looks like this was ordered by Mark Esper:

Woodward's reporting is just sensationalism to sell his dumb book. He's another grifter.

Explains a lot, actually. Still dumb as fuck but Congress should probably grill him on this when he's on the Hill next week. On the other hand, Milley was doing what the civilian leadership ordered, which raises yet more questions.
 

Airedale260

Well-known member
It is a wierd thing but yes and no.
Esper would be disobeying his commander, Trump

Not necessarily. Esper isn't military; he's half of the National Command Authority. One can argue it might undermine Trump, but on the other hand, Cabinet secretaries have leeway the military doesn't.

It'd still likely result in a lot of uncomfortable questions for all involved. But I for one would like to know just what the hell was going on at the time.
 

Zachowon

The Army Life for me! The POG life for me!
Founder
Not necessarily. Esper isn't military; he's half of the National Command Authority. One can argue it might undermine Trump, but on the other hand, Cabinet secretaries have leeway the military doesn't.

It'd still likely result in a lot of uncomfortable questions for all involved. But I for one would like to know just what the hell was going on at the time.
Oh for sure. Same here
 

Circle of Willis

Well-known member
I don't find the possibility that Milley was 'only' going rogue with the SecDef and not solely on his own much of a relief. At this point, I think the main takeaway is that this sordid and confused jumble of stories is further confirmation of the existence of a malevolent and completely out-of-control deep state poisoning the American body politic and doing whatever the hell it wants, when it wants, popular support or knowledge and the approval of their supposed superior (the president) be damned.

The notion that Trump, the most anti-war president the US has had since Carter, was going to start a shooting war with China in January of 2021 because ??? is so completely, laughably absurd that only someone who was prepared to take any excuse to at best 'just' further undermine him in the aftermath of the 2020 election, and at worst instigate a soft coup against him, would even pretend to believe it. (The only thing more laughable is the idea that Trump himself would approve it, since not being an insane neocon warhawk sticking America's dick into every hellhole he can find obviously has not meant he'd be soft on China either)

Milley, Esper, Pelosi, and the media that either A) correctly reported on treason but tried to spin it as a good thing or B) falsely reported on treason but still tried to spin it as a good thing anyway all deserve to swing next to each other.
 

sillygoose

Well-known member
I don't find the possibility that Milley was 'only' going rogue with the SecDef and not solely on his own much of a relief. At this point, I think the main takeaway is that this sordid and confused jumble of stories is further confirmation of the existence of a malevolent and completely out-of-control deep state poisoning the American body politic and doing whatever the hell it wants, when it wants, popular support or knowledge and the approval of their supposed superior (the president) be damned.

The notion that Trump, the most anti-war president the US has had since Carter, was going to start a shooting war with China in January of 2021 because ??? is so completely, laughably absurd that only someone who was prepared to take any excuse to at best 'just' further undermine him in the aftermath of the 2020 election, and at worst instigate a soft coup against him, would even pretend to believe it. (The only thing more laughable is the idea that Trump himself would approve it, since not being an insane neocon warhawk sticking America's dick into every hellhole he can find obviously has not meant he'd be soft on China either)

Milley, Esper, Pelosi, and the media that either A) correctly reported on treason but tried to spin it as a good thing or B) falsely reported on treason but still tried to spin it as a good thing anyway all deserve to swing next to each other.
If you read the more complete reports they didn't think that Trump was the problem, they had intel that the Chinese were overreacting to maneuvers the US was doing in October 2020 and were trying to reassure them that it wasn't a planned attack. In January it was just a follow up to confirm that after January 6th things were still ok and not to worry.

The nuclear part of it if anything seems to be just to confirm everyone understood illegal orders were not to be followed after January 6th. A non-story really.

So this again is all down to Woodward basically lying about what happened to sell his book and the media running with the sensationalist story because of their narrative. Really nothing about this actually seems to be out of the ordinary other than Woodward and the media lying about what happened. Luckily there has been some good reporting here that has demonstrated that we're seeing tabloid level reporting from the usual suspects.
 
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prinCZess

Warrior, Writer, Performer, Perv
Explains a lot, actually. Still dumb as fuck but Congress should probably grill him on this when he's on the Hill next week. On the other hand, Milley was doing what the civilian leadership ordered, which raises yet more questions.
If the civilian leadership ordered him to promise the PRC military advance warning of an attack, it's only indication that those civilian leaders also need arrested and tried alongside Milley.
 

sillygoose

Well-known member
If the civilian leadership ordered him to promise the PRC military advance warning of an attack, it's only indication that those civilian leaders also need arrested and tried alongside Milley.
Not what happened apparently:
Behind the scenes: In mid-October 2020, top Pentagon officials grew concerned about intelligence they'd seen. It showed the Chinese were consuming their own intelligence that had made them concerned about the possibility of a surprise U.S. strike against China, three sources familiar with the situation tell Axios.
  • One of the sources said: "I think they [the Chinese] were getting bad intelligence... a combination of 'wag the dog' conspiracy thinking and bad intel from bad sources."
Around the same time Esper learned of the Chinese concerns, he also learned that a long-planned deployment to Asia had been moved up a couple of weeks earlier than previously planned, to accommodate COVID quarantine protocols.
  • Esper told colleagues the last thing the Chinese needed to see at that moment — when they were already misreading Washington's intentions — was more planes, according to one of the sources.
  • Esper went so far as to delay this long planned exercise in Asia until after the election, to lower the temperature.
Then-Defense Secretary Mark Esper worried the Chinese were misreading the situation and that their misperception could lead to a conflict nobody wanted.
  • Esper directed his policy office to issue a backchannel message to the Chinese to reassure them the U.S. had no intention of seeking a military confrontation. The message: Don't over-read what you're seeing in Washington; we have no intention to attack; and let's keep lines of communication open.
Axios has not independently confirmed that Milley told his Chinese counterpart he would give him a heads up if the U.S. planned to attack China.

  • One source familiar with Milley's conversations with his Chinese counterpart would only broadly characterize them as Milley saying something to the effect of: "We'll both know if we're going to war... there's not gonna be some surprise attack and there's no reason for you to do a pre-emptive strike."

This sounds more like a non-story that Woodward and the media in general ginned up to sell his dumb book.
 

The Original Sixth

Well-known member
Founder
Not what happened apparently:


This sounds more like a non-story that Woodward and the media in general ginned up to sell his dumb book.

Or more likely, Woodard thought it would sound impressive and threw something out that got Milley in hot water. The Republicans focused on the insubordination and the Democrats are focusing on the "heroic" actions that Milley took.
 

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