A Friday Night Massacre at the Pentagon
A Friday Night Massacre at the Pentagon
Trump’s purge started with his firing of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the top Navy officer, and the vice chief of the Air Force.
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All the top officers have been in the military for over 20 years. They have seen Presidents come and go, and are loyal to their fellow service people. Even if they like Trump, firing for political reasons isn't going to go down well.
Genuinely, I do think the only way out of this is starting to look like a military coup by some sort of cadre of non-insane officers from across the services. Based on the performance and reactions of every single part of the government - specifically including the alphabet agencies - I don’t think we’re going to snap out of fascism any other way.
It looks like the legislative and judicial branches, and all of the agencies, have simply decided to do nothing and follow the rules while Trump just gives illegal directives that are then enacted by eel-on-musk’s imbecile intern wünderkinds, and everyone just stands around saying “I’m just following orders”. It’s fucking embarrassing.
Even independent LGBT orgs have immediately given up on supporting trans people, just from the threat of the loss of federal funding. It's sickening
Trump is going after senior military officers AND Social Security AND doing an end run around Congress all at once. I just hope that he doesn't have enough fingers for the dike.
I hope the dykes have enough fingers for triggers.
Problem is I don’t see any person in military doing this. They’re been brainwashed to love their country and their president since birth.
and their president
During training we are very specifically taught that nothing is above the constitution, including the president. We are obligated to refuse illegal orders.
If it stuck with me, hopefully it stuck with a few of the people still in service.
Isn't a large part of the federal workforce veterans? I can't imagine active service members have good feelings about Trump kicking them to the curb
Refusing illegal orders is something that always sounds good, but never goes well even when it rarely happens in real life. Otherwise the crazy numerous war crimes and illegal things the air force kidnapping citizens human trafficked and abused by ICE because they are brown and "might be illegal" wouldn't happen.
There was that Russian submarine commander that refused to launch nukes and saved the world. That's a pretty big one.
Vasily Arkhipov to put some respect on his name.
Not to discredit what he did because he was probably one of the biggest impact decisions taken ever, he is definitely a great man and he deserves every ounce of credit, but he did not defy orders. They received no orders whatsoever, and the captain just assumed a war had broken out. They were too deep to receive orders at all. He refused to give his permission which was "legally" (military law-wise?) needed to launch the nukes. From your own link (also he wasn't a commander at the time):
Unlike other Soviet submarines armed with the "special weapon", where only the captain and the political officer were required to authorize a nuclear launch, three officers on board the B-59 were required to authorize the launch because Arkhipov was also the chief of staff of the brigade (not the commander as is often incorrectly reported, who was in fact Captain First Rank Vasili Naumovich Agafonov).[11][12] The three men were Captain Savitsky, Political Officer Ivan Semyonovich Maslennikov, and Executive Officer Arkhipov. An argument broke out among the three of them, with only Arkhipov against the launch.
So it doesn't really apply. It is more one of 3 commanding officers that had a big disagreement and one of them refused to let the others give the order.
If it stuck with me, hopefully it stuck with a few of the people still in service.
apparently not... it's alredy happening and the entire rrction have been tears and bending over
Well, yeah. When you're planning a military coup against a fascist regime you don't announce it ahead of time.
I have zero special knowledge, but generic history would suggest that at least some in the officer class, regardless of political leaning, will not be down with the current trajectory.
no idea what this may look like, but my worthless analysis portends something brewing ahead and it may be wise to consider possibilities and prep accordingly. fuck these "interesting times".
I don't want to destroy any illusions, but I don't believe that much resistance can be expected from the military. The command principle applies here and the president is the Commander-in-Chief. I don't see why any civil disobedience could be expected here in particular. Besides, it's not as if those who actually make up the majority of soldiers would have much say in military affairs. If that were the case, there might be a chance, but the military is also run by old, greedy, white men - just like any other US institution.
They're not going to necessarily be the saviors of democracy but there's actually a pretty clear demarcation between career politicians and career soldiers. There's a reason "oblivious politician forces military to make strategic blunder" is a trope.
Usually their goals align with maintaining US hegemony but much less so when the Commander in Chief is selling the nation to foreign adversaries.