The Beleaguered Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mark Milley

I had a talk with a friend last night focusing on the commotion surrounding Mark Milley.  I thought readers may be interested in my perspective.

Re: Milley’s call(s) to his counterpart in China, I view this as a legitimate piece of diplomacy.  Both Milley and the Chinese saw an unstable man, desperate to remain in power, and he wanted to make sure this didn’t result in war.  I’m sure he said something like, “We simply need to get through the next few weeks without incident.  I promise that if you don’t attack us, we won’t attack you. On January 20th, Trump will be gone, and we’ll be back to business as usual.”

Re: the order that he (Milley) be involved in any decision to take aggressive action against another country, let me begin by saying that he has access to far more information with respect to Trump’s mental health than we do. Having said that, let’s examine what we do, in fact, have.

First, though I’m not a psychologist, I think that anyone who habitually lies, even when there is no advantage to be gained by doing so, has serious mental and emotional issues.

More importantly, from what we’re being told in the recently released books, e.g., Michael Bender’s “Frankly We Did Win This Election,” Michael Wolff’s “Landslide,” and “I Alone Can Fix It” by Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker, Trump’s behavior at the time Milley issued his command was fully consistent with that of a lunatic.  From everything he could see, Milley was convinced that grievous and irreparable harm would likely be done if Trump were allowed to do anything he wished.

Keep in mind that there was no other way for Milley to proceed here.  Yes, we have a constitutional mechanism (the 25th Amendment) to implement in such cases, but our cowed and feckless Congress had consistently shown that they were completely incapable of standing up to Trump.

How we judge Milley may depend on how we judge Trump; he’s gone, but he’s still the largest single force in U.S. politics, and he’ll be on the scene for the foreseeable future.  The wheels of justice will continue to turn, and criminal charges may be brought against him.  How will he react to indictments for things like fraud, tax evasion, extortion, witness intimidation, election tampering, inciting insurrection, etc.?  In a word, histrionics.

To the world outside the GOP, he looks like a criminal sociopath.  Once there is proof of all or any of this, Milley’s actions will be regarded as necessitated by the circumstances.

This is reminiscent of The Caine Mutiny, when Captain Queeg took the stand and it became obvious that following his orders was not a real option.  Keep in mind that every single person in the U.S. military has not only the right but the duty to disobey illegal orders.