Tag: military
Trump Aides Mulled Courts-Martial For Retired Generals Who Criticized President

'Hitler's Generals': Trump Prepares To Purge Top Military Ranks

Despite winning the election just a week ago, President-elect Donald Trump and his transition team aren't wasting any time preparing to staff the federal government — and the military in particular – with diehard loyalists.

The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that the Trump transition team is currently preparing an executive order that would allow him to pave the way for new military leadership that is squarely in the MAGA camp. The draft order would create a so-called "warrior board" made up of retired senior U.S. military personnel who would recommend the firing of generals and admirals who are "lacking in requisite leadership qualities."

The Journal's Vivian Salama, Lara Seligman and Nancy A. Youssef wrote that while the commander in chief can technically already fire any military official, his new warrior board could "create a chilling effect on top military officers, given the president-elect’s past vow to fire 'woke generals,' referring to officers seen as promoting diversity in the ranks at the expense of military readiness."

According to the paper, the draft order would establish credentials for new military leaders based on "leadership capability, strategic readiness and commitment to military excellence." But the finer details of how the board plans to evaluate candidates for military leadership based on those criteria have not been revealed. One legal expert posited that this is merely cover for Trump to appoint generals based on how loyal they would be to both his political agenda and him personally.

"This looks like an administration getting ready to purge anyone who will not be a yes man,” former U.S. Army lawyer Eric Carpenter, who teaches military law at Florida International University's College of Law, told the Journal. “If you are looking to fire officers who might say no because of the law or their ethics, you set up a system with completely arbitrary standards, so you can fire anyone you want.”

The draft order also appears to mirror what Marquette University professor Risa Brooks warned about in an article for the Council on Foreign Relations' Foreign Affairs publication earlier this year. She wrote in March that "politicians may seek to impose ideological litmus tests in promotions and appointments of senior officers," and that "the result would be profound damage to national security."

"Today, military leaders strive to be impartial in offering advice to the president, lawmakers, and other civilian officials about the use of force. In the future, they may instead tailor their recommendations to the interests of their preferred political party," she wrote. "Apart from undermining the rigor of the advisory process, such internal politicization would erode the overall unity of the military as partisan tensions spread through the ranks. And the American people’s trust in the military would decline as they came to see it as just another politicized institution, as many already see the Supreme Court."

The executive order is also squarely in line with what Trump previously communicated to then-chief of staff John Kelly, a four-star Marine general who was his longest-serving chief of staff, according to an interview he gave to the Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg in October. In 2018, Trump told Kelly that he wanted the same kind of generals "that Hitler had," because they were "totally loyal."

Trump also had a tense relationship with Gen. Mark Milley, whom he appointed as chairman to the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 2019, putting him in charge of the entire U.S. military. Milley told journalist Bob Woodward that Trump was "fascist to the core," and "the most dangerous person in America." Should Trump sign the executive order creating the "warrior board," it's unlikely he'll have any top military brass who are out of step with him politically for the next four years.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

MAGA Intimidation Silences Anti-Fascist Lecturer At Naval Academy

MAGA Intimidation Silences Anti-Fascist Lecturer At Naval Academy

The U.S. Naval Academy is under fire after it invited — then uninvited — a distinguished expert on authoritarianism and fascism to give a lecture.

Dr. Ruth Ben-Ghiat is a professor of history and Italian studies at New York University, where her bio says she “writes about fascism, authoritarianism, propaganda, and the threats these present to democracies around the world.” She is the author of books on fascism and serves as an advisor to the nonpartisan nonprofit organization Protect Democracy. She is also an MSNBC opinion columnist, where she appears as a commentator, as she does on other news networks.

For weeks, since early October, right-wing media has been criticizing the U.S. Naval Academy for inviting her to speak.

The Daily Caller, founded by Tucker Carlson, described Dr. Ben-Ghiat as “an outspoken anti-Trump guest” who was invited to “give the keynote speech at a high-level lecture this month.”

“Ben-Ghiat announced that she’d be speaking at the event in an op-ed last month and further claimed that former President Donald Trump was an ‘authoritarian ‘and drew comparisons between him and world dictators,” The Daily Caller’s Jake Smith wrote in an opinion piece.

For weeks, since early October, right-wing media has been criticizing the U.S. Naval Academy for inviting her to speak.

“Anti-Trump historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat is scheduled to lecture midshipmen on ‘authoritarianism,'” two Heritage Foundation officials, Mathew Lee and Wilson Beaver, wrote at The Daily Signal in a piece marked commentary. They called for the Naval Academy to retract the invitation to Dr. Ben-Ghiat.

The Heritage Foundation is the headquarters of Project 2025. The ACLU calls Project 2025, “a federal policy agenda and blueprint for a radical restructuring of the executive branch authored and published by former Trump administration officials in partnership with The Heritage Foundation, a longstanding conservative think tank that opposes abortion and reproductive rights, LGBTQ rights, immigrants’ rights, and racial equity. Project 2025’s largest publication, ‘Mandate For Leadership,’ is a 900-page manual for reorganizing the entire federal government agency by agency to serve a conservative agenda.”

Dr. Ben-Ghiat in her Substack piece also wrote about Trump’s visit to Arlington National Cemetery, where a cemetery official was “pushed,” allegedly by Trump campaign staffers, according to an Army report. A judge on Tuesday ordered the Pentagon to release its records related to Trump’s visit there in August, by the end of this week.

“The conduct of Trump and his campaign on those hallowed grounds violated federal prohibitions against election-linked activities at military cemeteries,” Ben-Ghiat wrote. “The photos and videos they took there also showed graves of U.S. service members whose families had not given permission. Additionally, a Trump aide shoved an Arlington employee who was trying to enforce the rules, and Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung claimed she initiated the aggression and was having a ‘mental health episode.'”

“It seems counter-intuitive when you are running for president and commander-in-chief to insult the U.S. military,” she added. “But that hasn’t stopped Trump: insulting and mocking the military are among his most consistent habits.”

On Tuesday, in an opinion piece in the Baltimore Banner, Rick Hutzell slammed the Heritage Foundation and Project 2025 for getting Dr. Ben-Ghiat’s lecture canceled. (The U.S. Naval Academy is based in Annapolis, Maryland.)

“If Trump wins, the right-wing thought police will come for the Naval Academy,” Hutzell wrote in a scorching editorial.

“You could hear the spittle fly as the Heritage Foundation shouted out its latest intellectual assault on the Naval Academy,” he wrote. “All over Ruth Ben-Ghiat and a lecture the midshipmen likely will never hear.”

“Her politics were the problem, not her lecture.”

“As controversies go, it was easy to miss this one. It all took place within the conservative media ecosystem. But it could foreshadow what might happen to the U.S. service academies if Trump is elected next month,” he added. “Deep within Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s 925-page roadmap for the next Republican president, its authors say they want the service academies scrubbed of anything and anyone deemed insufficiently pure of thought — exactly what they did to Ben-Ghiat.”

Ben-Ghiat in an email told Hutzell: “The lecture had nothing to do with contemporary America and I was not going to mention Mr. Trump at all in this strictly nonpartisan event at an institution, the U.S. Naval Academy, which I greatly admire.”

Hutzell wrote that Heritage “Foundation ‘researchers’ Matthew Lee and Wilson Beaver made the connection a month after Ben-Ghiat’s announcement and simply made up the rest, assuming she planned to attack Trump.” He also pointed to another piece at The Daily Signal by “Heritage Foundation mouthpieces Hans von Spakovsky and Cully Stimson,” and n0ted that “U.S. Rep. Keith Self — a West Point graduate who represents a district north and northeast of Dallas — wrote Vice Adm. Yvette M. Davids, the academy superintendent, and demanded that she cancel the lecture.”

He also reports The Daily Signal’s managing editor called for an apology from the Naval Academy, and Republicans on the House Armed Services Committee “called for an explanation.”

“The harrumph over Ben-Ghirat smacks of hamfisted stagecraft. It’s not about protecting young minds from learning what tools authoritarians use, it’s about preparing the case for an intellectual bloodletting,” Hutzell concluded.

Others lashed out at the Naval Academy.

“This is a shameful move by @NavalAcademy. If our armed services are truly training people to be loyal to the Constitution, not to an individual, this is one lecture they need to hear. Very disappointing,” declared attorney and former FBI Special Agent Asha Rangappa, a legal and national security expert.

She also blasted the “members of Congress who do not want students at service academies to learn what happens when you turn into Hitler’s generals,” likely a response to news of Trump allegedly praising Hitler and saying he had wanted “Hitler’s generals.”

Former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance, a professor of law and MSNBC/NBC News legal analyst, pointing to Ben-Ghiat being disinvited, warned: “This is exactly what she’s been warning about—caving in to the demands of authoritarian leaders, even before they’re in place. Dangerous & shameful.”

Historian and professor of strategic studies Phillips P. O’Brien, author of several books including, “How the War Was Won: Air-Sea Power and Allied Victory in World War II,” called Hutzell’s editorial a “terribly worrying story about how MAGA pressure is already leading to censorship in the US military. The US Naval Academy disinvited the distinguished historian @ruthbenghiat from delivering a major lecture because of Heritage-MAGA pressure.”

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Mark Milley

Most Media Outlets Ignore Milley Warning That Trump Is 'Fascist To The Core'

National broadcast news networks and print outlets buried recent comments from Donald Trump’s former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff retired Gen. Mark Milley calling the former president “fascist to the core.” Almost all broadcast news shows and the major newspapers ignored the comments, with only NBC’s Meet the Press and The Washington Post covering Milley’s “fascist” remarks.

Reporting surfaced on October 11 that Milley called Trump “fascist to the core” in comments reported in journalist Bob Woodward's upcoming book War. The comments were the latest in a long back and forth between Milley and Trump, with the former president previously suggesting Milley be executed for his comments that Trump was “shameful” and “complicit” in the January 6 attack.

Broadcast and print news almost completely ignored Milley’s characterization of Trump as “fascist.” From October 11, when the comments were first reported, through 12 p.m. ET on October 14, ABC’s Good Morning America, World News Tonight, and This Week; CBS’ Mornings, Evening News, and Face the Nation; and NBC’s Today and Nightly News all failed to mention Milley's comments. Among corporate broadcast news programs, only NBC's Meet the Press discussed the comments at all, with anchor Kristen Welker asking former Rep. Liz Cheney about Milley's comments.

Media Matters also reviewed print articles across five of the top U.S. newspapers by circulation for coverage of Milley's comments and found only one article in The Washington Post mentioning them. The Los Angeles Times, USA Today, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal all failed to cover Milley's comments calling Trump fascist.

On the October 11, 2024, edition of All in with Chris Hayes, Ian Bassin stressed the need for the American press to put the comments from Milley on “banner headlines.”

Milley's description of Trump as a fascist is just the latest example of a former Trump official denouncing the extremism of the former president.

Methodology

Media Matters searched transcripts in the SnapStream video database for all original episodes of ABC’s Good Morning America, World News Tonight, and This Week; CBS’ Mornings, Evening News, and Face the Nation; and NBC’s Today, Nightly News, and Meet the Press for any of the terms “Trump,” “former president,” “book,” “war,” or “Woodward” or any variation of the word “fascist” within close proximity of any of the terms “Milley” (including misspellings), “general,” or ”Joint Chiefs" from October 11, 2024, when media outlets first reported on retired U.S. Army Gen. Mark Milley's comment in Bob Woodward's new book, “War,” describing GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump as “fascist to the core,” through 12 p.m. ET October 14, 2024.

We timed segments, which we defined as instances when Milley's comment to Woodward describing Trump as “fascist to the core” was the stated topic of discussion or when we found significant discussion of the comment. We defined significant discussion as instances when two or more speakers in a multitopic segment discussed the comment with one another.

We also timed mentions, which we defined as instances when a single speaker in a segment on another topic mentioned Milley's remark without another speaker in the segment engaging with the comment, and teasers, which we defined as instances when the anchor or host promoted a segment about the comment scheduled to air later in the broadcast.

We rounded all times to the nearest minute.

Media Matters also searched print articles in the Factiva database from the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post for any of the terms “Trump,” “former president,” “book,” “war,” or “Woodward” or any variation of the term “fascist” within roughly the same paragraph as any of the terms “Milley,” “general,” or ”Joint Chiefs" from October 11 through 12 p.m. ET October 14, 2024.

We included articles, which we defined as instances when Milley's comment to Woodward describing Trump as “fascist to the core” was mentioned anywhere in the text in any section of the paper. We included editorials and op-eds but not letters to the editor.

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.

Tim Walz

Trump Campaign Enraged As Walz Slams Former Guy's Reckless Rhetoric

The Trump campaign lashed out at Minnesota Governor Tim Walz on Monday after the Democratic vice presidential nominee quoted the Republican presidential candidate who repeatedly over the weekend has been saying he would like to use the U.S. military against American citizens.

As NCRM reported, the Republican presidential nominee said he thinks the U.S. Armed Forces should be used against Americans who oppose him, called his critics “the enemy from within,” and declared they are more dangerous than America’s greatest foreign adversaries, including Russia, China, and North Korea.

“I always say we have the outside enemy, so you can say China, you can say Russia, you can say, Kim Jung-Un,” Trump told supporters at an Aurora, Colorado rally on Friday. But, he added: “It’s the enemy from within, all the scum that we have to deal with that hate our country. That’s a bigger enemy than China and Russia,” he said as the audience cheered.

Then, on Sunday, Trump told Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo of his desire to use armed forces against Americans on Election Day.

“I think the bigger problem are the people from within, we have some very bad people, we have some sick people, radical left lunatics. And I think they’re the — and it should be very easily handled by, if necessary, by National Guard, or if really necessary by the military.”

Trump War Room, the official social media account of the Trump campaign, posted video of Walz on Monday speaking with supporters.

“Donald Trump over the weekend was talking about using the U.S. Army against people who disagree with him,” Walz had said. “Just so you’re clear about that, that’s you. That’s what he’s talking about. This is not some mythical thing out there. He called it the ‘enemy within.'”

The Trump War Room social media account wrote: “Tim Walz peddles a disgusting lie that President Trump will use the U.S. Army against his political opponents: ‘That’s you, that’s what he’s talking about.’ This is reckless, dangerous rhetoric,” the campaign stated. “Tim should be ASHAMED of himself.”

See the videos below or at this link.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

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