Milley confirms to Congress the most egregious part of Woodward’s book

You’ll recall that in Bob Woodward’s forthcoming book it details a phone conversation CJCS General Milley had with his counterpart in the Communist Chinese military after the events of 6 Jan 2021. According to Woodward, Milley said, “General Li, you and I have known each other for now five years. If we’re going to attack, I’m going to call you ahead of time. It’s not going to be a surprise. It’s not going to be a bolt out of the blue.”

Many in the military and outside the military saw that as treasonous talk. The highest ranking officer of the US military is telling the highest ranking officer of our prime global adversary that if the US was planning an attack, he’d personally give them a heads up. Operational security at the most basic level dictates you don’t give a call to your enemy just before attacking them to tell them you’re attacking them.

Yesterday, when testifying in front of the US House on the matter, Milley testified;

So this is a longer conversation. It’s a VTC [ video teleconference ] with General Li, and there’s a body of intelligence that leads up to this that was persuasive to Secretary Esper, myself, and many, many others that the Chinese thought wrongly that the United States is going to attack them. I am certain, guaranteed certain, that President Trump had no intent to attack and it was my task to make sure I communicated that.
…

As part of that conversation, I said, “General Li, there’s not going to be a war. There is not going to be an attack between great powers. And if there was, the tensions would build up. There’d be calls going back and forth from all kinds of senior officials.” I said, “Hey, General Li, I’ll probably give you a call [emphasis added], but we’re not going to attack you. Trust me, we’re not going to attack you.” These are two great powers and I am doing my best to transmit the president’s intent, President Trump’s intent, to ensure that the American people are protected from an incident that could escalate.

Source; Breitbart

Not since General Arnold have we had a flag officer so willing to work with our enemies. I really, truly hope that events played out like Milley says. If that’s the case, then this was a horribly executed, but genuine, attempt to calm fears. In that context, his comments are (and I’ll be generous here) diplomatic and not signalling actual intent to give up the element of surprise (a key component to battle/war). Finally I’ll say it’s boneheaded as all hell to go bragging about it to a couple of “journalists.”  That right there shows a startling lack of self-awareness on the substance and gravity of your statements.

That is, if the Chinese even actually believed we were going to just up and attack them. Demands have been made by Congresspersons to turn over the intelligence that led our leaders to believe that.

Category: "Teh Stoopid", "Your Tax Dollars At Work", Army, Big Pentagon, Foreign Policy, Politics