Gen. Milley: “Calls to China were perfectly within the scope of my job.”
Then what does he think is his job? For whom does he think works? Confer with Pelosi and Schumer, leaders of the party opposed to President Trump? Phone his counterpart, the top Chinese general? Tell the Chinese general we would not attack, which could be heard as a threat rather than a reassurance? Tell the Chinese general he would be informed in advance if we did attack, which negates reassurance that we won’t?
What, precisely, is the job that includes all this in its “scope”? How did our top military man come to believe that is his job?
Unlike most of our top generals, Milley did not graduate from West Point, VMI, The Citadel, Texas A&M, or Norwich. He graduated from Princeton with a BA in politics, then got an MA in international relations from Columbia. He was commissioned from ROTC, where he learned basic military science. But what did he learn at Princeton and Columbia?
What fundamental outlook did he acquire at these prestigious Ivy League universities? Did he absorb a love for America and a respect for political and economic freedom? Did he learn respect for ordinary people, and for their will as expressed in free elections? Surely you must be joking.
Milley was a good student. He probably learned that true socialism he not yet been tried. He probably learned that capitalism is destined for the trash bin of history. He probably learned that ordinary people don’t know what is good for them, and need to be governed by the elite – you know, like him.
True, Trump is a graduate of the prestigious Wharton School of Business. But Trump spent his life actually building things, dealing with people with dirt under their fingernails and calluses on their hands. Trump is an outsider, clearly not a member of the elite. No reason to obey him, much less to respect his office.
No, Milley saved his obedience and respect for the constitution. Not the actual, written Constitution (note capital C), but the “living constitution,” which is infinitely flexible and means whatever leftists say it means today. Tomorrow it may mean something else.
Confer with Pelosi and Schumer? Have an intimate phone relationship with the top Chinese general? Urge others to disobey the President and obey Milley? Commit sedition and mutiny? Promise the Chinese general to commit espionage, if not treason? No problem. It’s all within the “scope” of his job.
With the general’s permission, sir, check out your Oath of Appointment as a Commissioned Officer, often called the oath of allegiance. It’s the same oath given to every recruit when he or she enlists. The language is plain and straightforward. If high school graduates can understand it perfectly, and pledge to risk their lives for it, perhaps even Ivy League graduates can manage to grasp its significance:
“I, _____, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God.”
