Politics - News Analysis

General Mark Milley Took Steps to Ensure Trump Couldn’t Launch Nuclear Missiles

There has been a movement among regular citizens (and likely within the military, though we’re not going to hear about it), to remove the ability of one man or woman to launch nuclear armageddon, and put it in the hands of a group of 3 to 5, requiring either a majority or unanimous vote to launch nuclear missiles. The premise, obviously, is that such a monumental decision shouldn’t be left to the judgment of any one person, anyone.

That movement should be much stronger now, having seen a man meltdown in office, a man who entered office mentally ill, while asking why we have all these weapons if we never use them, unsatisfied with the answer that we have them so no one uses them. This was also a man who thought nuking a hurricane was worth throwing around. Obviously, he is also the man whose mental health delved down to the point of delusion regarding the election. He was always going to claim it was rigged. It was the fact that he honestly believed and believes it was rigged that demonstrated he couldn’t be trusted. And January 6th.

Thus General Mark Milley took precautions to ensure Trump couldn’t order a nuclear strike somewhere as a going away gift or a desperate attempt to keep himself in the White House. According to Bob Woodward’s new book “Peril” about the last days of the Trump presidency, as redacted by Mediaite:

Woodward and Costa write that Milley, deeply shaken by the assault, ‘was certain that Trump had gone into a serious mental decline in the aftermath of the election, with Trump now all but manic, screaming at officials and constructing his own alternate reality about endless election conspiracies.’

Milley worried that Trump could ‘go rogue,’ the authors write.

“You never know what a president’s trigger point is,” Milley told his senior staff, according to the book.

In response, Milley took extraordinary action, and called a secret meeting in his Pentagon office on January 8 to review the process for military action, including launching nuclear weapons. Speaking to senior military officials in charge of the National Military Command Center, the Pentagon’s war room, Milley instructed them not to take orders from anyone unless he was involved.

“No matter what you are told, you do the procedure. You do the process. And I’m part of that procedure,” Milley told the officers, according to the book. He then went around the room, looked each officer in the eye, and asked them to verbally confirm they understood.

Was there any other responsible position to take? Trump had all of two weeks left. He wasn’t well, not even close. It would and should have involved the input of others, had anything come up. It is almost amazing we weren’t hit by some extremist group.
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meet the author

Jason Miciak is a political writer, features writer, author, and attorney. He is originally from Canada but grew up in the Pacific Northwest. He now enjoys life as a single dad raising a ridiculously-loved young girl on the beaches of the Gulf Coast. He is very much the dreamy mystic, a day without learning is a day not lived. He is passionate about his flower pots and studies philosophical science, religion, and non-mathematical principles of theoretical physics. Dogs, pizza, and love are proof that God exists. "Above all else, love one another."

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