Trump begins the Military Purge

[OGtruthhurts]

we spend hundreds of millions a year on a very bloated military that only cares about rewarding huge govt contracts and making politicians and co's wealthier. all the meantime the military is so weak and dysfunctional that it couldnt beat a bunch of nomads on camels in middle eastern deserts for over 20 years. not much diff than not being able to beat asians on donkeys in rice fields in vietnam. neither party cared that we lost over a hundred thousand of our kids not to mention the lives of innocent middle easterners and vietnamese people. again...neither party gives a flying fuck...its all about greed wrapped in the disguise of 'freedom'.

 

[StrangePackage]

we spend hundreds of millions a year on a very bloated military that only cares about rewarding huge govt contracts and making politicians and co's wealthier. all the meantime the military is so weak and dysfunctional that it couldnt beat a bunch of nomads on camels in middle eastern deserts for over 20 years. not much diff than not being able to beat asians on donkeys in rice fields in vietnam. neither party cared that we lost over a hundred thousand of our kids not to mention the lives of innocent middle easterners and vietnamese people. again...neither party gives a flying fuck...its all about greed wrapped in the disguise of 'freedom'.

Brilliant. You really ought to put these kinds of insights behind a paywall somewhere else.

 

[CRHeel94]

Just a random thought...It's very common for dictatorial regimes to do an occasional officer purge. The theory is to take out any senior officers that may have too much power to possibly commit a coup. These are replaced by lower ranking officers who will be 100% loyal to the leader and carry out their orders without any second guessing.
Never thought I'd see this in America.

 

[donbosco]

Just a random thought...It's very common for dictatorial regimes to do an occasional officer purge. The theory is to take out any senior officers that may have too much power to possibly commit a coup. These are replaced by lower ranking officers who will be 100% loyal to the leader and carry out their orders without any second guessing.
Never thought I'd see this in America.

Very Cuban.

 

[CRHeel94]

Ortega did this in Nicaragua in mid 2010s.
Maduro has done it a few times.

Soviets did it periodically of course.

 

[Healing]

Ortega did this in Nicaragua in mid 2010s.
Maduro has done it a few times.

Soviets did it periodically of course.

Yep. Absolutely nothing is new here. It’s just the delusion of “it can’t happen here”, which fails to understand that these purges haven’t happened in the US largely due to riches and enough political will to back institutions. Then, demographics changed and the whites and big-truck-tiny- …ego men got scary.

 

[05C40]

Just a random thought...It's very common for dictatorial regimes to do an occasional officer purge. The theory is to take out any senior officers that may have too much power to possibly commit a coup. These are replaced by lower ranking officers who will be 100% loyal to the leader and carry out their orders without any second guessing.
Never thought I'd see this in America.

I've been out of the Army for over 45 years. During the time I was in the Army I had exactly one personal conversation with a field grade officer. That was when he inquired as to whether I had toured the reconstructed Roman frontier fort at Saalberg in the then West German. I replied I had and we had had a nice short conversation about it with him reminding me that our current mission on the frontier of "Free" Europe was not all that different from the mission of those who had been at Saalberg. About 95% of the other personal conversations I had with officers were with 1st and 2nd Lieutenants. I had a couple personal talks with Captains but they were always at the tail-end of some "Here's what we are going to do" talks.

All this is to say that I don't know s$&%t about military officers. But in spite of not knowing s$&%t about them, I always believed they were sincere and dedicated servants of the people who were very cognizant of the harm they could cause America. Not even a hint of "America's broken and we can use the military to fix it" in anything they said or did.

 

[ChapelHillSooner]

I've been out of the Army for over 45 years. During the time I was in the Army I had exactly one personal conversation with a field grade officer. That was when he inquired as to whether I had toured the reconstructed Roman frontier fort at Saalberg in the then West German. I replied I had and we had had a nice short conversation about it with him reminding me that our current mission on the frontier of "Free" Europe was not all that different from the mission of those who had been at Saalberg. About 95% of the other personal conversations I had with officers were with 1st and 2nd Lieutenants. I had a couple personal talks with Captains but they were always at the tail-end of some "Here's what we are going to do" talks.

All this is to say that I don't know s$&%t about military officers. But in spite of not knowing s$&%t about them, I always believed they were sincere and dedicated servants of the people who were very cognizant of the harm they could cause America. Not even a hint of "America's broken and we can use the military to fix it" in anything they said or did.

Right but that was a very different time. I would hope that they understand that America is in fact broken now.

I don’t have false hope that they will fix it but I hope they at least recognize the brokenness.

 

[donbosco]

I've been out of the Army for over 45 years. During the time I was in the Army I had exactly one personal conversation with a field grade officer. That was when he inquired as to whether I had toured the reconstructed Roman frontier fort at Saalberg in the then West German. I replied I had and we had had a nice short conversation about it with him reminding me that our current mission on the frontier of "Free" Europe was not all that different from the mission of those who had been at Saalberg. About 95% of the other personal conversations I had with officers were with 1st and 2nd Lieutenants. I had a couple personal talks with Captains but they were always at the tail-end of some "Here's what we are going to do" talks.

All this is to say that I don't know s$&%t about military officers. But in spite of not knowing s$&%t about them, I always believed they were sincere and dedicated servants of the people who were very cognizant of the harm they could cause America. Not even a hint of "America's broken and we can use the military to fix it" in anything they said or did.

Were you in a volunteer army?

 

[uncmba]

An even scarier part of the purge that is not getting enough attention is the firing of the Top Attorneys or JAGS for each service:

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s decision to fire the top lawyers for the Army, Navy and Air Force represents an opening salvo in his push to remake the military into a force that is more aggressive on the battlefield and potentially less hindered by the laws of armed conflict.

Mr. Hegseth, in the Pentagon and during his meetings with troops last week in Europe, has spoken repeatedly about the need to restore a “warrior ethos” to a military that he insists has become soft, social-justice obsessed and more bureaucratic over the past two decades.

His decision to replace the military’s judge advocates general — typically three-star military officers — offers a sense of how he defines the ethos that he has vowed to instill.
By comparison, the three fired judge advocates general, also known as “JAGs,” are far less prominent. Inside the Pentagon and on battlefields around the world, military lawyers aren’t decision makers. Their job is to provide independent legal advice to senior military officers so that they do not run afoul of U.S. law or the laws of armed conflict.

Senior Pentagon officials said that Mr. Hegseth has had no contact with any of the three fired uniform military lawyers since taking office. None of the three — Lt. Gen. Joseph B. Berger III, Air Force Lt. Gen. Charles Plummer and Rear Adm. Lia M. Reynolds — were even named in the Pentagon statement announcing their dismissal from decades of military service.

A senior military official with knowledge of the firings added that the military lawyers had “zero heads up” that they were being removed from office and that the top brass in the Army, Navy and Air Force were also caught unaware.

The unexplained dismissals prompted widespread concern. “In some ways that’s even more chilling than firing the four stars,” Rosa Brooks, a professor at Georgetown Law, wrote on X. “It’s what you do when you’re planning to break the law: you get rid of any lawyers who might try to slow you down.”

Hegseth Fires Military’s Top JAG Lawyers in Pursuit of ‘Warrior Ethos’

The defense secretary has repeatedly derided the military lawyers for war crime prosecutions and battlefield rules of engagement.

www.nytimes.com

 

[lawtig02]

An even scarier part of the purge that is not getting enough attention is the firing of the Top Attorneys or JAGS for each service:

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s decision to fire the top lawyers for the Army, Navy and Air Force represents an opening salvo in his push to remake the military into a force that is more aggressive on the battlefield and potentially less hindered by the laws of armed conflict.

Mr. Hegseth, in the Pentagon and during his meetings with troops last week in Europe, has spoken repeatedly about the need to restore a “warrior ethos” to a military that he insists has become soft, social-justice obsessed and more bureaucratic over the past two decades.

His decision to replace the military’s judge advocates general — typically three-star military officers — offers a sense of how he defines the ethos that he has vowed to instill.
By comparison, the three fired judge advocates general, also known as “JAGs,” are far less prominent. Inside the Pentagon and on battlefields around the world, military lawyers aren’t decision makers. Their job is to provide independent legal advice to senior military officers so that they do not run afoul of U.S. law or the laws of armed conflict.

Senior Pentagon officials said that Mr. Hegseth has had no contact with any of the three fired uniform military lawyers since taking office. None of the three — Lt. Gen. Joseph B. Berger III, Air Force Lt. Gen. Charles Plummer and Rear Adm. Lia M. Reynolds — were even named in the Pentagon statement announcing their dismissal from decades of military service.

A senior military official with knowledge of the firings added that the military lawyers had “zero heads up” that they were being removed from office and that the top brass in the Army, Navy and Air Force were also caught unaware.

The unexplained dismissals prompted widespread concern. “In some ways that’s even more chilling than firing the four stars,” Rosa Brooks, a professor at Georgetown Law, wrote on X. “It’s what you do when you’re planning to break the law: you get rid of any lawyers who might try to slow you down.”

Hegseth Fires Military’s Top JAG Lawyers in Pursuit of ‘Warrior Ethos’

The defense secretary has repeatedly derided the military lawyers for war crime prosecutions and battlefield rules of engagement.

www.nytimes.com

Yeah, that’s the ACTUAL context of Will S’s “The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers.”

 

[ZenMode]

An even scarier part of the purge that is not getting enough attention is the firing of the Top Attorneys or JAGS for each service:

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s decision to fire the top lawyers for the Army, Navy and Air Force represents an opening salvo in his push to remake the military into a force that is more aggressive on the battlefield and potentially less hindered by the laws of armed conflict.

Mr. Hegseth, in the Pentagon and during his meetings with troops last week in Europe, has spoken repeatedly about the need to restore a “warrior ethos” to a military that he insists has become soft, social-justice obsessed and more bureaucratic over the past two decades.

His decision to replace the military’s judge advocates general — typically three-star military officers — offers a sense of how he defines the ethos that he has vowed to instill.
By comparison, the three fired judge advocates general, also known as “JAGs,” are far less prominent. Inside the Pentagon and on battlefields around the world, military lawyers aren’t decision makers. Their job is to provide independent legal advice to senior military officers so that they do not run afoul of U.S. law or the laws of armed conflict.

Senior Pentagon officials said that Mr. Hegseth has had no contact with any of the three fired uniform military lawyers since taking office. None of the three — Lt. Gen. Joseph B. Berger III, Air Force Lt. Gen. Charles Plummer and Rear Adm. Lia M. Reynolds — were even named in the Pentagon statement announcing their dismissal from decades of military service.

A senior military official with knowledge of the firings added that the military lawyers had “zero heads up” that they were being removed from office and that the top brass in the Army, Navy and Air Force were also caught unaware.

The unexplained dismissals prompted widespread concern. “In some ways that’s even more chilling than firing the four stars,” Rosa Brooks, a professor at Georgetown Law, wrote on X. “It’s what you do when you’re planning to break the law: you get rid of any lawyers who might try to slow you down.”

Hegseth Fires Military’s Top JAG Lawyers in Pursuit of ‘Warrior Ethos’

The defense secretary has repeatedly derided the military lawyers for war crime prosecutions and battlefield rules of engagement.

www.nytimes.com

"Mr. Hegseth, in the Pentagon and during his meetings with troops last week in Europe, has spoken repeatedly about the need to restore a “warrior ethos” to a military that he insists has become soft, social-justice obsessed and more bureaucratic over the past two decades."

I tend to agree. The military isn't a place for political correctness, DEI, etc. It's a place where we want the smartest, strongest, most courageous we can find, not "Well....you know....she can't perform ALL the duties or pass physical requirements, but it just seems mean to say that, so.....let her in."

That doesn't mean Hegseth can't go overboard.

 

[nycfan]

"Mr. Hegseth, in the Pentagon and during his meetings with troops last week in Europe, has spoken repeatedly about the need to restore a “warrior ethos” to a military that he insists has become soft, social-justice obsessed and more bureaucratic over the past two decades."

I tend to agree. The military isn't a place for political correctness, DEI, etc. It's a place where we want the smartest, strongest, most courageous we can find, not "Well....you know....she can't perform ALL the duties or pass physical requirements, but it just seems mean to say that, so.....let her in."

That doesn't mean Hegseth can't go overboard.

Unfortunately, based on his words and deeds, is appears that his idea of a “warrior ethos” includes freedom to commit war crimes and exclude Americans who are in fact qualified but don’t look like they are from central casting for a 1980s Rambo flick.

 

[superrific]

Unfortunately, based on his words and deeds, is appears that his idea of a “warrior ethos” includes freedom to commit war crimes and exclude Americans who are in fact qualified but don’t look like they are from central casting for a 1980s Rambo flick.

And this is coming from a guy who learned all about that warrior ethos as . . . a weekend talk show host.

Fuck all these LARPers. SoD is a LARPer. Yeah, I know he walked around Afghanistan for a while, but that gives him zero insight into the ethos of the whole military. Oh, and had we gone in with a warrior ethos, he probably would have taken a lot more fire.

 

[nycfan]

 

[superrific]

Also, maybe it's not coincidence that the American military was completely unprepared for war? I mean, the US very well could have been defeated in the Pacific but for sheer luck at Midway. It took us at least a year or more to have much capability in Europe and North Africa. Eventually our large population and huge industrial base made the US formidable, but when you adjust for size of economy, I'd say the Soviets performed just as well if not better.

Note: I'm not a war history buff. I could be completely wrong about that assessment. I know the Soviets were sending more men than rifles into battle. I know their casualties were ridiculous. But they had to face the Germans at the peak of the German power, when they were fighting mostly on one front. The Americans' and Brits' benefited from being the second front.

Never mind that second paragraph. I won't erase it because that's dishonest, but maybe I can get some help in forgetting that it ever happened?

 

[finesse]

Also, maybe it's not coincidence that the American military was completely unprepared for war? I mean, the US very well could have been defeated in the Pacific but for sheer luck at Midway. It took us at least a year or more to have much capability in Europe and North Africa. Eventually our large population and huge industrial base made the US formidable, but when you adjust for size of economy, I'd say the Soviets performed just as well if not better.

Note: I'm not a war history buff. I could be completely wrong about that assessment. I know the Soviets were sending more men than rifles into battle. I know their casualties were ridiculous. But they had to face the Germans at the peak of the German power, when they were fighting mostly on one front. The Americans' and Brits' benefited from being the second front.

Way wrong. US aid to Russia kept them from being overrun. The UUSR was allies with Germany through the invasion of Poland. It was July of 41, almost two years after the war in the west started before Hitler invaded the USSR. The rest, of which there's plenty, you can look up.

 

[superrific]

Way wrong. US aid to Russia kept them from being overrun. The UUSR was allies with Germany through the invasion of Poland. It was July of 41, almost two years after the war in the west started before Hitler invaded the USSR. The rest, of which there's plenty, you can look up.

True, I forgot about US aid to Russia. Also I thought that the invasion was 1940, not 41. So like I said, not a WWII expert. This is the sort of thing that can happen when you talk about things you don't know about. Unlike some of our posters, I do not plan to die on this hill.

I think the larger point about US readiness is accurate; and USSR had recently purged officers so that's not exactly a feather in the cap of SoD's policy here.

 

[lawtig02]

True, I forgot about US aid to Russia. Also I thought that the invasion was 1940, not 41. So like I said, not a WWII expert. This is the sort of thing that can happen when you talk about things you don't know about. Unlike some of our posters, I do not plan to die on this hill.

I think the larger point about US readiness is accurate; and USSR had recently purged officers so that's not exactly a feather in the cap of SoD's policy here.

This is grossly oversimplified but I'd summarize it this way.

1. Yes, we had dramatically scaled down the military after WWI and in response to the Great Depression.
2. US leadership's eyes were primarily on Europe, largely because of the recent experience with WWI but also because of deeply-embedded Anglocentrism.
3. It would have been almost impossible to maintain a standing military adequate to fight on both the Pacific and European fronts in WWII. We were able to scale it up remarkably quickly, mainly because we did not have to deal with bombs raining on our manufacturing centers, but the cost to maintain a military the scale of which we had in early 1945 would have been completely prohibitive.

I'm not a military guy but the military men/women I know say that what "readiness" means in 2025 is absolutely good-faith debatable. They also agree that what Trump is doing, by installing an utterly unqualified SecDef and purging the most senior levels of military and JAG leadership, is antithetical to ANY good faith understanding of readiness.

 

[superrific]

This is grossly oversimplified but I'd summarize it this way.

1. Yes, we had dramatically scaled down the military after WWI and in response to the Great Depression.
2. US leadership's eyes were primarily on Europe, largely because of the recent experience with WWI but also because of deeply-embedded Anglocentrism.
3. It would have been almost impossible to maintain a standing military adequate to fight on both the Pacific and European fronts in WWII. We were able to scale it up remarkably quickly, mainly because we did not have to deal with bombs raining on our manufacturing centers, but the cost to maintain a military the scale of which we had in early 1945 would have been completely prohibitive.

I'm not a military guy but the military men/women I know say that what "readiness" means in 2025 is absolutely good-faith debatable. They also agree that what Trump is doing, by installing an utterly unqualified SecDef and purging the most senior levels of military and JAG leadership, is antithetical to ANY good faith understanding of readiness.

No, we couldn't have had a large standing military, but maybe we could have had more officers if the officer count was really that low.

But anyway, this is a stupid argument from me. I don't know what I'm talking about. It was the SoD who brought it up, but anyway.