General Miley

[hollodero]

(09-29-2021, 02:41 PM)Dill Wrote: 3. With all due respect, Hollo, I must say that your causal analysis has the wrong starting point here. The question is not whether Trump ACTUALLY threatened an "uber-aggressive move towards China" which then got Milley so worried he broke some Consitutional boundary reaching for the phone without telling Trump, taking foreign policy into his own hands. Rather, the issue is what our intel was saying about Chinese intel--I.e., how the Chinese were interpreting 1) US actions in the region, and 2) Trump's political behavior. 

I repeat--the "cause" of the communications with China was not Milley's assessment of Trump but our intel on Chinese intel. THAT is what Milley's calls were responding to. NOT on anything Trump said or did with regard to China. That you saw nothing in the news which you thought should upset the Chinese is not really a strong argument against the existence of US intel indicating their misreading of US intent, or even against the existence of such misreading. 

So, there's the point that maybe this is actually all routine. I would not dare to state the opposite with total conviction. If it was just routine and actually no big deal, then ok, so be it.
If it was not, however, then I would still believe that it is the president's perogative to deal with foreign nations, including taking a more aggressive stance. If he does so, it's imho in principle kind of essential that no one calls someone from said nation to relativize or undermine these positions. I can clearly see a point at which such a preventive deed is the right move; but that would very much include a realistic scenario that an armed conflict might break out. Anything less than that, I'd still believe that the president's perogative should stand and that someone like Milley is not the person to question it.
Regarding intelligence reports, I of course would not know about those, and I figure neither would you. So it's kinda easy to claim the Chinese had to be heavily concerned and US intelligence possibly reflected that. I have no evidence it did not, nor do I have evidence it did. I just find it somewhat hard to imagine that China could be worried about a possible attack or a possible war, in which case, well done Mr. Milley if you averted the threat of war. If they felt threatened in some other way than with actual armed conflict, then I'd lean towards claiming Milley should not interfere. And I can understand an other perspective on this, I see Trump after all; I just don't believe mine has a wrong starting point or speaks to my confusion.