He quietly urged other military personnel to reflect on their own positions. “They should be confident in questioning possibly immoral or illegal orders,” he said, “remembering they are responsible for their own actions, and knowing others are asking the same questions.”
“If they have doubts about their orders, they are not alone,”
Jesus fucking Christ you fuckers in here saying “what he quit for” should read the fucking article.
The guy resigned to shine a light on the current administration, but all you can do is say “why he quit tho?”If he hadn’t have quit you’d be calling him a lackey or stooge, but when he does resign AND uses it to call out tRUMP you still think he’s done the wrong thing!!
For fuck sake, take the win. Point at this guy and his message and use it. Christ.
By quitting he is potentially allowing the administration to fill the position with a trump approved “yes man”. I think he could do more good by keeping his position and defy/resist orders instead. I don’t blame him, though. Getting the hell out of there seems reasonable too!
Removed by mod
Malicious compliance would be better in most cases
A nation of quitters, capitulators, and oath breakers.
America the brave, my dick.
Then why the fuck do you quit, freely giving up your important position so that gop can put a useful idiot there?
Because they can put you in military jail for disobeying a direct order. Man probably has a family he needs to feed. Military jail is not like civilian jail. UCMJ doesn’t fuck around, and UCMJ being wielded by this administration is probably going to equal a bad time.
I got downvoted so much for saying the same when that air force general quit.
It does no longer matter if the order is illegal, if half the nation is rotten. There can be an order to kill civilians and it has to be obeyed. You got a family to take care of and under Trump rule, said family can suddenly become terrorists if you refuse to bomb California or NYC or something. Which you won’t be able to do anything about when you’re in military jail.
Most people’s opinion was that you should directly disobey the dictator and just let whatever happen to your family, happen.
People in his command see this. Shit, we see this here. But his resigning has an impression on people, which may unfortunately be the only effect he can make. The whole unlawful orders thing is a sticky situation at best, and what all of us here in this tiny echo chamber believe is not what is reflected in the real world, and so some stand he may take may end up unseen and unheard while he rots away as an O-1 in Leavenworth.
Same with when Mattis was fired back in term one. Sometimes the only statement you can make is your resignation.
exactly, this shit pisses me off.
Stop taking a fucking moral stand and quititng. all you’re doing it is making it easier for puppets to get placed without having to go through the effort and legal issue of baselessly firing you.
Given that this is the only way military members can legally protest I am glad to see this sort of action.
So that a fascist can take his place? Weird way to protest.
They can either resign publicly or be confined privately. This way we know about it, we see members of leadership taking a stand. And for each one that resigns I’m confident there are others who rebel secretly in whatever ways they can. We saw the commanding general of ORNG give his press conference about protecting the protestors. It’s a fine line they walk, and in this day and age, with the required credentialing for news agencies at the Pentagon, you might just not hear about Colonel So-and-so who defied an order.
Feel free to take his place.
Oh, of course, with my US citizenship that I have lying around here somewhere, and my decades of experience in the US military. Will do.
Excellent plan!
Will do just for you, pumpkin. You’re so smart.
Please, you’re going to make me blush.
How is quitting the answer? Someone else will become the yes man.
Jail time for disobeying, as per UCMJ.
There’s a difference between disobeying and incompetence.
No it’s not and really has never been really. In a magical ideal world it is, but the real world just ain’t like that.
Not for this administration.
All these comments are telling him to stay and fight, but they’re ignoring that could be devastating to his family.
He’s over the 20 year mark and can retire. If he stays and gets a dishonorable discharge, his family gets none of his retirement, no medical, and a family member with financial mobility akin to a felon.
What would you do in that situation?
I don’t think I’d be willing to put my family through that. We don’t have enough in the bank to take a blow like that. I’d probably do what he did. Try to fight another way.
plus trump and the gop can SIC thier supporters on the people opposing him. stalking, death threats,etc.
Could be even worse, look at what happened to Stauffenberg’s family.
Arguable whether he signed up for that.
Fight and die in defence of a NATO ally? Yes. Same as the aggressor, if the elected government decides so, such as in Iraq? Also yes.
Risk having his wife, children, grandchildren taken away and put in Sippenhaft (collective punishment) or put in a reeducation orphanage? Not sure there is a moral obligation to that. Safety for his family was one of the things he got out of all this.
His risks for resisting beyond what he already did are higher than they would be for the average citizen. On the other hand, he also could do more than the average citizen.
A tough call, and I would not judge.
He’s read SunTzu. He knows a good strategy sometimes is to be safe.
I hope he can move with his family out of range of the re-activation order.
Bullies and fascists do not stop unless they are forced to stop. If every american capitulates like this, then we are lost.
This is what it means to fight for country and freedom. It’s not just words in a country music song. Standing up for your beliefs sometimes means real risk and sacrifice.
If the armed forces want to be recognized for their service and sacrifice, this is how its done.
one of the first thing fascists do is getting rid of the people that are more likely to oppose them, which is usually top military generals, and Intellectuals; scientists, teachers,etc. thats why scientists are usually to flee the country long before the conflict gets worst.
Death and imprisonment, and collective punishment of wife and child. Are not a ask a sane person asks of any man unless the alternative is death.
It’s not that Americans can’t and will not fight, it’s that half the population is illiterate. How do you fight 175 million neighbors?
its 4th grade reading level now, math is probably worst than arithemetic.
Something like 50% of humans are hard wired to follow their gut. They rely on fairh, authority, and feelings to guide their everyday descision making. They do not live their lives based on facts or logic. If they believe something, then, its true.
Right wing media takes full advantage of this. They spent 40 years making people “feel” a certain way.
So, to answer your question, I think we need to stop the constant flow of poison flowing into their ears. The poison needs to be replaced with a better message.
I wish there was a better way to sabotage that signal. At this point, those rage-pundits thrive on embarrassing themselves and can say the most heinous and vile things without their audience turning on them. Heck, the worse it gets, the more their audience shifts into insanity!
Even the fact that they’re filthy rich while screaming at and demeaning their audience with “self reliance” and “rugged individualism” messages hasn’t phased them.
The fact they claim to be Christian but are the most useful tools of hell is simply shrugged off because the Bible is too “hard to comprehend” but this media is always right there, screaming at them to hate and be afraid. It’s “simple.”
But just hypothetically silencing them somehow will lend more credibility to the narrative that they’re the ones with the truth and everybody’s out to get them.
This is literal destabilization PsyOP strategy.
How do we stop a constant bombardment that wires people to indulge in the worst parts of their nature?
I’m not being a doomer here. I lost my dad to FOX’s bullshit and at a point in my life it threatened to take me too. I really want to know how we can counter this at scale…
I generally agree with you, but it flows both ways. And I know we hate this whole both sides thing, and I generally agree, but all news is propaganda these days, it feels like. The constant message I try to spread is to think micro. Stop taking on these world problems and try to solve a problem more locally, try to take an action that you can physically take with your own hands. I firmly believe that stronger communities make a stronger nation.
I live in a place where elections are upcoming, and I see signs of the opposition, but I try to think of these people first and foremost as my neighbors. I truly think that solves a lot of problems, because while the right is thinking of everyone on the left as criminals, the left is painting anyone on the right as Nazi fascists, and this in and of itself is a problem. The other side is not inherently wrong. There is no one correct way to do things. We’re all fumbling through life, nobody knows what theyre doing, lets try to do it without being afraid of each other.
People are having their entire livelihoods destroyed for mocking ICE or not rending their shirt with sufficient passion over the death of a nazi. People are risking everything you listed every time they go to a protest and wonder if THIS will be the day that the cops swarm through.
Everyone needs to decide what risks they will and won’t take. But I am not going to say “Come on now. He figured he would be fine either way and didn’t want to risk any repercussions. Cut him some slack”.
I’m praying for a military coup, and for all these Nazi Republicans to be hung Mussolini style at a Buck ees.
In the meantime I’m putting on this frog suit and dancing in the streets.
You can’t when all the reasonable people quit.
I don’t think you realize what kinds of people are in the US military. Be careful what you wish for.
I don’t think you realize that the US military is a pretty fair representation of the civilian populations. I served with dudes who came in all shapes, sizes, and affiliations. You’re talking about 3+ million active and reserve members, and the law of averages works the same in and out.
He made the problem worse?
He’s been there long enough for retirement. If he fought Trump he’d be dishonorably discharged and lose all retirement pay, all medical benefits, and you’ll have a record that is equivalent to having a felony.
By quitting now he’s ensuring the welfare of his family.
It’s not ensured. They can still take away his rank and pay in retirement.
They can, but it’s far less likely than if he stayed in and was put in a position where he had to refuse orders.
True. But retiring now will reduce risk.
The statement stands because by the time the military turn on Trump properly (if they ever do) we can’t just assume they’d fail.
They’re one of the few groups capable of intervening.
Like that could stop Trump at this point. He do it and DOJ would just watch.
And if instead, he later said “I didn’t want to do these bad things, but I had to play the part, because if I left someone worse would replace me!” then the comments would also say he’s part of the problem.
His choices are lose/lose, we made sure of that.
Fascists having less competent soldiers is far from worse, hopefully more and more walk away.
Now is a great time, too, since they’re not getting paid and if any of them are laid off the Trump admin has stated they won’t recieve backpay, which the Trump admin has confirmed is the plan.
It isn’t even about competence.
It is about not having the bodies to subjugate a people. And The People choosing to not menacingly wave a gun at “protesters” because they want a paycheck.
Further, if the enlistees who aren’t going to comply with illegal orders are still isolated individuals, they’re more likely to meet with ah… unfortunate accidents…
They are creating a culture of fear, distrust and a need to keep families fed, everything seen, everything heard.
There will be a tipping point, the direction is unseen. US citizens are still waiting for a savior, willfully blind it’s us or no one.
While in service, he is bound by duty to follow orders that are legal… and the Supreme Court said anything the President does is legal. Once out of service, he can choose to follow his own conscious and fight how he sees fit.
Well, yeah. If he is serving an orange rapist then he is bound to serve said rapist.
Oh, are you still pretending the military serves The People? Because, homei, them mother fuckers have had PLENTY of opportunities to actually protect The People and The Constitution. They choose to Just Follow Orders and either be guns ready to oppress The People or stand by while The People are oppressed.
We 'bout to talk about how Joker’s minions have no choice but to do what he asks them to and shouldn’t be held accountable?
Yeah, he stepped down and that is one less soldier for the Nazis. But he has been getting paid and trained to “serve” for decades and the moment he actually had to consider serving The People rather than protecting his own interests? He bloomberg’d out.
Or: the moment he had to consider doing something that was against The People, he honorably left. You seem to have this rather naive and ridiculous notion that some colonel has access to some network of willing soldiers who will gladly become a ragtag group of unstoppable superheroes against a million strong military that for the most part loves what the President is doing. Yeah, there are a lot of individuals who hate what Trump is doing, but those are mostly officers who have a stronger sense of duty than the people whom they command. And colonels don’t wield all that much power, either.
Also, since you seem to think he should have done something to “serve” The People in his role, what concrete ideas do you have for him to have done?
Or: the moment he had to consider doing something that was against The People, he honorably left.
I very much argue that moment happened back in 2021 when the military chose to do absolutely nothing while an outgoing government official tried to violently overthrow the government, but sure.
He left. Good on him. That is why I said, elsewhere, that there was one less body to support the nazis.
Absolute bare minimum? More of the military should be doing this. But that is the thing, it is the “bare minimum”
My issue is you, and many others, trying to justify serving a rapist because they are legally required to follow orders. We’ve been through this: if your justification for an atrocity is “I was just following orders” then you are a monster. And if your justification for other people oppressing you is “they are just following orders” you are a boot licker waiting for the leopards to eat your face.
My issue is you, and many others, trying to justify serving a rapist because they are legally required to follow orders. We’ve been through this: if your justification for an atrocity is “I was just following orders” then you are a monster.
No, I’m trying to justify him NOT serving a rapist. You seemed to be angry that he chose to stop serving a rapist. Now you are saying I’m a boot licker because I am happy he is no longer serving a rapist and isn’t doing stuff that is oppressing people??? He is no longer “just following orders,” so why are you angry? Your anger is kind of all over the place.
You also never answered my request for what concrete steps do you want him to do other than retire. You are one of those people who get all angry and complain but then don’t have any recommended solutions.
I am angry because he served a rapist up until two weeks ago. I am angry because people are so obsessed with worshiping the military even as the military is increasingly the backup dancers to ICE.
Again, this is the absolute bare minimum. It should be treated as such.
As for your ad hominem
You also never answered my request for what concrete steps do you want him to do other than retire. You are one of those people who get all angry and complain but then don’t have any recommended solutions.
Believe it or not but some things you don’t discuss on a publicly readable message board. Weird, I know.
Also it is increasingly obvious he is going the “I’m going to pretend I care and write a book about it” route but…
You also never answered my request for what concrete steps do you want him to do other than retire. You are one of those people who get all angry and complain but then don’t have any recommended solutions.
We need him to stay in, and fight the good fight, not quit. WTF?
Come January 2028, we might very well need our military leaders to uphold the Constitution they took an oath to protect, and kick the bastards out of the White House.
No, we need him and all the other competent officers on the side of the rebellion. Nazis will be weak without smart people leading them.
I hope all the soldiers and officers would either drop their guns or point them away from the protestors and towards the fascist government.
Btw there won’t be another election the way things are going. Waiting until 2029 to do something will be waaaayyyy tooooo late.
also it takes a while for an officer pipeline from college(rotc or OCS)-to colonel or generals, so once they lose these officers its going to be harder to replace them, its not like suddenly can promote a non-officer to an officer quickly.
it looks like its going to end up like russia’s military.
I don’t disagree that we need people like the Colonel to stay in, but the man has served faithfully for 24 years. More than long enough to reach retirement. We have to trust in the training that he has given the men and women that have served under him, and hope that it will prove to be enough.
We need him to stay in, and fight the good fight, not quit. WTF?
If you’re waiting for an officer’s revolt, don’t hold your breath.
It won’t be in the form of a revolt, it will be in the form of the military doing its duty. If the states democratically agree on new leadership, the military have a duty to the constitution to ensure a peaceful transition of power. If some portion of the military, in the face of Trump losing a democratic election, choose to align with him and maintain his power, THOSE are the ones who are revolting.
2029
People say this a lot but the overwhelmingly more likely result of him staying is him just sitting there and watching things happen.
Why quit? That is stupid.
