If Stanley Kubrick’s 1964 classic Dr. Strangelove taught us anything, it is that the task of defusing the most delicate diplomatic situations falls to the president and that breach of military protocol can quickly lead to catastrophe.
But according to Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, it was customary for him to engage in peace talks with his Chinese military counterpart, even without the president’s knowledge or consent.
He claimed that a pair of calls to Gen. Li Zuocheng of the People’s Liberation Army were “routine” and “perfectly within the duties and responsibilities” of his job, according to an Associated Press piece published Friday.
The calls, first revealed by Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Robert Costa to preview their new book about the Trump administration’s tumultuous final months, were intended “to reassure both allies and adversaries in this case in order to ensure strategic stability,” Milley claimed in the AP interview, while en route to Athens, Greece.
According to the AP, Milley offered only a terse defense of the calls, saying he expected to speak more in depth at the inevitable congressional hearings.
“I think it’s best that I reserve my comments on the record until I do that in front of the lawmakers who have the lawful responsibility to oversee the U.S. military,” Milley said. “I’ll go into any level of detail Congress wants to go into in a couple of weeks.”
Republicans have called not only for an investigation of the calls, but also have demanded that Milley be fired and court-martialed for the treasonous insubordination.
“Milley never told me about calls being made to China. From what I understand, he didn’t tell too many other people either,” said former President Donald Trump in a statement Wednesday. “He put our Country in a very dangerous position but President Xi knows better, and would’ve called me.”
Trump was one of many who noted that the woke critical-race general’s priorities already had come under intense scrutiny following the US military’s disastrous, poorly planned withdrawal from Afghanistan last month.
“The way Milley and the Biden Administration handled the Afghanistan withdrawal, perhaps the most embarrassing moment in our Country’s history, would not exactly instill fear in China,” Trump said.
“Milley is a complete nutjob!” he continued. “The only reason Biden will not fire or court-martial Milley is because he doesn’t want him spilling the dirty secrets on Biden’s deadly disaster in Afghanistan.”
The partisan leftist Jan. 6 inquisition also has expressed interest in getting the information on the calls and will likely seek to spin and downplay the scandal as many in the leftist media have.
On the same day as the second of the two calls, Jan. 8, Milley also was reported to have met with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., where the two are believed to have discussed invoking the 25th Amendment and other ways to force Trump from office prior to the end of his term on Jan. 20.
Pelosi herself has deep financial ties to China, and she refused to remove Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., from the House Intelligence Committee, even after it became public knowledge that he had been compromised by sexual encounters with a Chinese ‘honeypot’ spy.
According to the AP, Milley also spoke with a number of other foreign leaders following the Jan. 6 uprising at the US Capitol—including leaders from the United Kingdom, Russia and Pakistan.
It is unclear, however, whether he attempted to placate them in similar fashion as the Chinese.
He was reported to have told Li, “If we’re going to attack, I’m going to call you ahead of time. It’s not going to be a surprise.”
Despite those assurances, Woodward and Costa wrote that Li was not entirely assuaged, prompting Milley to further declare, “We are 100 percent steady. Everything’s fine. But democracy can be sloppy sometimes.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
