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fortheloveofwonderland · 11 months

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War of the Heart - Chapter Eight (Final) | Luke Alvez x Fem! Reader

Previous Chapter

Chapter Summary - Spencer is finally released from prison and the two you have a long overdue talk. Will he convince you that you’re making a mistake with Luke before it’s too late?

A/N - and we reach the end! Also I am aware Luke was also given time off after the Scratch debacle but let’s just roll with it.

Category - heavy angst | smut | eventual happy ending.

Content Warnings - a brief summary of the prison arc including mentions of Lindsey and Cat and mentions of Scratch kidnapping Emily and his and Walker’s death, swearing, and finally(!) a happy ending!

WC - 3.4k

Chapter Eight

2010 - Diyala, Northeast Baghdad

“So,” he spoke, stepping inside your unit for what would be the final time. “I guess this is the end of the road.”

“I guess so.” You shrugged, placing a handful of toiletry items in the open box. “I’m being picked up to go to the airport in a half hour.”

Now normally Luke would take any opportunity to get you into bed, even if you’d only had ten minutes he would have made it work. So when he sidled over to you and simply wrapped you in his arms, you knew this must be breaking his heart.

“You’re really leaving?” He held you close, resting his chin on your head while you snuggled against his chest.

“I don’t really have a choice.” It wasn’t strictly untrue. You didn’t have a choice, not if you wanted to maintain your sanity anyway.

Luke wanted to say something, tell you that he knew you’d requested the transfer and ask you why, but honestly, he wasn’t sure he could handle the answer. So instead he just held you tighter.

“I really am going to miss you.” He whispered.

“You going soft on me, Sarg?” You pulled back a little so you could look up at him. “We’ll still talk, that’s what phones are for. And the timezones in Iraq and Afghanistan are only a few hours different so we can talk whenever we like.”

“I know.” He nodded. “But why does this feel so definite? Why does it feel like I’m never going to see you again?”

You smiled a little wistfully at him and got on your tiptoes so you could place a tender kiss to his lips.

“Sarg, if it was meant to be, it will find a way.”

“Now who’s going soft?” He laughed but it was filled with sadness.

The two of you stood there for several more minutes, wrapped in each other's embrace. A part of you suddenly didn’t want to go. Sure things with Luke were intense but was that such a bad thing? He loved you with every fibre of his being and you loved him back with the same fire. Why were you running from the only thing that had ever made you happy?

There was a knock on the side of the container and the two of you sprung apart rapidly. Seconds later a head poked it way inside.

“Time to go, private.” The man nodded for you to follow him.

You exhaled heavily through your nose, straightening your back and raising your hand to your forehead in salute.

“It’s been an honour to serve for you, Sergeant Alvez.”

Luke mirrored your stance, saluting you back even though his heart was shattering in his chest.

“The honour was all mine, Private Y/L/N.”

You collected your things and headed to the door, allowing yourself one last glance back at Luke. You caught him wiping his eye but when he saw you looking he forced a smile and mouthed four simple words.

“Goodbye and good luck.”

***

Present - Washington, DC

Everything after your night with Luke seemed to happen at lightning speed, thankfully keeping your mind busy, away from thoughts of him. The following day you’d received a call from Emily to tell you that during his cognitive, Spencer placed a woman in the motel room, not Scratch. And days after that his moms new nurse brought her to visit him and it all spiralled from there.

Not being a part of the team anymore you had to sit on the sidelines while they tracked down Lindsey Vaughn and proved Spencer’s innocence. You heard second hand of how Spencer had to face off with his arch nemesis Cat Adams in order to save his mom. And just when it all finally seemed to be over, Scratch did rear his ugly head, killing Walker and kidnapping Emily.

You wanted to help, you wanted to help so badly but you knew you’d be more of hindrance and that you couldn’t see Luke again for your own good. Garcia kept you apprised of everything, while you literally sat on the edge of your seat feeling utterly useless.

But of course, the team was great at what they did and they found Emily in time. Scratch was dead and according to Garcia there was speculation that Luke may well have pushed him off that ledge despite his protests otherwise.

Honestly, you wouldn’t have even blamed him, you might have even done the same.

Then everything got quiet. Most of the team was all given time off while Luke and IRT’s Matt Simmons held down the fort. And it was only then that the weight of everything came crashing down on you.

You’d quit your job. You’d pushed Luke away for the final time. You were alone and you had nothing left to occupy your mind. The spiral was inevitable and you knew it.

When Spencer called you, asking to see you, you were surprised to say the least. You weren’t sure entirely what he wanted as he was particularly vague on the phone but it was the bare minimum you could do to hear him out. So you invited him over.

The last time you’d seen him was at the BAU after bringing him home from Mexico and it honestly felt like a different life time ago. The air was awkward and slightly tense between you as you let him inside your apartment. He tentatively stepped inside and you motioned him over to the couch where you both sat down.

“I just want to say, I’m sorry I never visited while you were at Milburn.” You blurted out, toying with your hands in your lap.

“It’s ok.” He shrugged, a hint of a smile on his lips. “I didn’t put you on my visitation list anyway.”

“Well now I’m glad I didn’t make a drive up there.” You laughed a little. “I guess we have a lot to talk about.”

“Yeah.” He nodded a little sadly. “You left the BAU.”

“I did.”

“There’s a lot of rumours flying around as to why.” His eyes sparkled slightly.

“I can only imagine.”

“And I can only assume the only truthful rumour is that you left because of Alvez.”

“You don’t need to be a genius to figure that out.” You smirked.

“I need to know everything, Y/N. No more lies.”

“Ok.” You agreed, because after everything it was the least you owed him.

He frowned in confusion when you got up from the couch and watched you walk over to your desk and retrieve something from the top drawer. When you returned, you opened your palm, a small silver ring nestled in your hand.

Spencer looked between your eyes and the ring, the cogs not taking long to slot into place.

“You were engaged?” He croaked, rolling his bottom lip between his teeth.

“Not entirely.” You sighed. “It was a promise ring. He was promising that one day he would ask me to marry him and I was promising that when that day came, I’d say yes.”

“So what happened?” He scrutinised you as you closed your fingers around the ring.

“Loving Luke is…stressful isn’t the right word. Draining? Exhausting? I loved him with such intensity that everything else in my life fell by the wayside. He was literally the only thing I could think of. I was losing focus in my work, putting my career second to my feelings for him. I think I loved him too much.” You exhaled, clasping your hand tightly and feeling the ring digging into your palm.

“Wow,” Spencer chuckled softly, making you frown. “With all due respect, that’s got to be the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”

“Excuse me?”

“There’s no such thing as loving someone too much.”

“That’s what Luke said.”

“And he’s right.” Spencer continued to laugh. “Love is supposed to be intense and consuming. If it isn’t, it isn’t love.”

“This was…this was different.” You shook your head. “We had a volatile relationship that seemed to stick to the same destructive cycle. We’d get into a fight, we’d try to make up by having sex and then we’d just fight again.”

“So break the cycle.” He said it like it was the easiest thing in the world. “Love isn’t rocket science Y/N. If something doesn’t work you fix it, you don’t run off just because you get scared.”

“Who said anything about being scared?” You scoffed, putting the ring down on the coffee table before you crushed it into dust.

“It’s very clear you push Luke away because the idea that someone could love you so much scares the crap out of you. And that’s understandable, love is scary. But it’s also the most amazing thing in the whole world.” He smiled a little wistfully.

“Are you really sitting here trying to convince me to be with Luke when he’s the reason we broke up?”

“I understand the irony.” He nodded. “But I do want you to be happy. I had a lot of time to think while I was in prison and I realised that you were never really happy with me, not the way you should be. You never looked at me like you look at him.”

“Spence, I’m so sorry.” You pulled a face.

“No, no I didn’t mean that in the pathetic way it sounded. I’m just saying, don’t settle for mediocre when it comes to love. Trust me when I say, you want that intense, all consuming love. That’s when you know you’re doing it right.” He offered you another smile, pushing himself up from the couch. “But hey, what do I know? I’m only a genius.”

You couldn’t help but laugh as you got up as well, the two of you heading towards the door.

“Do you have any plans? You know like, life after the BAU?”

“Right now I’m just enjoying having a little time to myself. My old unit chief at the DC Field Office obviously heard about my resignation and she reached out, said I’d always have a place on the team.” You opened the door for him.

“Well, maybe we’ll run into each other from time then.” He stepped out into the corridor.

“Or you know, we could hang out sometime, on purpose not just for work.”

“I’d like that.” He nodded. “And remember, Y/N, never let fear decide your fate.”

“I forgot how wise you are, Doc.” You smirked, leaning against the door jamb.

“No you didn’t.” He smiled back at you briefly before turning away and heading for the stairs.

You watched him go, mulling over his words and knowing if anyone was right about the situation, it was Doctor Spencer Reid.

You turned back into the apartment, rushing through to your room to change and quickly grabbing up the ring along with your keys and phone and hurrying out again before you talked yourself out of it.

***

To say Luke Alvez was exhausted would be the understatement of the century. The past few months had seemed to go on for years, the day he joined the BAU felt like a complete lifetime ago. Between Spencer’s incarceration, capturing Mr Scratch and keeping the department afloat with Simmons while the rest of the BAU took time off, he felt as though it had been months since he’d gotten a decent night's sleep.

But work kept his brain active, it kept him too busy to spend time dwelling on you and the pain caused by the way you’d finally ended things. One day he was going to have to deal with it, let himself feel every shatter of his heart. But today wasn’t that day.

It was really late by the time he got home, he supposed it was more early than late as it was ebbing into the early hours of the morning. Roxy was with his neighbour, he’d get her in the morning before his run.

He stifled a yawn as he unlocked his apartment door, ready to crash and burn as soon as his ass hit the bed. He got inside and shucked off his jacket but before he could get out of his shoes, something caught his eye.

His dog was curled up on the couch, asleep, her head buried under the arm of the human who slept at her side. You were dressed in full fatigues, boots on the floor next to the couch and your feet tucked up beneath you. The sight made his heart melt, something he’d imagined so many times before but never expected to be a reality.

But why were you here? Why were you asleep on his couch with his dog in your army uniform?

He shuffled closer to the couch and you stirred a little, you always had been a light sleeper. You rubbed your eyes with one hand, the other lost somewhere in Roxy’s thick fur. You blinked a couple of times before your eyes landed on Luke.

“Oh shit, did I fall asleep?” You jumped to your feet, startling Roxy a little but she quickly settled back down.

“Yeah and in case you hadn’t noticed, not in your own apartment.” Luke frowned at you. “How did you get in here?”

“Well you see, I came over and I knocked but obviously you weren’t home so I just kinda sat outside for a while. And then your neighbour, Mrs Perez, she found me and told me she had your spare key and did I want it and also did I want to take your dog back. I didn’t know you had a dog.” You rambled.

“Uh yeah…that’s Roxy.” He scratched the back of his neck.

“Oh it’s a she. I’ve been calling her Rambo.” You shrugged. “I guess me and Ram…Roxy fell asleep waiting for you.”

“And why are you waiting for me? In your fatigues?” His frown was so deep he worried he might cause permanent lines in his forehead but he was so confused.

“Because I can admit when I’m wrong.”

“Can you? Because I didn’t know that about you.”

“I didn’t say it came easily to me.” You rolled your eyes. “I was scared, Luke, petrified really. I was scared because the way I feel about you is like nothing I’ve ever experienced before. I thought that a love so intense was a bad thing but I think I might have been wrong.

I think I thought I could either have love or a career, that my brain wasn’t equipped to handle both of those things. My mom was a doctor, I’ve never told you that before, but she was. Was. Until she met my dad and I guess he wanted her to be this homemaker or whatever so she quit. Just like that. She gave up everything for him and I promised myself I’d never be like her. Yet in trying not to become her, I inadvertently did. I left Iraq of my own accord, I quit the BAU, just so I didn’t have to see you everyday. I guess it never really occurred to me that I could have both, because my parents' relationship was the only thing I had to base it on.

I’m an only child and I’ve never been close to my family and when I met you, it was the first time I ever felt loved. And that scared me, I grew dependent on you and that made me feel weak. But actually now I think about it, it’s quite the opposite. You were my greatest strength, my one true ally. The only man to ever see me for who I am. I know this is probably all too little too late, but I thought at the very least I owed you an explanation.”

By the time you finished talking you were out of breath. The whole drive here you’d been rehearsing this speech in your head, and you had to get it all out before Luke said anything to steer you off track.

He stared at you the whole time, processing every single word you said carefully. He ran his fingers through his hair and sighed deeply.

“You hurt me consistently, over and over again. And each time was more painful than the last. How do I know you aren’t going to do that again? I can’t take another blow, Y/N, it might actually kill me.” He looked so broken at that moment and you hated yourself for putting him through this.

You saw in his eyes the extent of the damage you’d done to the man standing before you, the man who had only ever loved you unconditionally. You knew this had to be it, you had to be sure otherwise there may be no coming back for Luke again.

You took a tentative step closer to him, shoving your hands in the pocket of your old army jacket.

“You don’t know, not for sure. I can stand here and promise you that I never intend to hurt you again, that I love you and I’m sure I always will. But nothing in life is guaranteed, Luke. What I can guarantee, with absolute certainty as I stand here right now is that I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Every fucking day from now until enternity.” You’d started to cry heavily, as if a damn had broken behind your eyes.

Luke’s own eyes welled up as he struggled not to reach out and grab you.

“Why are you wearing your fatigues?” He found himself asking.

You looked down at yourself and despite your tears you started to laugh.

“I don’t know. I guess maybe I was hoping it would remind you of the girl you fell in love with and not the crazy person I’ve become.”

“You’ve always been a little crazy.” He cracked a smile. “But that’s part of why I love you. And I want to spend every damn day from now until eternity with you, crazy and all.”

“You do?” You sniffed, bottom lip quivering slightly.

“Always have.” He shrugged.

You smiled brightly, maybe for the first time in years and withdrew your hands from your pockets. You turned one over and unballed your fist, revealing the dainty silver ring cradled inside. You looked up at Luke with a small shrug.

“You promised.” You proffered it towards him. “You promised me one day you’d ask and I promised I’d say yes.”

Luke’s tears overflowed now as he nodded his head, picking the ring up between his fingers. His heart hammered against his chest and his stomach coiled with knots as he slowly lowered himself to one knee in front of you.

“This was far from how I ever planned on doing this.” He smiled through his tears. “There was meant to be dinner and rose petals and a freaking string quartet.”

“I don’t care.” You shook your head. “Just ask me. Just finally ask me the damn question.”

“Ok.” He took hold of your left hand and brought it to his lips to kiss the back of it before looking up into your eyes. “Y/N Y/L/N, this has been the longest time in the making, but will you marry me?”

“Can I think about it?” You teased him with a giggle.

Luke smirked at you, giving your hand a playful tug.

“I swear to god, private…”

“Alright, alright!” You laughed with a roll of your eye. “Yes, ok? A hundred, thousand times yes. Yes I will marry you, Sarg.”

“About damn time.” He slid the ring on your finger before pushing himself up, grabbing your face in his hands and kissing you.

You slung your arms around his neck, holding onto him for dear life, too afraid to ever let him go again. The kiss was different from any the two of you had ever shared before. It held a deep understanding that no words could accurately communicate.

It was the acknowledgment that the two of you had put each other through hell in your own ways, and the comprehension that to make this work things needed to be different this time around. It was acceptance that you both needed to try harder, to be better for one another if you stood a chance this time. It was the final admittance of two people who were unfathomably in love and couldn’t live without each other.

You and Luke would surely still have your ups and downs, life wasn’t perfect after all. But at long last the war was over, you could finally stop fighting. You’d reached your armistice, in agreement to end all conflict and ceasefire. From the Iraqi desert to the front lines of your heart, your turbulent relationship had come this close to destroying you both.

But a soldier never quits no matter how arduous the battle. And Luke Alvez was more than worth the fight.

Taglist

@carolinesbookworld @wooya1224 @littlebeanwrites @randomramblings @telepathay @lukealvezswifey

#luke alvez #luke alvez fanfiction #luke alvez smut #luke alvez x reader #luke alvez x y/n #luke alvez x fem! reader #criminal minds #criminal minds fanfiction

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bcolfanfic · 21 days

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Can't stop thinking about #young vets au

Currently pondering how they forged a relationship when they were in the forces... Did they need to keep it from their superiors? Did they kind of announce it to their friends, or was it one of those undeclared-but-everyone-knows situations? Did they ever get to do any 'normal' couple things? <3

timeline wise they're enlisted after don't ask don't tell is struck down, so being out isn't' a death knell internally like it would be in another time. they're not exactly going around *advertising* that they’re together, esp when they're deployed in places that aren't lgbt friendly generally speaking. but their buddies know and it's not really a secret per say. as mentioned in the other Background/Wartime Lore ask i posted- curt roomed with them at tech school and could see this coming a mile away. so when they reunite with him when they get to afghanistan after africa and curt can just tell something has…shifted…he feels verryyy vindicated lololol.

they do what they can, where they can and are attached at the hip. <3

i think re: leaving/R&R time it's similar to the whole weekend pass debacle where gale tells john to go, but he needs to stay. buttt i can see a world where gale is convinced if john floats using said time to go to DC and see curt where he's doing rehabilitation at walter reed (authors note, i'm very familiar with that hospital bc i had a lot of eye issues as a kid and the specialist i saw was there. i can smell the subway in the cafeteria when i close my eyes, lol!) he still sends john ahead of him/joins him after a few days. but he does go, light "using curt against me is low bucky," ribbing and all. and it is nice to have some time together away from the war. i don’t think they leave their hotel much outside of seeing curt, they just want to be in their little bubble with each other. 🫂

#young vets au #buck x bucky #i like these world building 'challenges' so feel free to make me do more lololol #my research isn't *perfect* but its still fun #clegan

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whencyclopedia · 1 year

Photo

Retreat from Kabul in 1842

The Retreat from Kabul in 1842 was one of the most notorious disasters in the history of the British Empire. An East India Company army had invaded Afghanistan but was obliged to withdraw. This army of 4,500 soldiers and 12,000 camp followers was utterly destroyed before it reached the frontier, and the debacle condemned Britain to defeat in the First Anglo-Afghan War (1838-42).

Remnants of an Army by Thompson

Tate Britain (Public Domain)

#EastIndiaCompany

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azspot · 6 months

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The US sending its largest battleship to the Mediterranean to help a well-armed country counter a group of murderous teenagers on converted bicycles & hang-gliders is (particularly after the Afghanistan debacle) emblematic of the severe mismatch between bureaucrats & reality.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

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theculturedmarxist · 6 months

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We are entering the end stage of the 30-year US neocon debacle in Ukraine. The neocon plan to surround Russia in the Black Sea region by NATO has failed. Decisions now by the US and Russia will matter enormously for peace, security, and wellbeing for the entire world.

Four events have shattered the neocon hopes for NATO enlargement eastward, to Ukraine, Georgia, and onward. The first is straightforward. Ukraine has been devastated on the battlefield, with tragic and appalling losses. Russia is winning the war of attrition, an outcome that was predictable from the start but which the neocons and mainstream media deny till today.

The second is the collapsing support in Europe for the US neocon strategy. Poland no longer speaks with Ukraine. Hungary has long opposed the neocons. Slovakia has elected an anti-neocon government. EU leaders (Macron, Meloni, Sanchez, Scholz, Sunak, and others) have disapproval ratings far higher than approvals.

The third is the cut in US financial support for Ukraine. The Republican Party grassroots, several Republican Presidential candidates, and a growing number of Republican members of Congress, oppose more spending on Ukraine. In the stop-gap bill to keep the government running, Republicans stripped away new financial support for Ukraine. The White House has called for new aid legislation, but this will be an uphill fight.

The fourth, and most urgent from Ukraine’s point of view, is the likelihood of a Russian offensive. Ukraine’s casualties are in the hundreds of thousands, and Ukraine has burned through its artillery, air defenses, tanks, and others heavy weapons. Russia is likely to follow with a massive offensive.

The neocons have created utter disasters in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, and now Ukraine. The US political system has not yet held the neocons to account, since foreign policy is carried out with little public or Congressional scrutiny to date. Mainstream media have sided with the slogans of the neocons.

Ukraine is at risk of economic, demographic and military collapse. What should the US Government do to face this potential disaster?

Urgently, it should change course. Britain advises the US to escalate, as Britain is stuck with 19th century imperial reveries. US neocons are stuck with imperial bravado. Cooler heads urgently need to prevail.

President Joe Biden should immediately inform President Vladimir Putin that the US will end NATO enlargement eastward if the US and Russia reach a new agreement on security arrangements. By ending NATO expansion, the US can still save Ukraine from the policy debacles of the past 30 years.

Biden should agree to negotiate a security arrangement of the kind, though not precise details, of President Putin’s proposals of December 17, 2021. Biden foolishly refused to negotiate with Putin in December 2021. It’s time to negotiate now.

There are four keys to an agreement. First, as part of an overall agreement Biden should agree that NATO will not enlarge eastward, but not reverse the past NATO enlargement. NATO would of course not tolerate Russian encroachments in existing NATO states. Both Russia and the US would pledge to avoid provocations near Russia’s borders, including provocative missile placement, military exercises, and the like.

Second, the new US – Russia security agreement should cover nuclear weapons. The US unilateral withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 2002, followed by the placement of Aegis missiles in Poland and Romania, gravely inflamed tensions, which were further exacerbated by the US withdrawal from the Intermediate Nuclear Force (INF) Agreement in 2019 and Russia’s suspension of the New Start Treaty in 2023. Russian leaders have repeatedly pointed to US missiles near Russia, unconstrained by the abandoned ABM Treaty, as a dire threat to Russia’s national security.

Third, Russia and Ukraine would agree on new borders, in which the overwhelmingly ethnic Russian Crimea and heavily ethnic Russian districts of eastern Ukraine would remain part of Russia. The border changes would be accompanied by security guarantees for Ukraine backed unanimously by the UN Security Council and other states such as Germany, Turkey, and India.

Fourth, as part of a settlement, the US, Russia, and EU would re-establish trade, finance, cultural exchange, and tourist relations. It’s certainly time once again to hear Rachmaninoff and Tchaikovsky in US and European concert halls.

Border changes are a last resort, and should be made only under UN Security Council auspices. They must never be an invitation to further territorial demands, such as by Russia regarding ethnic Russians in other countries. Yet borders change, and the US has recently backed two border changes. NATO bombed Serbia for 78 days until it relinquished the Albanian-majority region of Kosovo. In 2008, the US recognized Kosovo as a sovereign nation. The US similarly backed South Sudan’s insurgency to break away from Sudan.

If Russia, Ukraine, or the US subsequently violated the new agreement, they would be challenging the rest of the world. As JFK observed, “even the most hostile nations can be relied upon to accept and keep those treaty obligations, and only those treaty obligations, which are in their own interest.”

The US neocons carry much blame for undermining Ukraine’s 1991 borders. Russia did not claim Crimea until after the US-backed overthrow of Ukraine’s President Viktor Yanukovych in 2014. Nor did Russia annex the Donbas after 2014, instead calling on Ukraine to honor the UN-backed Minsk II agreement, based on autonomy for the Donbas. The neocons preferred to arm Ukraine to retake the Donbas by force rather than grant the Donbas autonomy.

The long-term key to peace in Europe is collective security as called for by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). According to OSCE agreements, OSCE member states “will not strengthen their security at the expense of the security of other States.” Neocon unilateralism undermined Europe’s collective security by pushing NATO enlargement without regard to third parties, notably Russia. Europe — including the EU, Russia, and Ukraine — needs more OSCE and less neocon unilateralism as key to lasting peace in Europe.

#ukraine conflict #nato #the bargaining stage #cope

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dreaminginthedeepsouth · 7 months

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LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

September 24, 2023

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is the nation’s highest-ranking military officer and the principal military advisor to the president, secretary of defense, and national security council. The current chairman, Army General Mark Milley, has served in the military for 44 years, deploying in Iraq, Afghanistan, Egypt, Panama, Haiti, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Colombia, Somalia, and the Republic of Korea. He holds a degree in political science from Princeton University, a master’s degree in international relations from Columbia University, and a master’s degree from the U.S. Naval War College in national security and strategic studies.

Former president Trump chose Milley for that position, but on Friday night, Trump posted an attack on Milley, calling him “a Woke train wreck” and accusing him of betraying the nation when, days before the 2020 election, he reassured his Chinese counterpart that the U.S. was not going to attack China in the last days of the Trump administration, as Chinese leaders feared.

Trump was reacting to a September 21 piece by Jeffrey Goldberg about Milley in The Atlantic, which portrays Milley as an important check on an erratic, uninformed, and dangerous president while also warning that “[i]n the American system, it is the voters, the courts, and Congress that are meant to serve as checks on a president’s behavior, not the generals.”

Trump posted that Milley “was actually dealing with China to give them a heads up on the thinking of the President of the United States. This was an act so egregious that, in times gone by, the punishment would have been DEATH! A war between China and the United States could have been the result of this treasonous act. To be continued!!!”

In fact, the calls were hardly rogue incidents. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, another Trump appointee, endorsed Milley’s October call, and Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller, who replaced Esper when Trump fired him just after the election, gave permission for a similar call Milley made in January 2021. At least ten officials from the Central Intelligence Agency and the State Department were on the calls.

Trump is suggesting that in acting within his role and through proper channels, our highest ranking military officer has committed treason and that such treason in the past would have warranted death, with the inherent suggestion that we should return to such a standard. It seems much of the country has become accustomed to Trump’s outbursts, but this threat should not pass without notice, not least because Representative Paul Gosar (R-AZ) echoed it today in his taxpayer-funded newsletter.

In the letter, Gosar refers to Milley as “the homosexual-promoting-BLM-activist Chairman of the military joint chiefs,” a “deviant” who “was coordinating with Nancy Pelosi to hurt President Trump, and treasonously working behind Trump’s back. In a better society,” he wrote, “quislings like the strange sodomy-promoting General Milley would be hung. He had one boss: President Trump, and instead he was secretly meeting with Pelosi and coordinating with her to hurt Trump.”

Trump chose Milley to chair the Joint Chiefs but turned on him when Milley insisted the military was loyal to the Constitution rather than to any man. Milley had been dragged into participating in Trump’s march across Lafayette Square on June 1, 2020, to threaten Black Lives Matter protesters, although Milley peeled off when he recognized what was happening and later said he thought they were going to review National Guard troops.

The day after the debacle, Milley wrote a message to the joint force reminding every member that they swore an oath to the Constitution. “This document is founded on the essential principle that all men and women are born free and equal, and should be treated with respect and dignity. It also gives Americans the right to freedom of speech and peaceful assembly…. As members of the Joint Force—comprised of all races, colors, and creeds—you embody the ideals of our Constitution.”

“We all committed our lives to the idea that is America,” he wrote by hand on the memo. “We will stay true to that oath and the American people.”

Milley’s appearance with Trump as they crossed Lafayette Square drew widespread condemnation from former military leaders, and in the days afterward, Milley spoke to them personally, as well as to congressional leaders, to apologize. Milley also apologized publicly. “I should not have been there,” he said to graduates at National Defense University’s commencement. “My presence in that moment and in that environment created a perception of the military involved in domestic politics.” Milley went on to defend the Black Lives Matter protesters Trump was targeting, and to say that the military must address the systematic racism that has kept people of color from the top ranks.

Milley’s defense of the U.S. military, 43% of whom are people of color, drew not just Trump’s fury, but also that of the right wing. Then–Fox News Channel personality Tucker Carlson made a special effort to undermine the man he said was “not just a pig, he’s stupid!” “The Pentagon is now the Yale faculty lounge, but with cruise missiles. That should concern you,” he told his audience. As Carlson berated the military for being “woke,” his followers began to turn against the military they had previously championed.

Trump has made it clear he intends to weaponize the government against those he perceives to be his enemies, removing those who refuse to do his bidding and replacing them with loyalists. Ominously, according to Goldberg, another area over which Trump and Milley clashed was the military’s tradition of refusing to participate in acts that are clearly immoral or illegal. Trump overrode MIlley’s advice not to intervene in the cases of three men charged with war crimes, later telling his supporters, “I stuck up for three great warriors against the deep state.”

Goldberg points out that in a second Trump administration packed with loyalists, there will be few guardrails, and he notes that Milley has told friends that if Trump is reelected, “[h]e’ll start throwing people in jail, and I’d be on the top of the list.”

But Milley told Goldberg he does not expect Trump to be reelected. “I have confidence in the American people,” he said. “The United States of America is an extraordinarily resilient country, agile and flexible, and the inherent goodness of the American people is there.” Last week, he told ABC’s Martha Raddatz that he is “confident that the United States and the democracy in this country will prevail and the rule of law will prevail…. These institutions are built to be strong, resilient and to adapt to the times, and I'm 100% confident we'll be fine."

Milley’s statement reflects the increasingly powerful reassertion of democratic values over the past several years. In general, the country seems to be moving beyond former president Trump, who remains locked in his ancient grievances and simmering with fear about his legal troubles—Adam Rawnsley and Asawin Suebsaeng of Rolling Stone recently reported he has been asking confidants about what sort of prison might be in his future—and what he has to say seems so formulaic at this point that it usually doesn’t seem worth repeating. Indeed, much of his frantic posting seems calculated to attract headlines with shock value.

But, for all that, Trump is the current frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination. He has suggested that the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the nation’s senior military advisor, has committed treason and that such a crime is associated with execution, and one of his loyalists in government has echoed him.

And yet, in the face of this attack on one of our key national security institutions, an attack that other nations will certainly notice, Republican leaders remain silent.

—

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

#Letters From An American #Heather Cox Richardson #Mark Milley #TFG #history #January 6 #the US Miliary #January 6 2021

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bighermie · 1 year

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posttexasstressdisorder · 1 year

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Veteran’s Day

I’ve seen several really snarky and insulting posts about Veterans Day so far this morning. They upset me quite disproportionately, and I had to sit for a minute and parse it all out.

If you follow or know me, you know I’m a rather cantankerous old hippie, through and through. I used to automatically reject anything and anyone having to do with “the military”, just out of what I thought was “principle”.

And then, 20+ years ago, a broken former soldier came into my life, bigger than life, more alive and in his Truth than I could comprehend, at the time. A former Army Ranger, he’d served in Panama (his first deployment, back when Noriega was a thing), and then in Afghanistan.

Here is something you people who are laying snark out today need to understand: People don’t “join the army” to kill. My buddy was told by his grandmother that she wouldn’t pay for him to go to college, and so he had his dad go to the recruiter with him and he signed up while still in high school, so that he could go to college. He would have had NO other route to a college education. His parents were school teachers, not rich.

Yes, he was broken, PTSD’d, complex PTSD from what he’d been through. But he had the biggest heart and he diligently tried to do the right thing, at all times. He gave his only child, a beautiful Golden Child daughter, the most rock-solid foundation for being a good human, before he died, four days after the Jan 6 debacle. A freak work accident. Basically trying to do a favor for a friend, he was electrocuted due to a conduit that should have been grounded, was “live” instead. His little girl was ten at the time.

I used to give “blanket hate” to anything and anyone military...I know better now. My buddy of 20+ years was a Good Man. He wasn’t evil. He wasn’t a “killer” (yes, he saw combat and yes, he had to shoot people).

He was A Good Man who served his country faithfully.

Please stop and think before you snarkily make some horrible meme or statement about the people who have Served, and given their all. My buddy was broken by what he went through.

He spent the rest of his life being the best person he could be. He was a decent and good man. Don’t denigrate that. Don’t cast aspersions on people who were forced into situations you will never understand.

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alphaman99 · 1 year

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Sandra Stevens

Ukraine: The Door that Closed the Era of Western Power

Daniel Jupp

When people say Slava Ukraini, they are actually praising the geopolitical screw-up that finally ended the dominance of the West.

To me it seems like the Russians are definitely winning. It also seems to me they had reasons to fight there, and were provoked by an insane Neocon policy that has apparently backfired, stretching at least back to the Maidan revolution. I think globalists wanted to use Ukraine to oust Putin and chew up Russia, and they screwed it up. Now Ukrainians are in a Russian meat grinder and the Russians are running through western money and resources whilst actually growing stronger themselves. This is an enormous geopolitical fuck up for the West in every way imaginable.

It has pushed Russia into the arms of China and shown the rest of the world that you can defy the West and still prosper. Psychologically, twinned with the Afghanistan debacle, it gives the lesson that the West should always be distrusted but should never again be feared. It has lost the West real moral authority by being another dishonest military intervention, and also wasted western money on a vast scale. Thinking people here know that Ukraine is corrupt and that for instance hundreds of millions of aid has been stolen by Ukrainian leaders for themselves. Supplied arms are for sale on the internet. They also know the US committed an act of terrorism with the Nordstream pipeline.

If you are of the Machiavellian school of thought, there may be a place for very cynical, very hard nosed, very illegal actions that WORK. There is no place for ones that don’t work and actually expose both your moral hypocrisy and your essential weakness.

Now we see African nations flock to Russian summits. We see the petrodollar being abandoned as a reserve currency. We see France go humbly to China. We see Japan purchase in currencies other than the dollar. Malaysia too. We see India ignoring western pleas and aligning with Russia and China. We see the BRICS overtaking the G7 in GDP. We see Iran and Saudi Arabia enter an accord brokered by China. We see the Saudis openly laughing at Biden and refusing to take US calls. We see the German economy in deep and growing trouble from the combined lunacies of green energy policy and US terrorism on Russian supplied oil.

And we see the Russian economy surviving sanctions that are hurting Germany more than Russia. We see the Russian economy doing better than the UK economy. We see country after country abandoning western and US leadership and bowing to new masters.

If you are going to apply all your economic might and international power and covert and overt military support to take out a rival nation, it destroys your economic might, your international power and the reputation of your overt and covert military forces when the target of all this not only survives, but THRIVES. They thought to destroy Russia and warn China. Instead they strengthened both and weakened themselves.

In these circumstances, with Russian manufacturing working fine, with western military stockpiles running out, with trillions spent for no reward, with dollar dominance dying and two thirds of the world pivoting to Chinese leadership, I ask those who still want to funnel more into this disastrous policy: don’t you regret opening the door to all this? do you really think it makes sense to pretend that Neocon policy has been a success and that we, let alone Ukraine, have won anything by creating the Ukraine war, continuing the Ukraine war, and NOT winning the Ukraine war?

Isn’t it well past time to close the door on support for Ukraine, and save what can be saved from Neocon stupidity and scheming before this goes nuclear?

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mariacallous · 2 years

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Regular readers of this column know that I’m not inclined to be alarmist. Although there are times when I worry about the costs and risks of certain foreign-policy decisions, I tend to push back on the tendency for foreign-policy experts to inflate threats and assume the worst—but not always. Sometimes, the wolf really is at the door, and it’s time to start worrying.

What’s troubling me today is the gnawing fear that we are living through a series of disruptions that are overwhelming our collective ability to respond. World politics is never completely static, of course, but we haven’t seen as serious a sequence of shocks in a long time. We’re accustomed to thinking human ingenuity will eventually provide solutions, but as political scientist Thomas Homer-Dixon warned many years ago, that reassuring assumption may not apply when the number of problems to be solved becomes too large and complex.

Just how many shocks can the system stand? Let’s take them in chronological order.

The breakup of the Soviet empire

Although the collapse of the Soviet Union and the velvet revolutions in Eastern Europe were positive developments in many ways, they also created considerable uncertainty and instability, and they opened the door to political developments (such as NATO enlargement) that still reverberate today. The breakup led directly to a war between Azerbaijan and Armenia, contributed to the dissolution of Yugoslavia and subsequent Balkan wars, encouraged an unhealthy sense of hubris in the United States, and reshaped politics in Central Asia. Loss of Soviet patronage also destabilized governments in Africa, the Middle East, and even the Americas, with unpredictable and sometimes unfortunate consequences. History didn’t end; it just headed down a different track.

China’s rise

Americans initially thought the unipolar moment would last a long time, but a new great-power rival emerged almost immediately. China’s rise is not a sudden or unexpected shock, perhaps, but it has still been extraordinarily rapid, and most experts in the West misread what it portended. China is still significantly weaker than the United States and faces serious headwinds at home and abroad, but its impressive economic growth, rising ambitions, and expanding military power are undeniable. Economic advancement there has also accelerated climate change, affected labor markets around the world, and helped trigger the current backlash against hyper-globalization. Its growing wealth and power improved the lives of the Chinese people and benefited others as well, but it is still a shock to the existing global order.

The 9/11 attacks and the global war on terrorism

The terrorist attacks that destroyed the World Trade Center and damaged the U.S. Defense Department in September 2001 completely transformed U.S. foreign policy, and the United States found itself trapped in a war on terrorism for more than a decade. This event led directly to the toppling of the Taliban in Afghanistan and the invasion of Iraq in 2003, and the two so-called forever wars eventually cost the United States far more blood and treasure than it had lost on that fateful day. The war on terrorism also destabilized countries throughout the greater Middle East and unintentionally spawned groups such as the Islamic State, whose actions aided the rise of right-wing extremism in Europe. It also accelerated the militarization and polarization of U.S. domestic politics and the mainstreaming of right-wing extremism in the United States—a major shock by any measure.

The 2008 financial meltdown

The collapse of the subprime mortgage market in the United States triggered a financial panic that quickly spread around the world. Wall Street’s supposed “Masters of the Universe” turned out to be as fallible (or corruptible) as anyone else, and although the people who caused the debacle were never held accountable, they could never speak with the same prestige and authority that they had before the crisis erupted. Europe suffered a sharp recession, a protracted currency crisis, and a decade of painful austerity, giving populist parties another political boost. Chinese officials also saw the crisis as a telling sign of Western decline and an opportunity to expand their own foreign-policy ambitions.

The Arab Spring

It sometimes seems nearly forgotten, but the Arab Spring was a tumultuous event that toppled governments in several countries, briefly kindled hopes of widespread democratic transitions, and led to civil wars in Libya, Yemen, and Syria that are still being fought today. It ended with authoritarian crackdowns (known as the “Arab Winter”) that reversed nearly all of the gains that reformers had made. Like the ill-fated Revolutions of 1848 in Europe, it was a “turning point at which modern history failed to turn.” But it consumed lots of top decision-makers’ time and attention, tarnished the reputations of a number of top officials, and led to considerable human suffering.

The global refugee crisis

According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the number of “forcibly displaced” persons rose from about 42 million people in 2001 to nearly 90 million people in 2021. Refugee flows are themselves a consequence of some of the other shocks we’ve experienced, but they exert profound effects of their own, and the problem defies easy solutions. As such, they constitute yet another shock that governments and international organizations have struggled to address in recent years.

Populism becomes popular

The year 2016 marked at least two shocking events: Donald Trump was elected president of the United States and Britain voted to leave the European Union. Both events defied expectations, and each turned out to be as bad as opponents had feared. Trump proved to be every bit as corrupt, capricious, narcissistic, and incompetent as he had appeared to be during the campaign, but even his severest critics underestimated his willingness to attack the foundations of American democracy. Indeed, more than two years after his electoral defeat and facing multiple legal challenges, Trump continues to exert a poisonous effect on U.S. political life. Brexit had a similar impact in Great Britain: Not only did leaving the EU do considerable damage to the British economy (precisely as opponents had warned), but it accelerated the Conservative Party’s flight from reality, leading to the cartoonish and serially dishonest antics of former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and the utter trainwreck of Prime Minister Liz Truss’s brief tenure at No. 10 Downing St. Put your schadenfreude on hold, please: It is not good for anyone when the world’s sixth-largest economy is governed by such a succession of blundering buffoons.

COVID-19

What’s next? How about a global pandemic? Experts had long warned that such an event was inevitable and that the world was not prepared for it, and they turned out to be all too prescient. At least 630 million people have been infected worldwide (the actual number is doubtless higher), the official global death toll now exceeds 6.5 million, and the pandemic has had punishing effects on trade, economic growth, educational achievement, and employment in many countries (especially in the developing world). Work-life patterns have been disrupted, governments have had to adopt emergency measures to save their economies, future productivity growth has almost certainly been reduced, and a combination of loose money policies and supply chain disruptions have helped trigger the persistent inflation that governments and central bankers are now struggling to contain.

The war in Ukraine

We still do not know what the full impact of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine will be, but it won’t be trivial. The war has inflicted enormous damage on Ukraine, threatened existing norms barring the acquisition of territory by force, exposed Russia’s own military deficiencies, sparked what may turn out to be a serious European effort at rearmament, worsened global inflation, and raised the risk of escalation (including the possibility of nuclear weapons use) to a level not seen in decades. Relations between Russia and the West have been deteriorating for some time, but few observers anticipated that this would lead to a major war in 2022 and dominate the foreign-policy agenda in Washington and Europe.

Climate change

Lurking behind many of these events is the slow-motion shock of climate change. Its impact is now being felt in worsening natural disasters, increased civil conflicts, and rising migration from heavily affected areas. Efforts to immigrate or adapt to rising atmospheric temperatures are going to be expensive, and global cooperation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is faltering. All told, the scope of climate change is one more shock that governments ignored for too long and will have to deal with for decades to come.

It would be easy to add some other events to this list, and it would be a challenge to address even one or two of them successfully. Dealing with such a rapid succession is proving to be nearly impossible.

The first problem is bandwidth: When too many disruptions occur too quickly, political leaders don’t have the time or attention span to develop creative solutions or weigh alternatives carefully. The odds that they’ll respond badly increase. Nor do they have adequate time to assess how well their chosen solutions are working, making it harder to correct errors in a timely fashion.

Second, because resources are finite, dealing with the latest shock properly may be impossible if previous crises have used up the assets that are needed today. The more problems leaders face, the harder it will be to give each one the attention and resources it requires.

Third, when successive shocks are connected, trying to solve one problem can make other problems worse. It made good sense for Europe to stop buying natural gas from Russia following the invasion of Ukraine, for example, but this step increased energy costs (making inflation worse) and burning coal instead of natural gas increases greenhouse gas emissions and exacerbates climate change. Focusing laser-like on helping Ukraine may be the right thing to do, but it takes time and effort away from the problems posed by a rising China. There is a good case to be made for limiting China’s ability to use Western technology to enhance its military power, but imposing export controls on chips and other forms of advanced technology impairs U.S. economic growth and will hurt some U.S. businesses, at least in the short term. The more problems you’re trying to solve all at once, the greater the danger that responses to one will undermine your efforts to deal with others.

Finally, unless leaders are extremely lucky or unusually skillful, trying to handle multiple shocks tends to erode public confidence in the entire political system. Citizens may rally around the government when a single, clear-cut crisis erupts (as Ukrainians have in response to Russia’s assault), and policy successes can help convince them that the people in charge really do know what they are doing. But when public officials are facing more shocks than anyone could handle and repeatedly fail to deliver good results, citizens will lose confidence in them (and in the experts they are relying on for advice). Instead of trusting people with the relevant knowledge, experience, and responsibility, publics become more dismissive of expertise and vulnerable to conspiracy theories and other flights from reality. Of course, this problem will be even worse if those in charge are visibly dishonest, corrupt, self-serving, and fully deserving of public scorn.

I don’t have a happy ending for this story, just a final thought. We’ve been living in an era where “move fast and break things” was the mantra—and not just in the fast-moving world of digital technology. Given the shocks we’ve endured in recent years, a better motto for the moment might be “slow down and fix stuff.” I hope we get the chance, and I hope we don’t blow it.

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your-krazy-uncle-bob · 1 year

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Over the last few months the four icons of the Democratic Party—Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and Nancy Pelosi—have hit the campaign trail.

They’ve weighed in on everything from “right-wing violence” and “election denialists” to the now tired “un-American” semi-fascist MAGA voter—and had nothing much to say about inflation, the border, crime, energy, or the Afghanistan debacle. In this, they remind us just how impoverished and calcified is this left-wing pantheon.

So why should we take anything they say seriously, given their own records—and especially given their mastery of projecting their own shortcomings upon others as some sort of private exculpation or preemptive political strategy?

Still Hopin’ and Changin’?

Barack Obama this past week has assumed the role of surrogate president. He is storming the country, while Joe Biden mopes at home or visits shrinking blue enclaves so he can claim post facto, “At least I was out there stumping.”

Over the last six years, we have become accustomed to Obama’s periodic getaways from one of his three estates. It is always the same. From time to time, he reenters politics to remind us that he did not just cash in on his presidency to become a multi-millionaire. Instead, he is still the Chicago “community activist” of his youth. And so, Obama will not be overshadowed by the Biden crew that is enacting all the crazy things he as president had warned were a bit much even for him.

At the funeral of the late John Lewis, Obama turned his eulogy into a political rant. He weighed in on the “racist” filibuster, the “Jim Crow relic” that he desperately sought in vain to use to stop the appointment of Justice Samuel Alito.

At campaign stops, he deplores “divisions” that he, more than any modern figure, helped create. The entire left-wing vocabulary of disparagement for the white lower-working classes (e.g., deplorables, dregs, chumps, irredeemables, etc.) got its start with Obama’s putdown of Pennsylvania voters who rejected him in the 2008 primaries as “clingers.”

In interviews, Obama suddenly now blasts harsh rhetoric—this from the wannabe tough guy who stole the “The Untouchables” line about bringing a knife to a gun fight. Well before crazy Maxine Waters’ calls to arms, Obama advised his supporters “get in their faces.”

Still, on the campaign trail, Obama appears not so much animated as stale. It is as if he has been suddenly stirred from a long coma that commenced in 2008. It’s the same old, same old—sleeves rolled up. He still resorts to the scripted outbursts of mock anger. And the nerdy prep school graduate still amateurishly modulates his patois—now policy wonk, now breaking into the Southern African-American pastor accent when an audience needs more preachy authenticity.

He still tries to rev up his crowds with the familiar attacks: Republican demons will cut Social Security, the MAGA semi-fascists are captives of Donald Trump (as if the Democrats have not ceded their souls to woke hysterics), the Republican fanatics will all but kill women by denying abortions, and extremists unlike himself are dividing the country.

On and on, Obama shouts about social justice. And then he wraps up and must decide to which of his mansions he will fly home (via private jet)—Kalorama, Martha’s Vineyard, Hyde Park, or soon the Waimanalo estate.

Obama offers no solutions much less hints at his own culpability in his sermons. There is nothing about the open border he helped birth. Nothing about Biden’s failed energy policies now bankrupting the middle class that were simply a reification of his energy secretary Steven Chu’s perverse wishes for European-priced gas (“Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe.”).

There is nothing about Obama’s old boasts about shutting down coal plants and skyrocketing electricity (“Under my plan . . . electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket.”).

The Role Model Pelosi

After the terrible attack on her husband, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s colleagues are rightly calling for an end to extremist rhetoric. If we are to follow the Democratic clarion call, what might Pelosi herself do to help us to lower the temperature?

Here are a few modest suggestions.

Contrary to press reports, conservatives deplored the attack on Paul Pelosi. They want his attacker behind bars with no bail until his trial date. And if convicted they wish him to serve a long sentence before parole is even considered. Let us dish out a proper punishment to David DePape; one that can serve as a model to all such thugs who do his kind of devilish work daily against the innocent and weak—but unlike him, are usually exempt from punishment.

Recall that DePape should never have been in the United States. He is an illegal alien who violated his visa and should have had a warrant out for deportation, especially given his prior history of lawlessness. Would that the illegal alien who murdered innocent San Franciscan Kate Steinle had been subject to the likely punishment that now is awaiting DePape.

So yes, we all must lower the temperature. As speaker of the House, Pelosi can do her part in quieting passions, given half the country are her fellow Americans who do not live in the darkness of lies. She might ask Joe Biden to quit calling them semi-fascists and un-American.

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dontmeantobepoliticalbut · 2 years

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In November 2020, as Donald Trump was falsely declaring in public that he’d won the presidential election, he privately ordered a rapid withdrawal of American forces from Afghanistan and Somalia — attempting to fulfill a long-held plan and ensure a mess for President-elect Joe Biden.

On Thursday, the House Committee investigating the attack on the U.S. Capitol by pro-Trump demonstrators on Jan. 6, 2021, highlighted Trump’s move as evidence that he knew he was spreading a dangerous lie.

“Knowing he had lost and that he had only weeks in office, President Trump rushed to complete his unfinished business,” Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), one of the two Republicans on the congressional committee, said during a televised hearing. “One key example is this: President Trump issued an order for large-scale U.S. troop withdrawals.”

Trump issued the directive on Nov. 11, 2020. Axios reporters Jonathan Swan and Zachary Basu revealed the existence of the memo last year. Jan. 6 Committee investigators confirmed that Trump personally approved the proposal, and that his top national security staff thought it would spell disaster. On Thursday, the Committee played footage from the relevant interviews.

“If I ever saw something like that, I would do something physical, because I thought what that was doing was a tremendous disservice to the nation,” Keith Kellogg, who was the national security adviser to Vice President Mike Pence at the time, told the Committee. “An immediate departure that that memo said would have been catastrophic ... It would have been a debacle.”

John McEntee, who was one of Trump’s closest aides, told Committee investigators he drafted the order along with an aide, and that he secured the President’s signature on the memo. The proposal called for stunning speed: Trump wanted thousands of troops removed from two complex war-torn countries before Biden’s inauguration on Jan. 20, 2021.

Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the investigators he viewed Trump’s pitch as “nonstandard [and] potentially dangerous.”

“I personally thought it was militarily not feasible nor wise,” Milley said.

Trump “disregarded concerns about the consequences for fragile governments on the front lines of the fight against ISIS and al Qaeda terrorists,” Kinzinger said Thursday. “These are the highly consequential actions of a President who knows his term will shortly end.”

Milley, then-national security adviser Robert O’Brien, and then-acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller united against the order and convinced Trump to withdraw it, according to Axios. Ultimately, Miller announced on Nov. 17 that the U.S. would reduce its Afghanistan presence from 4,500 troops to 2,500.

The following year, when Biden announced a full American withdrawal from Afghanistan in April and completed it five months later, Republicans blasted Biden.

Close Trump ally Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said Biden should have been impeached over Afghanistan’s collapse amid the withdrawal, and called his policy “the most dishonorable thing a Commander in Chief has done in modern times.”

But Trump’s plan would likely have resulted in even greater instability in Afghanistan — completely blindsiding the U.S.-backed government and international allies — and a greater risk to American personnel, who would have had far less time to draw down the bigger deployment that was there at the time.

Alyssa Farah Griffin, a former Trump administration official, highlighted the inconsistency on Twitter Thursday.

“As someone who remains highly critical of Biden’s Afghanistan withdrawal, I’d be curious to hear [defenses] on the Right of Trump’s order for an even hastier withdrawal,” she wrote.

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