Currently, the Secretary of Defense is just being released from a week long hospitalization that was kept secret. (Get well, Secretary Austin.) Military Reporters and Editors is protesting the secrecy as a violation of the Pentagon’s published rules on information sharing. It’s definitely out of order with standard practice, as their letter shows.
I wonder if it is a result of the President’s own obvious frailty, combined with a generalized sense that the VP is a lightweight who can’t be trusted to take charge? Maybe the powers that be were terrified by the idea that the SECDEF was down too. Maybe they were afraid that, even with the President in place, that would have been too much of a vulnerability if it became clear to foreign powers.
UPDATE: Apparently they didn’t tell the National Security Council, either.
UPDATE: Or anyone.
5 comments:
I know nothing of military policy, but could his family have expressed a desire that the press not be notified?
LittleRed1
I don’t think families could do that, no. I mean they could certainly express a desire, but the public affairs duty is codified.
Considering the length of time it takes to detect an attack in progress, recognize it as an attack, recognize it as a nuclear attack, decide what to do about it, get the football opened and key in the codes, then issue the orders, then get the orders verified on the receiving end, then relayed to the shooters--who also have to verify the orders--and then start shooting, this failure to inform is inexcusable.
It's bad enough that the press wasn't informed. Given the role of SecDef in the operational chain of command, the delay in informing the actual Commander-in-Chief (the NSC is irrelevant in this; they're Info Copy Recipients, not To Recipients, and the message traffic should follow the telephone call to the President), just added even more delay to what already is a fatally long chain of events to get off a response to the first strike capable attack that the PRC has with its intercontinental hypersonic missile capability.
If Austin issued orders to not inform the President at any time before his ailment, during his trip to hospital, or while there, he needs to be sacked. So, too, his Number Two. At the least, the persons who chose to sit on the information, if not under orders to sit, need to be shown the door--face down and head first.
If Biden issued orders to not bother him, that's even worse, but with less ability to sack him. I doubt, though, that he's that dumb.
Eric Hines
None of the Cabinet takes "governance" seriously at all. I suspect that's because they all know that they are serving a fraud, following a fraudulent election.
So who cares?
And, of course Austin's Chief of Staff's Number Two couldn't be bothered. Or was never notified himself.
Nevertheless, Austin piously intones that he accepts "full responsibility" while not bothering to say what that means, or what he'll do with it, other than that it does not include resigning over his command failure. Just, "My bad. Oops."
Apparently, neither the Service Secretaries nor the Service Chiefs of Staff weren't notified for a day or two either. The combatant commanders seem not to have been notified for some days, although that's not confirmed.
And Biden, to his continuing failure, says he wouldn't accept Austin's resignation were it offered.
There's this timeline analysis: https://patrickfox.substack.com/p/the-disappearing-reappearing-defense?r=qp1wu&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Eric Hines
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