Most people only have a very vague idea how US national security and foreign policy decisions are made.
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Remember when Pete Hegseth demanded all the general and flag officers of the US armed forces gather to hear him deliver a TED talk, and they all sat stony-faced, oozing with contempt?
There was a lot of liberal glee at the thought of how much they hated him, how aware they were that he was a charlatan and a fraud. *The non-political, professional military will surely save us!* How’s that working out for you now? All of these officers took an oath to uphold the constitution, and every single one of them participating in this attack on Iran is blatantly participating in a violation of the US constitution. The president has no constitutional authority to launch this war, a power reserved by the constitution for congress. There is no AUMF this time, no plausible excuse or deniability. And they all followed orders and launched the war anyway.
I hope this at least gives the “Trump can’t just seize power, the military won’t follow orders like that” crowd *some* doubt.
@HeavenlyPossum No matter how much they may or may not hate their leaders, people don't get to flag rank because they disobey orders.
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As I wrote before, this isn't a major disagreement, but I think that "the golden age of the interagency process" was a rationalization. The President had a whim and people had a long drawn out activity of pretending to advise, pretending to plan, and in general telling each other that it was a rational process.
Ah, I see what you mean, and fully agree.
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Trump hasn’t made that determination and they did not play that role.
Again, the AUMF was not a blanket authorization for the president to invade Canada if he wanted to make up a connection to 9/11. Even if it were, *he has not invoked the AUMF*.
I don’t expect anyone to be held accountable for so blatantly violating the constitution or following such blatantly illegal orders, because the US political system is not designed to do that.
I'm not a lawyer but a former JAG does share your perspective.
https://open.substack.com/pub/dmaurer/p/its-not-above-your-pay-grade
ultimately though, like you said, Americans shouldn't expect the military to save them from fascism.
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Something important to understand about fascism is that it is first and foremost an *aesthetic*, one that plays out through power, violence, and cruelty but that never rises above the level of play-acting.
Fascists don’t care about things like knowledge and process and actively refuse to engage with them as part of their aesthetic of LARPing as the bravest, strongest, cruelest, coolest kids on the block. A US President has, at his disposal, an apparatus of turning his objectives into material reality of almost unthinkable capacity.
A vast intelligence apparatus for know in about the world. A vast bureaucratic apparatus for figuring out useful policies for achieving outcomes in the world. A vast apparatus of violence for hurting people with either precision or indiscriminately on a global scale. If Trump and his coterie were *not* fascists, they might be even more terrifying.
But they are fascists, which means they don’t advance beyond the level of “we want to hurt someone, so we’re going to give the order for someone to be hurt immediately and without deliberation or consideration.”
They are undoubtedly less dangerous than they could be because they don’t care about and can’t think past the most superficial level of an aesthetic of power and violence. They just want the bombs to fall, right now, doesn’t matter where or on whom, no questions asked.
This is why fascists can’t really build institutions or institutional capacity, but can only really cannibalize the capacity of institutions they seize until they have exhausted or destroyed them.
Sorry I'm an insufferable linguist, but I can't help but feel that there are two different meanings to "fascism" here. Many fascists have been cunning, even brilliant strategists, and masters at bureacracy. The only requirement to call something fascism is consolidation of power: you have to take power from the many and give it to the few. So what do you call the in-your-face obvious fascists, who hate knowledge and process and go about this theatrical thuggery; to distinguish them from the more subtle fascists who quietly pull the levers and switches behind the scenes, trying to turn us all into an obedient enslaved machine-planet? -
Remember when Pete Hegseth demanded all the general and flag officers of the US armed forces gather to hear him deliver a TED talk, and they all sat stony-faced, oozing with contempt?
There was a lot of liberal glee at the thought of how much they hated him, how aware they were that he was a charlatan and a fraud. *The non-political, professional military will surely save us!* How’s that working out for you now? All of these officers took an oath to uphold the constitution, and every single one of them participating in this attack on Iran is blatantly participating in a violation of the US constitution. The president has no constitutional authority to launch this war, a power reserved by the constitution for congress. There is no AUMF this time, no plausible excuse or deniability. And they all followed orders and launched the war anyway.
I hope this at least gives the “Trump can’t just seize power, the military won’t follow orders like that” crowd *some* doubt.
@HeavenlyPossum there will not be a military coup, because the officers who have a problem with what’s going on would rather testify in Congress or get a book deal than do a coup; the officers who would gladly do a coup love what’s going on an want to help
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it's worth considering there is significant legal gray area that ties the hands of service members. I don't think this is obviously illegal.
Using a non-statutory title for the DoD? an obvious, small, but meaningful violation of the oath of office.
But I'd argue the 9/11 AUMF is still vague and broad. There have been many actions in the last year I do think are illegal, but it's not obvious to me that this one is.
I don't think, from an oath of office perspective, attacking Iran is significantly different from the countless other military actions in the middle east that the US has taken since 9/11.
ETA: I do agree with your central point though: I wouldn't expect the US Military to save America from fascism.
second edit to note a trusted legal expert says I'm wrong here.
@jianmin @HeavenlyPossum We can argue about what constitutes a legal or illegal order. It doesn't matter to the person facing court-martial for disobeying, because the decision of "was this order lawful?" will be made by a military court. That means no civilian jury. Just a military judge, who was appointed to that position because of their record of conformity and respect for the chain and authority of command, and will be strongly inclined to rule that every order is lawful by definition.
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@jianmin @HeavenlyPossum We can argue about what constitutes a legal or illegal order. It doesn't matter to the person facing court-martial for disobeying, because the decision of "was this order lawful?" will be made by a military court. That means no civilian jury. Just a military judge, who was appointed to that position because of their record of conformity and respect for the chain and authority of command, and will be strongly inclined to rule that every order is lawful by definition.
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This is how we end up in a situation in which the US has gone to war with Iran, yet again, without even a clearly articulated strategic goal or desired outcome.
Trump has variously indicated that he wanted to intimidate Iran into negotiating with (ie, bribing) him, or to protect Iranian protesters, or to destroy a nuclear program he previously claimed he had destroyed, or regime change.
And the means of achieving whatever goal he wants to achieve is no more sophisticated than “drop many bombs on Iranian military and government targets.” This is simple punitive violence, the absolutely least sophisticated or precise approach to warfare. “Hurt them until they give you what you want” except that he hasn’t even articulated (and probably has not really conceived of) what he wants from the Iranians.
While I broadly agree, I think you're making this sound way more like Trump (or the US) acting on his own than it really is. This attack was led by Netanyahu. I've heard a rumour that he threatened to use nukes if the US didn't back him up. Take that with a hefty grain of salt, but if it's true I don't think a more conventional US president would have acted any differently. It would also explain why the UK, France, and Germany have been so quick to condemn Iran's retaliation and so silent on the initial attack.
Now, it's entirely possible that conventional US diplomacy would have defused the situation before getting to this point, but I wouldn't bet on it. As dangerous as Trump's whims are, there's a lot more at play here. The fascism is transnational.
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They absolutely did! That was a golden age of the interagency process and the ascendency of national security advisors like Kissinger. Noting that the process was rational does not mean that the policies they recommended were good or that the president would somehow correctly pick the “best” option. Of course they messed up! But there was at least a process, in contrast to one person’s whim.
I don’t want to convey the impression that I think the US security apparatus is good or does good things or is how we should structure society. I’m just trying to explain what is functionally different, including the rapid erosion of this state capacity. I think this is evidence that the US state is rapidly shaking itself apart.
@HeavenlyPossum @richpuchalsky this seems to be a valid thesis. I also think their ICE strategy is pretty dumb. If I were them I'd have done it very differently but they can't help.but do a spectacle instead of diffusing it enough that we didn't have the ability to put together a resistance. Hopefully their incompetence means they will make crucial mistakes that help us fight back
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@HeavenlyPossum I remember when I was a kid, thinking impeachment was a real thing that could effect Bush Jr.
Congress comes last, when the process is final, to sign as proxy of the people of the US what this entire bureaucratic mechanism has already engaged in
Trump admin. is against hypocrisy and "democratic process" and rules as an emperor/king even at an 80% opposition
This congress institution though, despite of periodic movements, has been 100% pro-capitalist since 1780s - there has never been an incident where an anti-capitalist voice has been heard or represented
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