I find it alarming that Trump spends so much time tweeting rather than, I don't know, actually being a president doing presidential stuff - especially with a crisis in North Korea that has the potential of war with a wing nut. Actually, two wing nuts both with their fingers on buttons.
Let's not encourage him to actually be productive. Trump working hard and implementing his agenda is probably the worst outcome.
I find it alarming that Trump spends so much time tweeting rather than, I don't know, actually being a president doing presidential stuff - especially with a crisis in North Korea that has the potential of war with a wing nut. Actually, two wing nuts both with their fingers on buttons.
Pretty sure this is the sole reason he wanted to become President. Completely undo everything Obama did, and take his petty squabbling to a bigger stage.
Plus his demigod ego stroking he gets from his hick rallys.
Oh, and pad his bank account more.
Maybe there's a little bit of solace in the remote possibility that there are some people that are sort of competent dealing with those things while the president tweets from the s***ter.
I don't know. I find no solace in this.
Quote:
A December 2016 assessment by the Congressional Research Service stated that the president “does not need the concurrence of either his military advisors or the U.S. Congress to order the launch of nuclear weapons.” Additionally, the assessment said, “neither the military nor Congress can overrule these orders.”
I don't think that's fair at all. Here's a simple example:
Where are all the slaves in fiction set in pre-abolition Europe, (except for the parts that are set in ancient Roman era or before)? Nobody has slaves. Maybe in some stories the locals are treated poorly, but the word slavery isn't mentioned. There are essentially never any foreign slaves, even though the word 'slave' comes from the word 'slav', because that's just how common it was to enslave slavs at one point in European history.
Where are all the English movies about slave trade? Where are the African movies dealing with the fact that most of the slaves were gathered and sold by other Africans? If anything, I would say the Americans are doing the most to confront their history with slavery.
There's also a ton of other stuff countries don't like to deal with. Here's an example from Finland: Did you know the Germans (likely) got the idea for building camps to hold "undesirables" from post civil war Finland? Yeah neither do most Finns. It's an extremely glossed over part of our history, even though about 1/3rd of our civil wars total casualties were results of those "POW" camps. The conditions in those camps were often horrid. The women (or sometimes girls in their young teens, put in those camps for things like wearing pants, because that was a "red" thing) were often systematically raped, food was scarce and arbitrary executions common. Finns also had some of the worst POW camps in WW2.
I am sure that there a plenty of other countries that are terrible at really looking at the realities of their past (I mentioned Canada...Japan is another one that is really struggling with their WWII narrative).
But in the US, the Nation doesn't really feel that they have come to a resolution about slavery, it feels like the Civil war hasn't been completely resolved. An interesting fact is that there is no national memorial to slavery in the US (Like the Vietnam memorial). They have tried, but no luck
__________________
"WHAT HAVE WE EVER DONE TO DESERVE THIS??? WHAT IS WRONG WITH US????" -Oiler Fan
"It was a debacle of monumental proportions." -MacT
The Following User Says Thank You to Fozzie_DeBear For This Useful Post:
The Secretary of Defense needs to turn his key too.
That wasn't my understanding. There was an article earlier in one of the Canadian newspapers, but I couldn't find it. I think it was the interview with James Clapper.
Quote:
“ Under the current nuclear strike protocol, [Trump] can consult any and all – or none – of his national security advisers, and no one can legally countermand his order,” he wrote.
“If he gave the green light using his nuclear codes, a launch order the length of a tweet would be transmitted and carried out within a few minutes. I could fire my missiles 60 seconds after receiving an order. There would be no recalling missiles fired from silos and submarines.”
The Secretary of Defense needs to turn his key too.
I don't know where people get this idea that there is some huge debate during the order to launch missiles. The process is setup so there is no hesitation when it comes to use of the football. The Secretary of Defense will follow the process and do as he is directed to do, or he will be replaced on spot. This ain't the movies. These guys are vetted to make sure they will execute their duties.
I don't know where people get this idea that there is some huge debate during the order to launch missiles. The process is setup so there is no hesitation when it comes to use of the football. The Secretary of Defense will follow the process and do as he is directed to do, or he will be replaced on spot. This ain't the movies. These guys are vetted to make sure they will execute their duties.
I don't know where people get this idea that there is some huge debate during the order to launch missiles. The process is setup so there is no hesitation when it comes to use of the football. The Secretary of Defense will follow the process and do as he is directed to do, or he will be replaced on spot. This ain't the movies. These guys are vetted to make sure they will execute their duties.
Nope, your right, but the Secretary of Defense does have to confirm the validity of the launch and the plan being used. They both have to read and confirm their codes.
If the Secretary of defense says he's freaking nuts, and refuses, the President has the right to fire him and appoint a new secretary of defense that has to be from my understanding a cabinet member who was approved by Congress.
Congress earlier this year discussed a bill that would change the launch scenarios so that a pre-emptive strike would have to be approved by Congress even in the face of the War Powers act. So basically the President would have to get approval for a legal declaration of war. I don't know where that bill is now, but it seems almost like it was designed with Trump in mind.
Right now, the Joint Chiefs don't have a say in the launching of nuclear weapons. Basically if the order is approved by the President and Secretary of Defense and the order goes to the General in charge of Strategic Rocket Forces. In theory he could stop a launch by not activating the communications procedures that lead up to a launch from my understanding, but I doubt that would happen.
As it stands the only way to prevent the launch of a missile by the president would be if his entire cabinet refused the order.
__________________
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
The Following User Says Thank You to CaptainCrunch For This Useful Post:
I'd have to dig it out but at one point there was testing done with the minutemen missle silo operator and when given orders to launch compliance was far from 100%
The other option to prevent launch would be the secretary of defensemen attempts to invoke the the 25th amendment to remove the president.
Instead on North vs. South it might be idiots vs. people who know better.
I can't see a civil war happening at all, because that would mean at the very least that State Governors were taking charge of their military elements and convincing them to fight on one side of the other.
You might get a civil war in terms of violence in the streets in major cities with militia type morons on both sides engaging in small arms battles.
That'll last as long as it takes for a re-enforced armored division with helicopter gun ships to roll in to put an end to it.
__________________
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
I can't see a civil war happening at all, because that would mean at the very least that State Governors were taking charge of their military elements and convincing them to fight on one side of the other.
You might get a civil war in terms of violence in the streets in major cities with militia type morons on both sides engaging in small arms battles.
That'll last as long as it takes for a re-enforced armored division with helicopter gun ships to roll in to put an end to it.
What if there are divisions within the military though?
I'd have to dig it out but at one point there was testing done with the minutemen missle silo operator and when given orders to launch compliance was far from 100%
The other option to prevent launch would be the secretary of defensemen attempts to invoke the the 25th amendment to remove the president.
That's why they use the voting system with the silo crews. you have 5 crews in 5 control centers that can launch the missiles, you just have to have two of the 5 crews voting to launch. Its likely that 40% would vote to fire.
The Russians in the 80's had the dead hand system that could fire all of the missiles in the Russian arsenal with the exception of tactical and sub launched missiles. Basically the system when it was activated checked communication lines to see if there was a military hierarchy, lets call it a census. If it didn't get responses, then it was designed to look for signs of a nuclear war. It looked for elevated radiation and air pressure and higher then normal light levels. If it detected those it has a pre-designed launch cycle that it would fire.
Supposedly this system was turned off, but when the American's asked the Russians if it was still running, the Russian government replied that the American's should mind their own business.
I know that in the early 2000's the American's looked at a way to remove the possible biggest failure point in the nuclear launch scenario which were human beings. But I don't believe it got very far.
__________________
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
The Following User Says Thank You to CaptainCrunch For This Useful Post:
What if there are divisions within the military though?
I doubt that there would be a lot of divisions within the military and if there are the renegade elements would be extremely small.
Remember also that most of the officers have sworn an oath to defend and uphold the constitution and in the same breath obey the commands of the president and commander in chief. If Trump is thrown out he has no authority and any and all orders generated by him would be illegal.
What you might get is small splits within units, I even doubt that you would get renegade units because unless we're talking about the national guard, Military Units are pretty much mixed with elements from all over the States.
The National Guard units might be a different animal just because most national guard units are comprised of civilian soldiers from that area. So the North Carolina National Guard might respond to a order from the Governor.
I just can't see it happening.
__________________
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
I doubt that there would be a lot of divisions within the military and if there are the renegade elements would be extremely small.
Remember also that most of the officers have sworn an oath to defend and uphold the constitution and in the same breath obey the commands of the president and commander in chief. If Trump is thrown out he has no authority and any and all orders generated by him would be illegal.
What you might get is small splits within units, I even doubt that you would get renegade units because unless we're talking about the national guard, Military Units are pretty much mixed with elements from all over the States.
The National Guard units might be a different animal just because most national guard units are comprised of civilian soldiers from that area. So the North Carolina National Guard might respond to a order from the Governor.
I just can't see it happening.
Okay this is speculative fiction at best now, but that's assuming that he is thrown out and is no longer in control of the military. I was thinking more what if the military is receiving orders that contradict "upholding the constitution" and "obeying the president". The military is from the entire country, yes, but I think it's safe to say most people in military service will lean conservative/republican. That's not to say they will all put up with crazy bulls***, but I'd be willing to bet the percentage of REAL trump supporters is higher in the military than it is in the general population. We see it with the police force, and as you mentioned, the national guard could see some resistance to federal orders.
If you start to get any situation where soldiers know their officers are disobeying the president's orders, or soldiers refusing to carry out orders, and it could end up snowballing into a whole bag of crap that we probably don't want to think about. But I do think it's a little naive to think it can't happen. Maybe not all out military force against itself (right away anyways) but states seceding (or at least trying), governors refusing to comply with feds (we've already seen it with the sanctuary cities), sure.
We're in largely unprecedented territory here. I don't think we can really rule out many possibilities.
