Timeline for Can the Secretary of Defence sack Generals and appoint new ones?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
19 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Nov 15, 2020 at 19:51 | comment | added | Azor Ahai -him- | @JamesK If he is willing to do that, then he's willing just to ignore the constitution completely Well yes, we knew that. | |
| Nov 15, 2020 at 2:00 | comment | added | user32268 | @JörgWMittag No, it is also not required reading in German schools | |
| Nov 14, 2020 at 21:49 | comment | added | Jörg W Mittag | @johndoe: That surprises me. The US Constitution is required reading in my country on the other side of the world, but not in the US? | |
| Nov 14, 2020 at 16:26 | comment | added | Ron Maupin | @johndoe, I do not know the details of your education, but the public schools I attended required reading of the Constitution in both 8th grade and 11th grade American History, So I can safely say that 100% of my high school graduating class has read the Constitution. I will not claim that they all have a complete understanding, nor do I believe all remember it all, but your claim about 1% of the military members, and less than that for the general population, having read the Constitution seems to be made up out of whole cloth. | |
| Nov 14, 2020 at 8:58 | comment | added | Déjà vu | "...except at a time of war", some newspaper articles say he could start a war with Iran in the meantime... | |
| Nov 14, 2020 at 2:05 | comment | added | Erwan | @divibisan in this hypothetical, he is replacing the military leadership in order to pull a military coup, so he hasn't succeeded yet. By casually sacking many high ranking and respected army leaders, it would be very hard for him to pretend that all these people are horrible democrats. Therefore he is more likely to lose the support of the army, and many people will see this as very unpatriotic. That would go very very much against Republican values. | |
| Nov 14, 2020 at 1:38 | comment | added | divibisan | @Erwan First, the idea that Republicans would turn on Trump while he holds any power is laughable. Aside from that, in this hypothetical, Trump just led a successful military coup - with the Army behind him, he couldn’t be impeached even if they wanted to | |
| Nov 14, 2020 at 1:37 | comment | added | divibisan | @JamesK Since were discussing military coups, I think that would be a given in any hypothetical here.m | |
| Nov 14, 2020 at 1:14 | comment | added | Erwan | @Statsanalyst entertaining your hypothesis: that would amount to depriving the US army of its most qualified leadership, putting US lives and interests at risk everywhere in the world. My guess is that a president trying this would be impeached before he succeeds: even the most extreme Republicans don't want to make the US army headless and therefore highly vulnerable. | |
| Nov 13, 2020 at 23:17 | comment | added | James K | Who knows. It all becomes very speculative. If he is willing to do that, then he's willing just to ignore the constitution completely. | |
| Nov 13, 2020 at 22:57 | comment | added | Statsanalyst | Could he simply sack generals without replacing them, until he reached someone low enough down the command chain who would obey his orders? | |
| Nov 13, 2020 at 22:12 | comment | added | James K | I never knew that! That makes no sense to me...but I know language isn't logical. That is not just illogical it is "head over heels" counterfactual... Oh well. I'm pretty sure that in the UK it is always "couldn't care less" | |
| Nov 13, 2020 at 21:58 | comment | added | divibisan | @JamesK In common usage, both "Could care less" and "Couldn't care less" mean the same thing, at least in the US | |
| Nov 13, 2020 at 21:46 | comment | added | James K | What do you mean "could care less"? Do you mean "couldn't care less"? | |
| Nov 13, 2020 at 21:46 | history | edited | James K | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
added 16 characters in body
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| Nov 13, 2020 at 21:40 | comment | added | john doe | Most US military members wouldn't know an illegal/unconstitutional order if it hit them in the face. The number of them that have actually read the constitution is probably less than 1%. The good news is, whatever that number is, its probably an order of magnitude higher than the percentage of american citizens that have read that doc. | |
| Nov 13, 2020 at 21:36 | comment | added | john doe | @phoog the reality is that most people who take the oath could care less. They will obey and follow any order because "i'm just doing my job" and "my boss told me to". Courage to stand up to something wrong when its being done by an authority figure is almost nonexistent in modern americans. Invading random countries without Congress declaring war is severely unconstitutional, but everyone allowed it without a second thought. And there will be someone who comes on here and tries to defend the unconstitutional invasions, but if you can read english you can read the docs for yourself. | |
| Nov 13, 2020 at 20:38 | comment | added | phoog | In fact, soldiers have a duty not to obey illegal orders, which is rather different from having an option not to obey them as stated here. In other words, the last sentence should read "...must not be obeyed." | |
| Nov 13, 2020 at 20:20 | history | answered | James K | CC BY-SA 4.0 |