The General Milley Fanfiction
A well known disinformation agent and outright fiction author has excreted yet another book, due out next Tuesday. ‘Peril’ is the third installment in a series of Washington DC fantasy books by Bob Woodward, and the first to be coauthored with WaPo political reporter Robert Costa.
WaPo, the NYT, and CNN were all given advanced copies of the book, and on Tuesday of this week, during the middle of Secretary of State Anthony Blinken being destroyed in front of the Senate Foreign relations Committee, all three dropped sensational stories detailing drastic, and if accurate, treasonous actions taken by General Milley between October 2020 and January 2021.
Now, I am of the belief that these stories, and this book, are full of fiction, fantasy, disinfo, misinfo, and a fair bit of MilDec. That doesn’t mean that there are not any truths or facts in them, though. I want to find them.
The Story
The narrative presented in the WaPo story and others, which are based upon advanced copies of ‘Peril’, is that General Milley, perceiving President Trump to be unhinged and unpredictable, made heroic moves between October 2020 and January 2021 to prevent a kinetic war, much worse a nuclear war, with China. He contacted his CCP counterparts, he communicated with Speaker Pelosi, CIA Director Gina Haspel, and he conferenced with Pentagon officials and commanders in the Chain of Command, all in an effort to undermine President Trump’s ability to command an attack or start a war.
Of course, such moves are criminal, treasonous. They violate the Constitution and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. However, because Trump was so dangerous, in the view of the Mainstream Media and the Democrat Party, these moves were justified, even laudable.
That’s the General Milley Fanfiction. Milley the Hero, Trump the Villain.
Methods
I am going to base this piece on this Washington Post story. The book is authored by associates of WaPo and I believe they were the first to drop an article about it.
My approach will be to isolate each claim in regards to General Milley to see if I can find any corroboration for them, one by one. I’ll be using contemporaneous pieces from between October 2020 through January 2021, as well as articles and reporting from this week, and statements from President Donald J. Trump, SecDef Chris Miller, and Kash Patel.
After going through the claims, I will sum up the character arc of General Milley along with the general theme of the story.
This is going to get dense, so to help out anyone who prefers to have a quick read of it, I’ve placed a TLDR at the bottom of the article, that way you at least have to scroll past the research I did and can see that I did real work in the process of constructing that TLDR.
The Claims
First, lets hit the claims that are in the story.
Claim 1: Gen Milley and Gen Li had a phone conversation on October 30th, 2020.
Claim 2: Gen Milley assured Gen Li “that the United States would not strike.”
Claim 3: The phone call “was prompted by Milley’s review of intelligence suggesting the Chinese believed the United States was preparing to attack.”
Claim 4: Gen Milley “[pledged] he would alert his counterpart in the event of a U.S. attack.” A treasonous offer.
That’s the first phone call.
Like Woodward and Costa, Rogin here works for WaPo, and here he is confirming that the first four claims that were in the WaPo story on the book ‘Peril’ are false. Awkward.
Claim 5: Gen Milley and Gen Li had a phone conversation on January 8th, 2021.
Claim 6: This phone call took place because of “Chinese fears about the events of Jan. 6.”
Claim 7: Gen Milley “did not relay the conversation to Trump.”
That’s the second phone call.
The two phone calls did happen, BUT they were not secret, they did not include any pledges, about fifteen people were in the room when the calls were occurring, the calls were “both conducted with the full knowledge of” SecDef Esper(first phone call) and SecDef Miller(second phone call).
Claim 8: Gen Milley and Speaker Pelosi had a phone call on Jan 8th, 2021.
Claim 9: In that phone call, they concurred with each other that “Trump was unstable.”
That’s the third phone call. It will come up again later.
This is not the first time this phone call between Pelosi and Milley has been reported. The Hill had this news on January 9th, 2021. Check out what’s in this article, because it’s like an echo of the fanfiction Woodward and Costa present in their book. https://thehill.com/policy/defense/533453-capitol-riots-spark-fear-of-trumps-military-powers-in-final-days?rl=1
Reading that article, I can’t help but see several places where it’s like Devolution is winking at us. Gives me a chuckle.
Back to the WaPo story, here’s the next section:
Claim 10: Milley called the Admiral over the Indo-Pacific Command and asked for military exercises to be postponed.
Claim 11: That Admiral complied.
At the time, Admiral Philip S. Davidson was over the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command. He’s now been replaced by Admiral John Aquilino. Both are very pro Taiwan and pro India. Both are fully aware of the threat CCP poses in the region and spoken about that that threat publicly.
Whether the exercise was postponed or not, I haven’t been able to confirm, but one did take place on or about January 25th, 2021. So…not much of a delay if it was delayed at all.
US Warships Conduct Exercises in South China Sea
Claim 12: Milley met with senior officers and told them “that he, Milley, also had to be involved” in the launching of a nuclear weapons.
It’s completely false that the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has to be involved in the launching of nuclear weapons, or the use of any force at all. In fact, he has no command authority whatsoever. He, like the rest of the people who serve on the JCS, are strictly advisors.
Furthermore, it did not happen.
Claim 13: CIA Director Haspel told Milley “We are on the way to a right-wing coup.”
I do not believe this at all. Not at all. Without witnesses or a transcript, I cannot disprove it, though.
I am aware that there were many rumors going around DC and around internet forums during 2020 that Director Haspel and President Trump were at odds with one another. I think it’s disinfo. Just look into her career, her relationship with Mike Pompeo, and her exit on January 19th, 2021 and decide for yourself. Here are three stories to aid your research.
Gina Haspel, Trump's Pick for CIA Director, Ran a Black Site for Torture
Gina Haspel threatened to resign over plan to install Trump loyalist Kash Patel as CIA deputy
Milley’s Character Arc
It’s at this point in the WaPo story that it begins to jump around. Staying focused only on the General Milley character’s timeline, he reappears after the topic of Afghanistan is brought up. Then the piece jumps around some more, from August 2021 to January 2021 to June 1, 2020, and back again to January 2021. It gets quite convoluted, honestly.
General Milley takes an opposite approach to president Biden, telling his JCS to “never, ever ever box a President of The United States in. You always give him decision space.” Well, that’s the complete opposite of what he is alleged to have done in the final months of Trump’s first term.
So, Speaker Pelosi, who has been in Washington DC since first elected in 1987, whose father served in the House from 1939–1947, who has been on the House Appropriations and House Intelligence Committees, served as both House Minority Leader and House Majority Speaker, and who is 3rd in line to the Presidency, called General Milley on January 8th to ask,
“What precautions are available to prevent an unstable president from initiating military hostilities or from accessing the launch codes and ordering a nuclear strike?”
And ‘Milley assured her that there were “a lot of checks in the system.”’
Yeah. Right.
According to Woodward and Costa, this photo op above, in front of a partially burned church on June 1st, 2020, upset Milley.
And Trump would not take kinetic strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities off the table, which disturbed Milley.
Those three things: a photo op, not ruling out kinetic strikes against Iran, and a phone call from Pelosi, vexed General Milley. A man of 41 yrs military service, who was appointed to be Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff by Trump, he was so concerned and incensed even, that he decided to secretly interdict the Commander In Chief. He committed acts that include undermining the President’s authority, a secret coup among top military officers, and offering to give CCP fair warning if the President moved to attack them.
This man, this man here, committed multiple criminal acts and violations of the Constitution.
I know who writes this garbage, but who buys it?
The Plot
And here is where the story really begins to give away the plot:
Gina Haspel, a long time CIA Operative who ran at least one Black Site where terrorists were tortured for information, who covered up such operations, who was Mike Pompeo’s Deputy Secretary at the CIA and close ally, is worried that President Trump is even considering striking Iran. And she ridicules it as “lash[ing] our for his ego.”
Bullshit.
The “fragile ego” line gives this all away, not that the previous lines about Trump “suffering a mental decline”, being “unstable, “unpredictable” and “crazy” did not already give both the book and this piece away as being not just deranged Cabal fantasy, but a purposeful distortion of the person that is President Trump, the events of November 3rd and January 6th.
If those lines don’t convince you though, I offer these two lines which seal this book and story as fanfiction.
Some people, psychologically, never leave High School. And many of those people work at outlets like the Washington Post and write delusional political fiction books that get mistakenly categorized as political science and biographical works.
Statements
From General Milley:
From President Trump:
Statement #1
Statement #2
Scoring the Claims
Claim 1: Gen Milley and Gen Li had a phone conversation on October 30th, 2020. True
Claim 2: Gen Milley assured Gen Li “that the United States would not strike.” False
Claim 3: The phone call “was prompted by Milley’s review of intelligence suggesting the Chinese believed the United States was preparing to attack.” False
Claim 4: Gen Milley “[pledged] he would alert his counterpart in the event of a U.S. attack.” False
Claim 5: Gen Milley and Gen Li had a phone conversation on January 8th, 2021. True
Claim 6: This phone call took place because of “Chinese fears about the events of Jan. 6.” False
Claim 7: Gen Milley “did not relay the conversation to Trump.” Dubious.
Claim 8: Gen Milley and Speaker Pelosi had a phone call on Jan 8th, 2021. True
Claim 9: In that phone call, they concurred with each other that “Trump was unstable.” Dubious
Claim 10: Milley called the Admiral over the Indo-Pacific Command and asked for military exercises to be postponed. Dubious
Claim 11: That Admiral complied. Dubious
Claim 12: Milley met with senior officers and told them “that he, Milley, also had to be involved” in the launching of a nuclear weapons. False
Claim 13: CIA Director Haspel told Milley “We are on the way to a right-wing coup.” Dubious
True = 3, False = 5, Dubious = 5
TLDR
It’s all Fake News.
Addendum:
The fake news in the WaPo story caused the Dems/MSM to go on the record endorsing the treasonous acts alleged.
Meanwhile, Milley is perfectly placed to gather all sorts of knowledge on the Biden Admin.
I’m not saying Milley is a white hat, but after doing the research for this story, I no longer think he is a black hat. He’s a bit grey to me.
Recognize that, in order for the book and this story to be written by Woodward, Costa and WaPo, all of these tales had to be planted months ago.
I think Woodward/Costa got fed a bunch of MilDec, and they churned out the disinfo.
Classic Trump.