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Former Defense Secretary Slams Pelosi as ‘Incoherent' and ‘Shrieking' Mess During January 6th Riot, sez nobody held accountable for Afghanistan & Iraq
[ThePoliticalInsider] Former acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller slammed Nancy Pelosi as an ’incoherent’ and ’shrieking’ mess during the January 6th riot, and downplayed the crowd who had overrun the Capitol as "a rowdy band of MAGA supporters" who were "taking selfies."

Miller, who led the Pentagon from just days after the 2020 election through President Biden’s Inauguration Day, made the observations in his forthcoming book, Soldier Secretary, set for release this week.

In it, Miller describes lawmakers like Representative Pelosi (D-CA), Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), and even Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) as "hyperventilating into the phone" regarding the status of troops to protect the Capitol.

He claims Pelosi called him in an "incoherent" state as she was "shrieking" about what he describes as "a handful of provocateurs" who had "infiltrated" the Capitol.

"I had never seen anyone — not even the greenest, pimple-faced 19-year-old Army private — panic like our nation’s elder statesmen did on January 6 and in the months that followed," Miller scoffed.

Trump's last defense secretary says no one held 'accountable' for Afghanistan and Iraq wars

[WashingtonExaminer] Former President Donald Trump
...His ancestors didn't own any slaves...
's last Pentagon chief, Christopher Miller, believes no one in the military has been held accountable for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan .

Miller, who served multiple deployments in both wars, writes in his new book, Soldier Secretary: Warnings from the Battlefield & the Pentagon about America’s Most Dangerous Enemies , which was released on Tuesday, that Trump's only guidance from him when he took the position in November 2020 was to "bring the troops home."

While the Trump administration agreed to a deal with the Taliban
...the Pashtun equivalent of men...
 in February 2020 to withdraw troops within 14 months, prior to Miller's time as acting secretary of defense, it was President Joe The Big Guy Biden
...46th president of the U.S. The nincompoop who dumped Afghanistan. The copier doesdn't exist that could reelect him....
 who ultimately led the chaotic exit in August 2021.

"We lost the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and no one's been held accountable," he told the Washington Examiner in an interview. "And that to me, I was raised in my ethos coming up as a young officer was that, you know, you're responsible for everything that does or doesn't happen, and to see the decisions that were made over the years that resulted in our defeat in Afghanistan, and no one's been held responsible."

The other aspect that Miller wanted to see from current defense officials was "lessons learned," though he said he doesn't see that happening right now.

"We have doggone generals that talked with great confidence about how they could achieve our goals in Afghanistan only to fail horribly," he added. "Nope, they're not held accountable. They'd go sit on these boards and think tanks and get paid enormous sums of money. And I think that's really, really damaging to the ethos of the officer corps."

In the book, he listed ten action items that promote "a new way forward for America," and the final one is to "fire the generals."

"Accountability for the most senior general officers — the ones that develop strategy and provide guidance and advance to their civilian bosses — is woefully lacking in the current culture," the former acting Pentagon chief writes. "It seems obtuse that an administrative error is more harshly punished than losing a war, which brings national shame and embarrassment, not to mention the profound waste of our human and financial treasure."

Multiple House committees, now under Republican control, have been eager to investigate the way the end of the war in Afghanistan occurred.

The final U.S. forces in Afghanistan evacuated more than 120,000 civilians in the final two weeks of August, after the Taliban took control, though their efforts were marred by the tragic events of Aug. 26 and 29. On Aug. 26, an ISIS-K operative detonated a boom jacket, killing 13 U.S. service members and roughly 170 civilians outside the gates of the airport where the evacuations were occurring, while on Aug. 29, U.S. forces launched a strike at what they believed to be another imminent threat to the personnel at the airport, but the target was wrongly identified and 10 non-combatants were killed, including multiple children.

Miller, throughout the book, discusses major shifts he'd like to see in how the Department of Defense operates, ranging from deep cuts in its budget to creating a smaller force, demolishing and then rebuilding the intelligence community, and restoring universal service for 18-year-olds requiring them to serve for 18 months whether that's in military service, healthcare, education, infrastructure rejuvenation, environmental programs, or the National Park Service.

"We need to restructure and rethink how we do our national security," the former acting secretary said. "We're going from an era of exquisite platinum-plated weapon systems, very few of them, which lets you know, for pride or ... it won the Cold War, it was the right approach, the Soviets couldn't keep up and we bankrupted them. Well, we're returning to an era where it's quantity over quality, and we still have not made that adjustment in our military."
Posted by: The Walking Unvaxed 2023-02-08
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=657950