Posted on 01/09/2024 8:05:30 AM PST by Tench_Coxe
This is not about succession. Or who is the President or acting President.
Apples vs oranges.
It is about authorizing orders to the military at the strategic level.
Read Patels article, not just the headline.
Worst case….NCA system is supposed to be fail-safe against one man ( Joe Biden) ordering a nuclear strike. Hollywood has dramatized scenarios where the SecDef or others in the chain of command refuse an order.
The democrats have probably really screwed up the NCA system with their fake paranoia about Trump. They have at least tried. Imagine having to get approval from a committee headed by Pelosi.
Had the Iranian/Yemenis managed to heavily damage or sink a US ship in the Red Sea, you want the SecDef out of the loop on the military response? Or is an Austin staffer with an autopen sufficient? Remember Austin’s deputy SecDef didn’t even know he was missing,
And yes….the scenario of challenging NCA has occurred.
Admiral James Lyons recounted that after the attack in Lebanon on the Marine Barracks ( killed 241) was conclusively tracked to Iranian approval, a military task force after exhaustive persuasion efforts was authorized by Reagan to attack the Iranian militia base in Lebanon that originated the attack.
SecDef Weinberger refused to issue the order.
So it never happened.
The French who were supposed to do a joint op, went in without us and did a halfassed attack that damaged nothing of significance.
I think NCA was destroyed when the DoD refused to listen to CiC Trump. Keeping the power away from his successor Biden was trivial, after that.
That and no substantive Congressional oversight for many years now. The administrative state is drunk on power and nobody has any interest in reigning them in.
This article disagrees:
The Surprisingly Disorderly History of the U.S. Presidential Succession Order
“After Harry S. Truman assumed the presidency following the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1945, he argued that elected officials should be higher in the succession order than appointed cabinet members. Thus another Presidential Succession Act was adopted in 1947. The speaker became second in line, the president pro tempore was third, and the secretary of state fourth...
Later notable modifications included the Twenty-fifth Amendment, which was ratified in 1967. It explicitly stated (unlike the Constitution) that if the vice president assumes the Oval Office, he or she would be the president—not the acting president...
In the ensuing years, some have pushed for additional changes....”
“Yes, of course. He should at least have informed those closest to him ...”
Given the obvious-ness of that, maybe the plot is thicker than we know.
my bad, I thought they meant in the command order, not the Presidential succession.
Austin goes awol but it’s OK, like Gay committing perjury.
Probably my bad. I did not realize there were two separate emergency orders of succession until I read the full thread, which I should have done before posting. I'nm still not clear which one the OP is referring to.
KASH PATEL:
Our DoD divides the world into geographic regions we call combatant commands (ie, central command, indo-pacific command, etc). Each is led by a 4-star general officer (the highest rank in our current military). These combatant commanders and the soldiers underneath their authority are responsible for executing the national command authority in their region. Just imagine if one of them or Biden picked up the phone to call the SECDEF regarding a hostage situation in Africa, a terrorist attack in Afghanistan, or a break-out of war in the Middle East- only to find no one on the receiving end. Where do they get their orders, who calls the president, and how are troops deployed?
Thanks for the organizational info!
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