Dem
47
GOP
53
This news was all over the place yesterday, despite the fact that the heart of the story remains a mystery: Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has ordered hundreds of high-ranking officers from around the globe to be in Quantico, VA, for an in-person meeting next Tuesday.
The purpose of the meeting is known to only a few people, and those people are not talking. Rumors, of course, are flying fast and furious. Maybe it will be a mass fitness test of some sort. Maybe it will be a mass firing. Maybe it will be an intelligence briefing. Maybe it will be a photo-op, so Donald Trump can have a picture with himself and hundreds of generals to put up in the White House. Anything is possible. It's not even clear exactly which people have been ordered to attend: just flag officers, or all general officers, or some combination therein.
Folks who have been at this a heck of a lot longer than Hegseth has say that there are really only two justifiable reasons to summon the brass for an in-person meeting: (1) To announce the commencement of some sort of large-scale military operation, or (2) To announce and implement some sort of vast overhaul of the military's command structure. It certainly could be one of these things, and heaven help us all if it's the former. If it is not one of these things, then whatever it is really could have been handled through secure video conferencing.
If the meeting really is overkill, and is just Hegseth/Trump using military brass to replace Viagra for a day, there are at least a couple of problems. The smaller one is that transporting that many people (along with their support staff) is not cheap. The much bigger one is that the U.S. is a bit more vulnerable when all the top commanders are at a meeting as opposed to, you know, doing their jobs. If some unfriendly was planning to do something, Tuesday morning would present a prime opportunity to do it. And even if no hostile takes advantage, the whole situation suggests a Pentagon in some level of crisis or disarray. Remember, the bad guys are always watching.
We'll see what this is all about on Tuesday. Or, given the steps taken to censor press coverage of the Pentagon, maybe we won't. (Z)