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Trump’s Pentagon purge may be less sinister than it appears

This article contains news and liberal commentary.

To be sure, it looks bad: Trump has just fired the secretary of defense and replaced three other top Pentagon officials with

“A retired brigadier general who called former President Barack Obama a terrorist. A former staffer to Republican Rep. Devin Nunes who wrote a memo accusing federal investigators of harboring anti-Trump bias. And a close ally of former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn whom a former intelligence official described … as ‘shady’ and ‘inherently untrustworthy.'”

Trump has always sought to appoint people whose loyalty is to him personally, not the country they’re supposed to serve. And this purge certainly conforms to that pattern. Besides secretary Mark Esper, those ousted are:

James Anderson, acting director of policy planning, who “tangled with the White House … over the appointment of Trump loyalists to the Pentagon ….” This is a powerful position; the “policy planning director is widely viewed as the third-highest civilian post at the Defense Department. Whoever’s in the job must advise the secretary on top-level policy issues ranging from deterring China and Russia to determining the kinds of ships, planes, and weapons the military requires.”

Jen Stewart, fired secretary Mark Esper’s chief of staff. This position manages “the defense secretary’s day-to-day business while advising him on key policy issues.”

Joseph Kernan, under secretary of defense for intelligence and security.

Stuffing the Pentagon’s top posts with people who are not only loyal to Trump but also are known as extremists who embrace wild conspiracy theories and have reputations as shady and dishonest characters raises all sorts of concerns, not excluding fears that Trump might be plotting a coup involving use of the military. But the real reason probably is less threatening and more prosaic:

“When the resignations and appointments were announced, some worried that a sinister plot was afoot — that Trump loyalists were ‘burrowing’ into the Defense Department so they couldn’t be removed when Biden takes office, or that there was some sort of coverup going on, or even that Trump was setting the stage for a coup.

“But experts I spoke to doubt those explanations, and suspect what’s really going on is that Trump … [is] putting in people more amenable to his wishes in order to finally accomplish some of the policies the Esper-led Pentagon had pushed back on — such as withdrawing all remaining US troops from Afghanistan before Christmas.

“Trump promised in October that those troops would be home by the holiday. But while the White House pushed hard on the Pentagon to fulfill that wish, Defense Department leaders resisted, saying instead any withdrawal needed to be ‘conditions-based’ — in other words, when violence in Afghanistan wasn’t spiking. That set off a months-long back and forth that ended with the White House angry at the Pentagon … now the pathway is open for the troop withdrawal the president wants.

“On Wednesday, Axios reported that Douglas Macgregor, a Fox News contributor … who has long advocated for pulling US troops out of the Middle East, just joined the Pentagon as an adviser …. That bolsters the claim that the moves are really about an expedited troop withdrawal more than anything else.”

Read story here. And it’s probably safe to say none of these appointees will still be at the Pentagon after January 20, so it makes sense this is all aimed at achieving some short-term policy objective that can be accomplished before then. Few things the Pentagon does fall in that category, but withdrawing the last remaining 4,500 U.S. troops from Afghanistan fits that description.

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