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Task & Purpose is an American online publication founded in 2014. It primarily covers the United States Armed Forces and defense more generally. In 2018 Task & Purpose had 2.5 million monthly readers.

That Trump welcomed a noted conspiracy theorist like Flynn into his inner circle to discuss somehow overturning the results of the 2020 election is one thing. To actually ask about the prospect of deploying the military to “re-run” the elections themselves is another thing entirely.

“The fact that Mike Flynn continues to spread conspiracy theories and misrepresent the president’s legal authorities is a disgrace to the country and to the uniform he wore,” Jim Golby, a senior fellow at the Clements Center for National Security at the University of Texas-Austin, told Task & Purpose.

“Trump has tried to use the military for electoral benefit before — deploying troops to the border before the Congressional midterms and threatening to use the Insurrection Act this summer,” Golby said, referring to Trump-fed rumors of a ‘migrant caravan’ approaching America’s borders in late 2018. “But discussing these conspiracies in the Oval Office crosses a new line.”

Indeed, Trump’s push comes at a precarious (if not somewhat ridiculous) moment for civil-military affairs in the United States, one that’s been building since the president floated the prospect of invoking the Insurrection Act of 1807 to quell nationwide protests this summer.

The idea that Trump might exploit the centuries-old law and send U.S. troops into American streets, combined with the president’s vocal refusal to commit to a peaceful transfer of power in the run-up to the 2020 election, had previously induced the Defense Department to reiterate its apolitical role in American elections.

“I believe deeply in the principle of an apolitical U.S. military,” Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark A. Milley said in September. “In the event of a dispute over some aspect of the elections, by law, U.S. courts and the U.S. Congress are required to resolve any disputes, not the U.S. military. I foresee no role for the U.S. armed forces in this process.”

But Flynn’s calls for not-quite martial law also come amid a post-election reshuffling at the Pentagon — starting with the unceremonious departure Defense Secretary Mark Esper following his summertime break with Trump over the Insurrection Act —and the installation of pro-Trump loyalists there that has raised the specter of a military coup once more despite overwhelming evidence that the U.S. military would never be party to such a thing.

“Normally, retired military officers do not call on the president to throw out the Constitution and install a military junta to ensure that votes are counted in a way that guarantees the incumbent’s re-election,” as my colleague Jeff Schogol recently wrote.“But this is 2020: we’re one tweet away from soccer stadiums being used to hold political prisoners."

All of this puts a tremendous strain on civil-military relations, one that, as Schogol notes, will give the incoming Biden administration even more reasons to mistrust the U.S. military when the transition formally comes to a conclusion on Jan. 20. And luckily, the norms are holding:On Friday, Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy and Chief of Staff Gen. James McConville reiterated in a joint statement that there “is no role for the U.S. military in determining the outcome of an American election.”

But the very fact that Trump welcomed Flynn into the White House and seriously entertained the prospect of military action should be alarming to both senior government officials and to average voters living at home. Legal challenges are one thing, butTrump is either desperate to deploy the military to satisfy his own ends or simply trying to see how far America will let him go — and it’s up to the military leaders to hold strong against those autocratic impulses, no matter what.

“The military won’t follow illegal ordersand Trump won’t invoke martial law, but Trump even considering these crazy ideas legitimizes them and will increase calls for military involvement in elections,” as Golby told Task & Purpose. “That damage will last after Trump is gone and pressure for the military to play a bigger role in politics will continue to grow.”

good luck with the coup,losers

the military WILL NOT follow illegal orders

keep in mind, that quite frequently, throughout history, leaders who have attempted military coups get arrested to face tribunals

In the waning days of President Donald Trump’s administration, civil-military relations have taken the sinister vibe of a crappy ‘90s movie in which Jennifer Love Hewitt faces off against Captain Hook.

Trump and his supporters are not just eroding the military’s apolitical tradition. They are hell bent to demolish as many of the norms that shape civil society’s relationship with the military as possible before Inauguration Day.

But this is more than just about Trump refusing to accept his defeat at the ballot box: The president is leaving a lasting imprint on how elected leaders will view the military.

On Friday, Acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller announced that the Pentagon was suspending meetings with President-elect Joe Biden’s transition team. Miller justified the action by arguing the Defense Department had already given Biden’s team more support than the Pentagon has provided during past transitions.

While Miller described the move as a “mutually-agreed upon holiday pause,” a spokesman for Biden’s transition team said that is flat out wrong.

“Let me be clear: There was no mutually-agreed upon holiday break,” said Yohannes Abraham. “In fact, we think it’s important that briefings and other engagements continue during this period as there is no time to spare.”

The incoming administration’s agency review teams first learned on Thursday that planned meetings with defense officials were no longer happening, Abraham said at a press conference.

“They immediately and appropriately escalated it,” Abraham said.

The Biden transition team both hopes and expects that meetings with the Defense Department will resume immediately, Abraham said.

While many U.S. government agencies and departments have been helpful during the transition process, “There have been pockets of recalcitrance and DoD is one of them,” Abraham said.

Meanwhile, Trump is packing more of his loyalists into venernated – if ceremonial – Defense Department institutions.

Indeed, the president has named former Air Force Capt. Scott O’Grady, who often re-tweets Trump’s baseless claims of widespread voter fraud, to the Defense Policy Board. Trump had previously nominated O’Grady to serve as assistant defense secretary for international affairs, but it is unlikely the Senate would confirm him before Jan. 20.

Also recently, Trump has appointed retired Army Col. Douglas Macgregor, who once reportedly called for declaring martial-law on the southwestern border so that troops could shoot illegal immigrants, to the U.S. Military Academy Board of Visitors.The president has put also Corey Lewandowski, a former Trump campaign manager, to the Defense Business Board.

This is Chicago-style patronage. Even former Mayor Richard Joseph Daley would gasp at the news that former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has landed a job with the Defense Policy Board.

On top of all of this, retired Army Lt. Gen. Mike Flynn, whom Trump recently pardoned, has called on the military to deploy to swing states and “rerun” the presidential election.

Flynn, once a respected intelligence analyst, has also retweeted a call by a right-wing group to “invoke limited martial-law” to hold new elections.

Normally, retired military officers do not call on the president to throw out the Constitution and install a military junta to ensure that votes are counted in a way that guarantees the incumbent’s re-election; but this is 2020: we’re one tweet away from soccer stadiums being used to hold political prisoners.

The reason all of this strain on civil-military relations matters is that it will give the incoming Biden administration more reasons to mistrust the military.

President-elect Biden has a long memory. He was against the Afghanistan surge, which was advocated by then Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal. When details about how many troops McChrystal wanted leaked to the press in 2009, President Barack Obama and his advisors felt military leaders were trying to force his hand into approving a massive troop increase.

Unfortunately, that proved to be the turning point in Obama’s relationship with civilian and uniformed military leaders. His trust in the Pentagon had been irreparably damaged.

It is clear that Biden has neither forgiven nor forgotten anything from that episode. In a 2014 New Yorker interview, Biden laid out his vision of civil-military relations in response to criticism by former Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

“Gates gets upset because I questioned the military,” Biden said. “Well, I believe now, believed then, that Washington and Jefferson were all right: war is too important to be left to generals. It is not their judgment to make! Theirs is to execute.”

If Biden feels that he needs to bring a hostile, right-wing military leadership to heel, it could prove to be the biggest test of civil-military relations since President Harry S. Truman fired Army Gen. Douglas MacArthur in 1950 — and the damage to the military’s honor and prestige could last well after Biden leaves office.onor

"Better to die fighting for freedom then be a prisoner all the days of your life"

STFU…… blah blah blah

you lost