All 10 living former US defense secretaries, including two appointed by US President Donald Trump, on Sunday warned against involving the military in the US presidential transition.
In an essay published in the Washington Post, Ashton Carter, Leon Panetta, William Perry, Dick Cheney, William Cohen, Robert Gates, Chuck Hagel, Donald Rumsfeld, James Mattis and Mark Esper urged the Pentagon to commit to a peaceful transition of power.
“Efforts to involve the US armed forces in resolving election disputes would take us into dangerous, unlawful and unconstitutional territory,” they said.
Officials who sought to do so could face serious professional and criminal consequences, they added.
Referring to the election process and peaceful transfers of power as “hallmarks of our democracy,” the former secretaries said that other than Abraham Lincoln’s election in 1860, which ultimately led to the pro-slavery South seceding and the US Civil War, the country has had an unbroken record of peaceful transitions.
“This year should be no exception,” they wrote.
The secretaries, who come from both US political parties, with Esper and Mattis appointed by Trump, said that all legal challenges to the presidential election results had been dismissed by the courts, and the votes certified by state governors.
It is time to formally certify the Electoral College votes, they said.
They also called on acting US secretary of defense Christopher Miller and all defense department officials to facilitate the transition for US president-elect Joe Biden’s administration “fully, cooperatively and transparently.”
“They must also refrain from any political actions that undermine the results of the election or hinder the success of the new team,” the essay said.
Trump, who is refusing to acknowledge his election loss to Biden, until recently held back from allowing government agencies to cooperate with Biden’s team, as is the custom.
Late last month, Biden said that political appointees at the Pentagon, which Trump has packed with loyalists since the election, have refused to provide a “clear picture” on troop posture or budgeting.
“It is nothing short, in my view, of irresponsibility,” Biden said in Wilmington, Delaware, adding that US adversaries could take advantage of the transition.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
China would train thousands of foreign law enforcement officers to see the world order “develop in a more fair, reasonable and efficient direction,” its minister for public security has said. “We will [also] send police consultants to countries in need to conduct training to help them quickly and effectively improve their law enforcement capabilities,” Chinese Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong (王小洪) told an annual global security forum. Wang made the announcement in the eastern city of Lianyungang on Monday in front of law enforcement representatives from 122 countries, regions and international organizations such as Interpol. The forum is part of ongoing