Military Industrial Complex Threatening A Coup If Herr Trumpf Wins?

A couple days ago we looked briefly at Herr Trumpf's threat to chuck the constitutional prohibition on churches and religions openly endorsing candidates. Will we see a big TV spectacular on Inauguration Day featuring a bonfire with slimy little Eric Trumpf burning copies of the Constitution while Ivanka, dressed as Tzeitel, does a scintillating dance to the Kushner family anthem? Not likely, but God only knows what U.S. military officers will be thinking if that unlikely day ever comes to pass-- the Trumpf inauguration, not the Ivanka dance.

Watch the Bill Maher interview Friday (above) with former NSA and CIA head Michael Hayden. This is beyond shocking. Who knew the Wall Street Journal watches Maher! Damian Paletta reported Saturday evening on the extraordinary Hayden statement about how the military "would likely refuse to follow certain orders."

“I would be incredibly concerned if a President Trump governed in a way that was consistent with the language that Candidate Trump expressed during the campaign,” Gen. Hayden said during an interview will Bill Maher on Friday.

Mr. Trump, the frontrunner in the GOP primary, has vowed to use torture techniques against suspected terrorists if he wins the White House, going beyond waterboarding and doing things he described as a “hell of a lot worse.”

He has also suggested he would order U.S. forces to kill the family members of terrorists, a charge that some have alleged would be in violation of the Geneva Convention.

Gen. Hayden, who had been an adviser to the presidential campaign of Jeb Bush, said the military would be required to refuse to obey these orders if Mr. Trump handed them down from the White House.

“You are required not to follow an unlawful order,” Gen. Hayden said. Some of Mr. Trump’s proposals “would be in violation of all the international laws of armed conflict.”

Hayden is a retired 4-star Air Force general, a former director of the NSA for both Bill Clinton and George W. Bush and, later, Bush's and (for one day) Obama's CIA director. Hayden is now a principle at a bastion of spooky neocon shadow government, The Chertoff Group. He may look like a friendly old clown on the Real Time clip... but he's not. This is a very dangerous guy and represents very dangerous people and institutions. A showdown between these people and a crackpot President Trumpf could only end very badly for the American people and for our country.