Background

Remember when we were trying to adjust to the horrifying election results. We allowed ourselves the fantasy of thinking, “Well, Trump doesn’t really want to be president. So, maybe he’ll surround himself with professional politicians who know how to govern. It’s not going to be that bad, really. We’ll survive this.” Wrong

Trump has assembled an inexperienced, uninformed cast of misfits to people his cabinet and White House. Collectively, and individually, these dangerous clowns will be the subjects of future postings on this site, but, for now, let’s focus on Our Leader’s selection for National Security Advisor, Lieutenant General (ret.) Michael T. Flynn.

First, though, a word or two about the role of the NSA for the President and the nation. The NSA serves as the major and primary counselor to the President on matters of defense and foreign affairs. He and his 400 person White House staff act as a critical filter for information coming from the Pentagon, State, and the various intelligence agencies and they then implement the President’s policies. In other words, in a functioning White House during a crisis situation, the President will turn to this advisor and ask, “What does this all mean?” and “What’s our next step?” For these times and especially for this White House, the National Security Advisor needs to be a thoughtful, experienced, wise person.

The General

Michael Flynn had a distinguished military career culminating in the rank of Lieutenant General (3 stars) on his retirement. During the last decade of his service, Flynn held increasingly important positions in military intelligence, finally resulting in his being named by President Obama as Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). It certainly seems that General Flynn has impeccable credentials and the perfect resume to assume the NSA mantle and guide this neophyte President through the turbulent waters of 21st century national security. Well, not so fast.

It seems that General Flynn was removed from his position as DIA Director after only a little more than one year – a posting that normally runs for 3 years. The reasons for his removal were his awful management style and abuse of subordinates. Flynn, however, claims that he was removed because of his strong anti-Islamic stance. When asked for proof that this was the reason for his firing during a Washington Post interview, Flynn replied, “I just know”.

Also, during Flynn’s tenure at DIA, he repeatedly showed a penchant for making dubious pronouncements on important subjects with no factual support. DIA staffers called these unsubstantiated statements “Flynn Facts”. Starting to see any similarities with another prominent person in this administration?

Post-Service

It is not until after the General leaves the service that he really begins to go off the rails. He blamed his removal on President Obama, specifically, and, in general,  on the Democrats, political correctness, liberals, take your pick. Subsequently, in the course of about 2 years, a retired General who was a self-described, pro-choice Democrat transformed into a reactionary, right-wing attack dog for Trump.

At the Republican National Convention, when speaking about the opposing party’s candidate, a woman who had been a US Senator and US Secretary of State, Flynn encouraged the rabid groundlings in chants of “Lock her up” and yelled into the microphone, “Lock her up. Lock her up. Damn right. Exactly right.” Later, on the campaign trail, the same moronic chant brought out the best in the general when he said, as the chant rang around him, “I am so proud to be an American right now.” He has publicly called President Obama a “liar” and said the US justice system is “corrupt”. Flynn has also said that he has personally seen photos of signs along the US-Mexico border giving directions in Arabic on how to cross the border illegally. The US Border Patrol says those signs do not exist. This is the National Security Advisor that I’m describing.

Flynn also has ties to Russia. He travelled to Moscow on a paid speaking trip for the RT network. The RT network is Russian news outlet that is controlled by the Kremlin and broadcasts pro-Putin propaganda. In the same Washington Post interview, Flynn said that RT was “like CNN. It was a paid speaking opportunity. I got paid so much.”He continued to make appearances on RT as a news analyst.

Deranged Tweets

Like his boss, General Flynn is quite the tweetster. His most effective tool is the re-tweet. In the last couple of months prior to the election, Flynn re-tweeted 16 far-right, outlandish accusations aimed at Hillary Clinton and the Democrats. He re-tweeted to his over 100,000 followers that Hillary is involved with child trafficking and wants to wage war against the Catholic Church. He passed along that President Obama is a “jihadi” who laundered money for Muslim terrorists. The President of the United States! Flynn re-tweeted that Clinton’s campaign manager (a favorite target of these nuts) takes part in occult rituals that involve drinking blood. One tweet, Flynn promoted as a “MUST READ”, alleged that emails recovered from Anthony Weiner’s laptop contained enough evidence “to put Hillary Clinton and her crew away for life” for crimes including “child exploitation” and “sex crimes with minors”. Flynn wrote, “U decide”. He also suggested that Hillary Clinton conspired with Jews in an anti-semitic tweet as part of a re-tweet that ended with “Not anymore, Jews. Not anymore.” This man is the National Security Advisor to a crazed lunatic as President. One crazy conspiracy theorist in the White House is about all that we can handle.

Although these recent activities may shock any reviewer of this man’s career, these same activities and positions endeared him to the man who became president. Since the NSA is not a position that requires Senate confirmation, many of the General’s opinions and actions never saw the light of day. There is, however, one action that he took that will probably cost him his new career.

Russian Communications

In the final month prior to Trump’s inauguration, Flynn held secret discussions with the Russian ambassador. Let me just explain – that is not done. There is an absolute rule in US politics when there is a President-elect. THERE IS ONLY ONE PRESIDENT. The President-elect and his staff steer clear from interfering with any international diplomacy or policies. Trump’s team did not adhere to that unwritten rule. I’m sure Trump never even heard of that rule nor would he understand the importance of following it to the letter.

Anyway, Flynn had conversations with the Ambassador and during the conversations the topic of lifting the US sanctions was broached. When Flynn was asked if sanctions had been discussed, he lied and said they had not. That’s ok in this Administration. You can screw up an important policy and lie about it. “Hey, that’s what we do here”. The problem occurred when Flynn forgot to stop lying when he talked to others within the Administration – he lied to the Vice President. He lied to the Chief of Staff. He lied to the White House Press Secretary. (Once you start lying, it’s hard to know when to stop.) They in turn, lied far and wide that General Flynn had never discussed sanctions with the Russians. Only, the problem is, there were all these other people monitoring the phone when the calls were being made and the Washington Post found them. Nine of them.

When confronted, Flynn said he did not discuss sanctions. The next day he said he did not recall discussing sanctions “but couldn’t be certain that the topic never came up”.

Flynn has made the Administration look foolish and that might be ok, but he made the Vice President and Chief of Staff look either like liars or like fools. He won’t survive. If he does, I don’t know what that says about Trump. Really? Like I would?

General Flynn served this country honorably for 33 years. His life cannot be summed up in 1200 words. He’s more than what is here. Though I also didn’t include a lot of negative aspects  of his positions and actions over the last few years. He’s an out and out Islamaphobe. He has changed his position on torture and some of his statements on fighting Islamic terror border on frightening. Even before he retired from the military, people like Colin Powell were concerned about his right-wing positions.

This country will be safer when General Flynn no longer has the ear of the President on critical maters of national security. When he is removed, pay close attention to his replacement. My guess would be someone from Goldman Sachs..