President-elect Donald Trump’s appointees get nuttier and scarier by the second. Meet Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn – the new National Security Advisor. Unlike other positions in the new administration, such as Secretary of Defense or Secretary of State, Flynn will not be vetted by the US Senate.
Even with a Republican-controlled Congress Flynn probably would have been nixed by the Senate in January, 2017. Why?
First, he’s a hyper-rabid Islamaphobe. In his recent book, Flight of Fight: How We Can Win the War Against Islam, Flynn describes ISIS as “dead set on taking us over and drinking our blood.”
Further, according to Flynn the fight versus ISIS is “not just about a few hundred square miles of sand in the Syrian, Iraqi and Libyan desert. They want it all… and they want to take over the world and behead every last person that rebels against Allah.”
Drinking our blood? Decapitate each and every one of the non-Muslim inhabitants of the planet, be they Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist or atheist?
ISIS is beyond grisly and a deadly enemy. Yet this kind of feverish, hyperbolic and global rhetoric has a clear goal: It’s designed to terrify Americans and assure compliance with whatever strategies the Trump/Flynn regime might design.
Second, Flynn was fired from the Defense Intelligence Agency. Why? Because he’s a loose cannon. While he was head of the Agency he had no compunction about appearing before a US Congressional Committee and publicly criticizing the Obama administration’s policies in Iraq. Flynn broke with a cardinal rule in the nation’s capitol, sitting Generals do not publicly criticize the Commander-in-Chief. Very appropriately, Flynn was forced out of the Agency.
Third, Flynn wants to take out Iran. One of his role models is Michael Ledeen. (Ledeen was one of the policy wonks favored by Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfield and Paul Wolfowitz during the run-up to the Iraq War in 2003.)
Flynn isn’t just in favor of war with Iran. His book praises the concept of all-out war versus “an international alliance of evil countries and movements that is working to destroy us.” And that alliance includes? North Korea, China, Russia, Iran, Syria, Cuba, Bolivia, Venezuela and Nicaragua.
This kind of Flynnian, loose rhetoric was noted in the New York Times on November 18. A researcher with the Carnegie Endowment said Flynn’s “thinking process is not sufficiently analytical…if you listen to him, in 10 minutes, you will hear him contradict himself two or three times.”
Fourth, Flynn, is a supporter of “enhanced interrogation techniques” such as water-boarding. Unfortunately, that’s no surprise given that Flynn was head of the Defense Intelligence Agency.
Fifth, Flynn hates something called the Powell Doctrine. What’s that? Named after Colin Powell (Head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the George W. Bush years) the doctrine says never use US military power – unless there’s a strong public consensus in its favor. Flynn flatly calls that an obsolete and “backward” notion.
Sixth, Flynn led attendees at the Republican National Convention in rounds of chanting the anti-Hillary refrain: Lock her up. Lock her up. It was chilling, unseemly behavior. It should have disqualified Flynn from being considered for national office.
Michael T. Flynn is an exceptionally dangerous man. As the right-hand advisor to the Commander-in-Chief he will be in extraordinarily influential position. His appointment must be rescinded.