Once more, I am decamping, this time to San Francisco for the weekend to see my older son, Patrick, his wife Diana, and my two grandchildren Samuel and Athena. I realize that I am taking the coward's way out by suspending my commentary on the passing scene for a few days, but things are happening so quickly that even taking my morning walk keeps me out of the loop for at least two news cycles.
Before I go, let me comment briefly on one recent revelation, this one concerning General [and former National Security Advisor] Mike Flynn. It seems that in the last weeks before Trump's inauguration, Flynn advised against, and thus killed, a plan by the previous administration to support Kurdish troops fighting ISIS in Syria AT A TIME WHEN HE WAS IN THE PAY OF THE TURKISH GOVERNMENT, WHICH OPPOSED SUPPORTING THE KURDS, A FACT THAT WAS KNOWN TO THE TRANSITION TEAM PREPARING FOR THE NEW ADMINISTRATION.
This seems to me to be treason, pure and simple.
Flynn informed the transition team that he was under investigation for working for the Turkish Government without having registered as a foreign agent, and was listened to and appointed National Security Advisor anyway. What is more, simon-pure boy scout Mike Pence was in charge of the transition team and thus knew all about this, a fact about which he subsequently has lied several times.
In a decent well-run country, Flynn would be taken out and shot.
So does that mean that boy scout Pence is vulnerable? I ask because the reality of a President Pence is quite alarming too. Would he be worse?
ReplyDeleteI hope he wouldn't be taken out and shot without a trial being held which ended in a conviction. Otherwise it wouldn't be a very decent country. Besides, since I'm opposed to capital punishment, even legal execution seems to me to be a mark of indecency
ReplyDeleteI think that Professor Wolff's suggestion that Flynn be shot is not a genuine suggestion, but another example of his irony. I'm sure that Professor Wolff agrees with me that in a decent country Flynn would be strangled, not shot.
ReplyDeleteS. Wallerstein is a man after my own heart.
ReplyDeleteI think both of you (Wallerstein and Wolff) would agree with ME, that in a REALLY DECENT country, a man like Flynn couldn't possibly exist.
ReplyDeleteAgreed with all of the above. But getting back to Jerry Fresia's comment: here's a very interesting posting about what Pence might be like as President:
ReplyDeletehttp://theweek.com/articles/699517/what-pence-presidency-like
In sum: bad, but definitely not invulnerable ...
Chris,
ReplyDeleteI can't imagine what a REALLY DECENT COUNTRY would be like, but in a relatively decent country a man like Flynn (or one like Trump) might exist, but they would not make it to the top. Flynn might end up as a bouncer in a discotheque in our relatively decent country or a second-rate police informer. Trump a clown in a fourth rate circus.