On the Forced Resignation of Michael Thomas Flynn

The forced resignation of Michael Thomas Flynn as President Trump’s National Security Advisor is being hailed by neoconservatives on the right and traditional leaders of the GOP. The mainstream media and the Clinton Wing of the Democratic Party (now a monolithic block) which have been hysterically demanding such a result are enjoying it but, of course, it will not be enough. The reality is that nothing but perpetual conflict will be enough for either of them; hopefully as close to nuclear war with Russia and China as we can come without actually triggering it, a suicidal waltz, but the melodies and the rhythm, and the profits are just too hard to resist.

As I analyze the situation from a perspective that seeks an end to the continuous murder of innocents in the name of faux democracy and faux liberty and faux justice, that seeks recognition that all men and women, as well as all nations ought to be equal, with equal opportunities for happiness and prosperity and security, I am deeply saddened. Saddened that I am not puzzled. Saddened that the ethical and moral convolutions are so obvious. Saddened that they need no longer even be disguised.

Former President Obama, evidently with the collaboration of his political party, sowed a minefield for the incoming administration in a desperate effort to undo the results of the 2016 presidential election and the mainstream media is dutifully collaborating in seeking to reap the hoped for results. Among the myriad purported public servants in federal government service, all too many seem part of that effort in ways small and large, committing deliberate gaffs (like spelling mistakes on public web sites) but also breaching security policies in manners their prior boss would have all too harshly punished had he been the victim. Hypocrisy reigns supreme, unfettered and unchallenged. And the mines they are a-exploding (sung to the tune of Bob Dylan’s “The Times They Are a-Changin”).

In the specific instant case, for what to some of us were clearly crass political reasons seeking to undermine the incoming administration, President Obama and his administration orchestrated a campaign seeking to attribute his hoped for successor’s loss not to her ineptitude and bad character but on alleged Russian electoral intervention. In that campaign they enjoyed the unquestioned collaboration of the mainstream media. The culmination of that campaign was the imposition, at the very end of his administration and without basis in proven facts, of sanctions against the Russian Federation and some of its leading citizens. To an objective observer, such action, seeking to tie the options and alternatives open to the incoming administration might have seemed not only unethical, but absolutely inappropriate, especially in the absence of any judicial adjudication where evidence was introduced and an opportunity to controvert it permitted.

In the performance of his duties as the incoming National Security Advisor to the incoming president, Michael Thomas Flynn, a dedicated public servant (with whose views I have important disagreements), stepped into the snare and has paid with his public life. Despite hysterical arguments concerning the never applied Logan Act (which apparently does not apply to members of the Democratic Party and never has, from Thomas Jefferson to Jimmy Carter to Hillary Clinton), it was entirely appropriate for Mr. Flynn to conduct discussions concerning any and all topics of interest to the incoming administration which would assume total responsibility for national affairs on day one, minute one and second one after its installation, and which was expected to be fully prepared to do so. Presidential transitions deal not only with personnel but with policies that need to be in place at that instant to assure a seamless transition. The real issue ought to have been President Obama’s having taken such an evidently partisan position on such a critical issue without consulting the administration that would have been responsible for its implementation. But the mainstream media, the GOP and the Clintonian Democrats had no interest in decreasing the risk of suicidal conflict with Russia and thus had no problem with so inappropriate an action, reminiscent of President Adam’s midnight appointments on the last day of his administration in 1801 (see Marbury v. Madison).

Michael Thomas Flynn fell into the trap of not proving fully accurate information to his superiors and that was wrong. He ought not to have commented on the matter to the mainstream media at all which was apparently baiting him on the issue, already having received leaked classified information on point from Obama – Clinton loyalists. The conversation with the Russian ambassador ought to have been confidential. But he did comment and the information provided was not fully accurate, and that was wrong.

Of course, false testimony under oath (perjury) is generally considered much more wrong and he was certainly not guilty of that, unlike former Secretary of State and defeated presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and most starkly relevant, former President Obama’s own Director of the National Security Agency, James Clapper, both of whom clearly lied in sworn testimony to Congress. The media hypocrisy on this ought to be considered devastating but much more important than anything else is the probability that the whole faux crisis was orchestrated on a bipartisan basis with mass media collaboration by neoliberals opposed to a less belligerent administration, to a less interventionist administration, to an administration more dedicated to diminishment of international conflict.

For real progressives, as much as we may despise many of President Trump’s GOP inspired theocratic tendencies with their racist and xenophobic undertones, his inclinations towards a less belligerent and less interventionist foreign policy were a silver lining. And that silver lining, in many of the mainstream media’s campaigns against President Trump, is what it is really fighting as a dutiful servant of the Ancien régime.

Please view the following interview with Dennis Kucinich, a real progressive, in its entirety:  http://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/2017/02/14/kucinich-pins-flynn-leak-on-intel-community-warns-another-cold-war.html
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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2017; all rights reserved