Probably one of the most disturbing things about the advent of the current dark times we live in is to see the number of people selling their souls to the demon that is Trump and villainy he espouses. For the prior military folks such as John Kelly, the sin is compounded by the fact that they are supposed to know better. This is an open letter, originated by my disgust last week at seeing him debase himself to defend Trump.
Dear Mr. Kelly,
May I call you John? This is meant to be a friendly entreaty to help steer you on the right path, so it makes sense to address you by your first name.
What is that you say? You don’t like that. Address you as sir or general? No, I don’t think I will do that. See, we both have something in common now, actually a couple of things. We are both retired, and that means our former ranks are behind us, put up on the shelf to remember as we would a trophy or any other memento. But they have very little relevance to the present. And it’s about your present actions and beliefs that the discussion is about now. We also have the misfortune of knowing our jobs are made much harder by the presence of Donald Trump in the White House. You have choices to make in the year to come. You can join the true patriots, out there in the deep state trying to remain true to the oath to the Constitution, or you can be co-opted by the evil that Trump represents. You cannot do both.
First, let me offer my sincere condolences on the loss of your son in Afghanistan. I have no doubt he was a fine man and a good leader-I’ve no doubt you raised him well and boys tend to follow in their father’s footsteps. That he was lost in a pointless conflict that still continues to this day, well, the knowledge of that fact alone must make the loss even harder to bear. I understand the tragedy of it, all too well.
You say you were “stunned” at the remarks made by Congressman Wilson. You were “broken-hearted at what I saw a member of Congress doing. A member of Congress who listened in on a phone call from the President of the United States to a young wife, and in his way tried to express that opinion — that he’s a brave man, a fallen hero, he knew what he was getting himself into because he enlisted.”
You probably need to fire someone on your staff, whoever was designated to write up the talking points for you, because they clearly failed to do their research. And even worse they allowed you to go out on the stage and state things as facts, that were simply and clearly, flat out wrong. Both as to why the Congresswoman was listening in and to the circumstances of the building you cited. As I said, good staff work would have prevented you from making that hideous mistake on TV. Surely good staff work would have informed you that:
The Johnsons have known Wilson for decades — most of those years before the former educator moved to Washington to join Congress…. The deceased soldier was an alumnus of the 5,000 Role Models of Excellence Project, a mentoring program Wilson started for youths pursuing military careers among other fields. So were his brothers. One received a full scholarship to Bethune Cookman College and the other is training to become a firefighter.
And it would not take a rocket scientist to know that -knowing Trump would fumble an opportunity to show genuine human empathy, something you should know that he lacks any ability to do-people were going to make an issue of it. Particularly because it fits well into the drumbeat of evidence that your boss is unfit for the office he holds. Of course, it was going to come out. Your first instincts were correct, your boss should never have made the call. Even worse, the whole morass came up because your boss, who was not even asked if he had made a phone call, chose to drag you and your family into the discussion of the events in Niger-because he is more obsessed with proving he is not Obama than with doing the right thing.
By allowing yourself to be dragged into a morass he created when he did not need to, by not addressing the root question of why these Soldiers were in Niger in the first place, you became an accomplice to cruelty. And he never has yet answered why his administration is allowing an already over-committed military to be overcommitted, even more. You, by deploying the memory of your son-something you said you would not do-allowed your boss to get absolved. You gave your “inexcusable boss that boss’s most recent alibi for that boss’s most recent offense against human decency and the dignity of his office. There’s a great sadness in that.”
And then, we should probably talk about the idea of “knowing what you signed up for” really means. I’ll mention it from my own perspective of 29 years service on active duty. Since that is the only one I have as a reference. I knew what “I signed up for” when I volunteered. But I was also fully conscious that it was not to get killed anywhere, much less in some pointless hellhole in Africa. I signed up for the fact that, in exchange for receiving skills I wanted, and thrills I sought, America’s political leadership was going to send my young ass to many far away places. I did not, at any time, forfeit my opportunity to comment on the wisdom of those decisions-or forfeit my rights to vote and influence the individuals who would be making those decisions. Most certainly, if I had been killed during the time after 1991 while on duty flying or being pointlessly sent to Iraq on an IA, my death would not have been about “defending freedom” for the United States. It would have been closer to those of British soldiers who died in [FILL IN NAME OF COLONIAL POSSESSION HERE]. All of us knew that was part of the trade that came with the obligation to show up for work each morning. But we also hoped and prayed that those making the choices of what we did when we showed up would make good choices and resource the mission correctly. That does not appear to have happened in Niger. As of this writing, we still don’t have a full explanation of what it was they were doing there. The key issue that I and many other Americans would like to know is, the US is fighting in multiple African countries with little or no political oversight. Why? And how is it really supporting the national interest? “Knowing what we signed up for” means going where ordered, but it also means understanding why we are being ordered there and questioning whether the deployment actually makes sense.
Which brings us back to you, John. A lot of people, mistakenly it would appear, have placed their faith in the idea that you, Mattis and McMaster, would serve as a “calming” influence on the child who sits behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office. None of us are seeing much calming going on-especially recently. When was anyone going to tell Trump that picking a fight with the Soldier’s widow was a pretty pointless exercise by the way?
It begs the question that some reporters are asking about you. Did you go to work for Trump because you felt a “duty” to serve and restrain his worst impulses? Or did you go to work for him, because deep down, you believe in the same cruelty and selfishness that he believes. If it is the latter, may God have mercy on your soul. It’s an anti-American agenda, one that is poisoning the future of the country. It’s not a fitting thing for someone who served as long as you did to believe and/or support in any fashion. We are all praying that you are doing this shitty job for the former reason, but let’s be honest John, you are not giving anyone any indications that is the case. Let’s be clear what “you signed up for”, sir when you went to work for this fundamentally evil man.
[When] Trump came to power, there was more than a decent chance that the American experiment would be over. This is not a hyperbolic prediction; it is not a hysterical prediction; it is simply a candid reading of what history tells us happens in countries with leaders like Trump. Countries don’t really recover from being taken over by unstable authoritarian nationalists of any political bent, left or right—not by Peróns or Castros or Putins or Francos or Lenins or fill in the blanks. The nation may survive, but the wound to hope and order will never fully heal. Ask Argentinians or Chileans or Venezuelans or Russians or Italians—or Germans. The national psyche never gets over learning that its institutions are that fragile and their ability to resist a dictator that weak. If he can rout the Republican Party in a week by having effectively secured the nomination, ask yourself what Trump could do with the American government if he had a mandate. Before those famous schoolroom lines, Pope made another observation, which was that even as you recognize that the world is a mixed-up place, you still can’t fool yourself about the difference between the acceptable and the unacceptable: “Fools! who from hence into the notion fall / That vice or virtue there is none at all,” he wrote. “Is there no black or white? / Ask your own heart, and nothing is so plain; / ’Tis to mistake them, costs the time and pain.” The pain of not seeing that black is black soon enough will be ours, and the time to recognize this is now.
Do you even see the hideous proposals coming out of the White House? Do you really think a massive , debt ballooning, tax cut for billionaires is good for the country right now? Do you even care about the millions of people who will be harmed in a new health care bill? Surely your military experience should inform you that failure to address climate change is a security threat. I find it hard to understand how you can let these terrible things go out the door. And the ethics violations of the Cabinent are something you could put a stop to.
The window to save the Republic that both of us served is closing, John. I have little to no influence in saving it. You have a lot. You can either choose to use that influence for good, or for the continuation of evil.
Which is it, John? The country is counting on you. Are you up to the challenge?
