In an expected move, Trump campaign advisor Lieutenant General Michael T. Flynn (retired) has been offered a role as Trump’s national security advisor. 57 year old Flynn, a registered Democrat who headed up Obama’s Defense Intelligence Agency, has been a frequent presence at Trump rallies along the campaign trail. If he accepts the position (he will), Flynn will bring a massive amount of experience dealing with foreign conflict and intelligence.
Pros:
-
Vast experience gained through leadership roles in Iraq and Afghanistan, but, is on record as having called Iraq a “huge error.”
“As brutal as Saddam Hussein was, it was a mistake to just eliminate him,” Flynn went on to say. “The same is true for Moammar Gadhafi and for Libya, which is now a failed state. The historic lesson is that it was a strategic failure to go into Iraq. History will not be and should not be kind with that decision.” –Spiegel.de
-
Impressive background dealing with intelligence and in particular, how to deal with information overload and integrate new methods of communication into decision making.
-
Understands that Islamic Terror is a serious threat. Not afraid to say it, and was reportedly forced out of Obama’s Defense Intelligence Agency over voicing his concerns.
-
Believes the USA and Russia should collaborate to fight Islamic terror.
Cons:
-
Controversy: in 2015, as a private citizen, Flynn attended a gala dinner in Moscow for RT – the Russian owned English-language news outlet on which he was a frequent analyst.
-
Flynn Intel Group has been paid to provide analysis on world affairs to a Turkish businessman, however Flynn told the Wall St. Journal:
“If I return to government service, my relationship with my company will be severed in accordance with the policy announced by President-elect Trump.”
Trump announced this week that he wouldn’t allow registered lobbyists to work for his transition team, and from everything I have read about Flynn, I would expect him to honor his pledge.
If you enjoy the content at iBankCoin, please follow us on Twitter
Prepare for complete Communist Manifesto like hit pieces to go full retard instantly. Today’s left makes Stalin look gentle. None of this is on accident. Reaction to Bannon was the rule. We are in fact a Banana Republic. Jan 20 can not come fast enough. Civil unrest is a given.
Those blumpkins at Huffington Post are already losing their shit over Flynn. It’s hit piece after dramatic exaggerated hit piece.
I don’t view that Moscow RT dinner as a ‘con’. I view Obama as a con. But then again RT is ‘fake news’.
This is a wecolmed relief from Obama policies of supporting terrorists, regime change, and conflict with Russia.
The other interesting choice is co-opting Romney in the Secretary of State position. It gives him someone competent to handle health care reform, unifies the party, and keeps Romney from dissenting openly. This would be a big.
Banks done running here? Many of them are up 30%+ in the last 3 months.
Trumpies screamed at Hillary’s alleged pay-for-play but this is OK?
https://www.yahoo.com/news/michael-flynn-key-trump-aide-sat-in-on-intel-briefings-while-advising-foreign-clients-004512931.html?soc_src=social-sh&soc_trk=tw
Considering what’s going on in Turkey, did Flynn recuse himself when intelligence briefings touched on Turkey? Or did the Turkish government hire him to obtain classified intelligence information? Can’t we be a little consistent in our outrage?
Based on his publicquotes, Flynn is anti-Islam — the entire religion — as opposed to just islamic terrorists. “Fear of Muslims is rational,” he said.
@trader, Flynn advised ONE Turkish business. The rest of the article claims “overseas clients” but lists none. Is that enough for a witch hunt?
@ginfizzbear, I think his issue (not to put words in his mouth) has more to do with the Islamization of America. Paris and Germany now have Shaira components to their government. They also have Islamic ghettos, rape gangs, and rampant crime committed by violent Muslims – all of which happened after their respective governments opened the door and made it racist to question what was going on.
Are all Muslims bad? Of course not. In fact, most of them are not. But 51% of them do support Sharia law. It may be coincidence, but everywhere that Islam has spread throughout the first world has become a shitpile of rape and violence. I’d be curious on some clarity on Flynn’s perspective regarding a Muslim’s individual right to practice their religion vs. Islamization.
Thank you for your comment zeropoint, I think I’d like to see more clarity on what he is trying to say. I don’t want to assume the worst.
Flynn does not consider Islam to be a religion. “”Islam is a political ideology,” Flynn said. “It definitely hides behind being a religion.” This is from a discussion of his book, How We Can Win the Global War Against Radical Islam and Its Allies.
from the Dallas News: (http://www.dallasnews.com/news/2016-presidential-election/2016/08/10/dallas-trumps-favorite-general-voices-doubts-whether-gop-nominee-isa-republican) :
He likened Islam, a religion with 1.6 billion adherents worldwide, to “a cancer” and said that documents recovered from terrorist organizations instruct followers to “get into the bloodstream of the opposition,”
So based on his quotes, I have to conclude that he considers any practicioner of Islam to be a political enemy. He gives me the impression that he thinks all Muslims are bad, even though you and I don’t. I have an open mind, and I’d be happy to read anything that proves otherwise. Until then, I will adhere to my conclusion.
Hmm, that is fairly straightforward, and I will take that into consideration when covering Flynn going forward. At this point – assuming he takes the job, he’s going to need to clarify his position. More importantly, Trump is going to need to clarify HIS position on Muslims.
I will say this – there certainly IS a cancerous part of Islam. Not the whole thing, and not the average Muslim. But there are very popular hate preaching Imams all over the world who are calling for death to large congregations. In the Middle East, Islam is known for egregious human rights violations we all know about. So, what needs to happen is for progressive influential Imams to shift the tenets of the religion, much like Christians have done for centuries for various reasons.
Zero… but that ONE client had a relationship to the despot in Turkey. Flynn should hold news conference to clarify this circumstance and then we can all move on. Trump certainly has the right to appoint whom he wants. There certainly are a lot of crazy Muslims around the world but hard to point to any issues here in the US. Live and let live. We do have nutty Christian preachers here calling for the stoning of gays which ain’t much better. Right?
Trader, agreed that he needs to address this if he’s going to take the job. Not very swamp drainy to let it slide.
On Islam – there are WAY fewer Muslims in America. It’s close to 10% in France vs. less than 1% in the USA. The violence in French (and German) Muslim ghettos is out of control, so we are trying to avoid welcoming that if we can.
Yes there are crazy Christian hate preachers too, but that phenomenon is orders of magnitude smaller. Also, I don’t know of any Christian nations who put gays to death for being gay. Sharia, on the other hand, is the wholesale acceptance of that behavior.
Sorry. All one has to do is read a few of the thousands of history books. From both sides. Not compatible. That is all.