Violent extremists stand with Donald Trump — as do many of my Marine buddies
…first published in the Arizona Mirror
by Marine Lt. Colonel Westmoreland, Ret.
[ Editor’s Note: The usual sifting we do here at VT caught a rare fish with this retired Marine pilot sharing his experiences and shock over his fellow white Marines’ infatuation with Trump, when as officers they were trained to be just the opposite.
This paralleled my own shock of another officer corps group, where I was discussing doing a potential briefing on the fake Trump Steal fiasco that laid the foundation for the Capitol coup.
They took a pass on the offer, stating that they would feel uncomfortable being connected to anything that could be viewed as supporting a ‘Biden communist government’.
And this mind you, was after I had sent a copy of the historic Joint Chiefs of Staff letter where they laid down the law that Biden had won the election, it had been certified, and he was going to be inaugurated on January 20th.
When I read Colonel Westmoreland’s experience with his fellow Marine pilots, it just added to what the capital coup had shown us, that the cops and military are infected with the racism stain, despite all the training they have about maintaning good order. Most do, but deep down in the hearts of some, they are just play acting.
The biggest shocker for me is the 45% poll number for Republicans stating that they were just fine with the attempted Capitol coup, but then I remembered that that segment of the party are the hard core Trumpers, and their only regret is that they were not successful.
VT sees some common links to the Business Plot of 1933 where the American Legion was the spearhead for attempting a coup against Roosevelt, using Marine General Smedley Butler to lead the troops, but he was smart enough to take a pass.
We see the same mindset in the people who are the real power behind the Trumpers, trying to impose a fascistic government onto America, but via the poorly chosen Orange Buffoon. To all of Trump’s military supporters I would have to ask, “What part of ‘losers and suckers’ do you not get?”
The military is not alone in this thinking, as plenty of cops are onboard, especially the Oathkeepers. VT spotted them (white cops) getting up early during the Black Lives Matter riots so they could bring in their pallets of bricks to be used downtown in the cities.
They even broke store windows for the molotov cocktail boys to later follow them and burn businesses out, to make it look like Democratic governors could not control their cities and to clear the way for Trump to send troops in.
If anyone were to stop them while exiting the mayhem, they could just pull out their badge and claim they were working undercover, a long used scam. America is going to get a long hard look in the mirror before all of this is over, if it ever is.
A full investigation of the Capitol coup has to go back much further to the summer disturbances that had psy warfare neon signs flashing all over them. We have people at VT who had a lot of experience on this during the Cold War… Jim W. Dean ]
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First published … January 19, 2021
We will remember the attacks of Jan. 6 with the same horror as we remember the terrorist attacks of 9/11. While there was far less loss of life at the U.S. Capitol, our loss of national dignity was far worse.
We know President Donald Trump incited and encouraged the mob that perpetrated the attack. During the attack he gave a half-hearted video address in which he told the attackers, “We love you. You’re very special.”
According to a report from ABC News, “at least nine of those arrested for participating in the riot have been confirmed to be former members of the U.S. military,” and, as for the upcoming inauguration, Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy told The Associated Press Sunday that defense officials are “taking second, third looks at every one of the individuals assigned to this operation” to guard against the potential of an attack being carried out by military personnel.
In 2015 and 2016, I belonged to a by-invitation-only social media group of former Marine Corps fighter pilots. I was astounded at the group’s overwhelming support for Trump. This was not a group of “the uneducated” whom Trump famously professed to love, but a group of educated, highly intelligent, highly accomplished former military leaders.
There were 17 Republican presidential candidates then, and I’d routinely ask, “Why Trump?” What makes him so much more appealing than the other sixteen candidates? My friends all struggled with this question so I answered it for them: the overt, in-your-face racism and bigotry.
Look at the crowd that stormed the Capitol: a mob of white supremacists peppered with groups like the Boogaloo Boys, Proud Boys, Aryan Nations – littered with people wearing shirts with logos stating that not enough Jews were killed in the Holocaust. The folks in that crowd who are not members of those groups had no problem joining those who are.
I’m white, as are more than 95% of Marine Corps fighter pilots. I don’t remember many issues or instances of racism from my Marine Corps days. I have no evidence or cause to call any of my former colleagues racists. But they overlooked, tolerated and attempted to minimize Trump’s racism. So what does that say about them?
We spent years aspiring to, teaching, living the 14 Marine Corps leadership traits, such as justice, integrity, unselfishness, judgment. We followed leadership principles like “setting the example” and “taking responsibility.” We studied history, politics and warfare. We held each other accountable. We were better leaders and we were better pilots than our contemporaries in the Air Force and Navy.
We were brutally honest with each other in identifying and correcting weaknesses and deficiencies. In my mind, Trump is the embodiment of everything we stood against: an incompetent leader, a racist, a liar, a con man. It’s been hard to swallow that most of my former colleagues are all in for him.
Not only did 74 million Americans vote for him, but a YouGov poll indicates that 45% of Republicans are OK with the attack on the Capitol. This latter group should be a sobering concern to us all.
As for my former colleagues — men I spent most of my adult life with, men I flew in combat with, men with whom I celebrated weddings and the births of our children, I’ve spoken to very few of them since 2016. Whatever bonds held us together are not strong enough for me to turn a blind eye to their embrace of what I believe has been the biggest threat to our nation since the Civil War.
On a crystal clear fall day in 1994, I was patrolling the skies over Sarajevo as the sun set over a city that looked as though it could just as easily have been Cleveland as a city in Europe. I had a front row seat as Serb forces in hills surrounding the besieged civilians in the city below opened fire with tanks, artillery, and mortars and fired indiscriminately for more than two hours.
Seeing supposedly civilized Europeans indiscriminately kill civilians was something I was not prepared for. As I watched the attack on the U.S. Capitol this month, I got the same feeling in the pit of my stomach and the same metallic taste in my mouth that I experienced on that day in 1994.
I don’t think average citizens understand how dangerous the tolerance of lies by political leaders can be. Lies and hate led to the rise of fascism in the former Yugoslavia. Lies and hate led to the rise of the Third Reich. Lies and hate led to the attack on our Capitol on January 6th.
Every American should stop and consider that. at this minute, thousands of American troops are deployed to the capital city of the United States to protect our government against violence and threats from Americans — after an attack by Americans.
I wonder how my former colleagues feel about the attacks carried out by their fellow Trump supporters. Is it too late for them to remember that they once swore an oath to the country and the Constitution and not to a party led by a dangerous man?
This piece was first published by the Louisiana Illuminator, a sister publication of Arizona Mirror and a member of the States Newsroom network of local nonprofit newsrooms.
Jim W. Dean is VT Editor Emeritus. He was an active editor on VT from 2010-2022. He was involved in operations, development, and writing, plus an active schedule of TV and radio interviews. He now writes and posts periodically for VT.
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“Rumor has it” I like that. You couldn’t be more subtle?
If hearts and minds, are a primary objective, then it does not bode well if we don’t have our own. The people are not dumb intuitively, and in the aftermath a unity is forming between very disparate groups, that corporations, MIC, and corrupt religions are what is in charge, and it is hard to argue they are wrong. The money and power flows have never been more obvious. And while the Trumpers were wrong about their particular election, they are not wrong about general problems in our elections. It never got the attention it is getting now, because the people who finally complained loudly enough were white christians. Everyone else has gotten squashed when they try to bring it up. They encountered the game of pretend. If we do not tax the churches, we are just counting minutes.
Not because I do not advocate for freedom of religion, but because it is painfully obvious Britain is using them against us. One example is Templeton and there are many others too numerous to count. I’m not an inside guy, so it just makes me wonder, are we ignorant to Britains machinations, or simply afraid ? I suppose the third option, is to redefine the word coincidence, but thats probably just the path of least resistance.
Here is a an example of what may be US Marine Corp dominionist indoctrination. Note: I am not mocking anyone’s religious beliefs. In the video link below you will see what seems like very young enlisted Marines at a church service singing and chanting the song: “These are the Days of Elijah.”
You can see the soldiers dance, hold on to each other by the shoulder and go into a semi-trance. The song is completely devoid of New Testament teachings in my opinion. This could be an example of dominionist mind control in the Marine Corps. Religious end times beliefs can be weaponized. Again, no offense to sincere Christian believers.
US Marines sing “These are the days of Elijah”. From Youtube
121,152 views •Jan 17, 2021
Copy and paste to your browser to view:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpoyL6eGhhQ&feature=youtu.be
I usually don’t post links to videos but I think this one is an important to share with the VT community. VT editors: if you think this post is inappropriate or offensive please feel free to delete.
It is quite telling, how sensitive we have to be talking about religion. Emotions are never part of a decent analysis. The sheer manner in which one must dance across the rice paper, is indicative of an overly emotional reaction to any criticism of religion. And yet, the results and products are there for any child to see. If the Trumpers are dumb, then guess who else is ?
This is the whole thing, and the game of pretend, is pretty deep. Our country can either let go the child and become adult or age like a depraved adolescent. Any decent military has no bias but that of its charge. To see foreign based military psyops 2,000 years old permeating our defense, is frankly as dumb as anything I have seen anywhere. It is childish. We are not training men, we are producing immature robots.
I thought the same the 1st time I watched that video. The majority of ” Christian”
churches are practicing the teachings of the Talmud not of the Christ.
The great mystery of the 21st century, Who is a “REAL” christian ?
It looks to me , as if the Romans settled a debt by making a Jewish man god. two halves of the same book.
In my experience, I find professional pilots in general to be exceptionally dumb about things like politics and history. Not trying to be mean here. No offense, they are incredibly skilled in their technical lane, but they incorrectly believe that they know way more than what they actually know and what they do know is typically grotesquely distorted. Never accept general legal pronouncements or anything related to the Constitution from professorial pilots.
Although I do not know if he’s a pilot, I would say Sen Rand Paul would also be representative of this phenomenon even though he’s an Ophthalmologist specializing in cataract and glaucoma surgeries, LASIK procedures, and corneal transplants. Hardly a good background for a US Senator.
Therefore, its much easier to influence and mind control pilots as they are very susceptible to propaganda operations. There is a reason the bad guys had a big amount of control over the Air Force and why the Air Force Academy is one of their favorite recruiting grounds.
My post concerns indoctrination in the US military. You could not fail to notice that a signification percentage of the rioters or insurrectionists were current or former military. And no I am not trolling anyone. I am deeply concerned about a malevolent fifth column in the US military and in the US government.
My view is that Sen Paul would have some of the same beliefs as the military pilots referenced in the article based on his education and career. I think that assessment bears out in real life.
Well, it has been observed, that rocking the boat is not a “pilot thing”. Comfort is a factor as most protestors are motivated by disadvantage or trauma derived from lopsided interactions with authority. There is a percentage, that are simply doing what is right while sacrificing their own comfort, but it is usually measured to well above what most have to lose. The cases where the well positioned are willing to go broke or decommissioned to support the lower class, are rare. But, I wouldn’t turn away help from anyone. Always be ready for those that turn, especially when they have skills or knowledge. To relinquish, is a measure of a person. It has to be bonafide.
These are all very well considered comments that folks are making, and some degree of truth is in them. I have yet to read a commenter refer to the state’s difficulty in making the population ‘comfortable’. If the state overly responds to need, then they are accused of coddling laziness and of being socialist. Community efforts always need to be made to take care of the less fortunate or the mentally or physically disadvantaged. But there seem to be political forces at work that seek to deny that.
The world has gone global, and it is a competitive place, no doubt about that. If an individual doesn’t have the needed skill set, then in order to eat and/or survive, some community effort is called for. We need to feed the population. We need to re train the available workers, if they can no longer work for example in restaurant kitchens or elsewhere. There are only a few pragmatic responses that have been honed by time and experience. Insurrection and acting out does not reduce the challenges, and it won’t fix anything.
By the way, the Senate confirmation hearing for Mr. Buttigieg brought up good points about commerce and transportation. It’s on utube.
Great article
We have the same issues in the British Army, in fact my 80’s sandhust mtq 2 precis (officer training manual at university otc’s for the military training 2 qualification platoon commander stuff) had a leaving speech by a retiring RSM of Sandhurst in the Annex, praising the WW2 Hitler youth as a, ‘great bunch of lads’ lol! It did make me wonder a bit about top leadership; as well as giving some of us a laugh between drinking and chatting up the lady uni officer cadets.
Gotta say though, where the author writes, ‘ In my mind, Trump is the embodiment of everything we stood against: an incompetent leader, a racist, a liar, a con man.’
You have also to look at it from this other point of view, in terms of ‘murican values, you could also be writing about a,
‘..man whose life and work and ideas are so openly and avowedly compatible with our American way of life.’ It was in fact held, especially by some in the GOP, that, ‘A vote for him would be a vote for the perpetuation of everything we hold dear.’
..only in ‘murica obviously!
Reference
http://gis.washington.edu/phurvitz/outgoing/bustagut/Non-SlanderousPoliticalSmearSpeech.htm
Well, time to cut the Military budget as what is America gaining by all that money spent on said Military? Perhaps as my Green Beret Nephew says, the Military is a bloated welfare agency that needs to be cut by 50% as I can assure you as I live in “Q” town here in rural Wisconsin.
I am shopping for a combat rifle and not for use against the evil Government but for protection against tRump “Q” supporters as I called all my friends and neighbors on this insurrection since Jan 6 as they know my stand on the issue. Fock em….
My Marine corps son in law is simply astounded by what he is seeing as the propaganda promoted online is simply stunning.
Thanks for publishing this as its the truth.
It’s pretty much always been like this Nine, but the PR guys have to paper it over as best they can. The Corps have never been able to control what is inside people’s heads.
Thank You , Colonel Westmoreland .
“…and I’d routinely ask, “Why Trump?” What makes him so much more appealing than the other….”
Leting aside maybe something racism and bigotry, because him represented his more deepest feeling and something that was taking place by first time, they felt now as minority in his own country, they felt as a kind of “palestinians”…. bridging the gap of course.
Following up on Mr. Dean’s comment: It has always puzzled me why the numerous (17?) US intel agencies who likely had the goods on Trump did not squelch nascent candidacy in 2015 or 2016 at the latest. One has many, many questions for Comey and the CIA leadership – John Brennan and Gina Haspel come to mind. They obviously had the 25 year old classified US intel created dossier, which was updated on an ongoing basis, on Trump. I don’t think the Russian gov or intel had the power to suppress this massive amount of information. I think Mr. Dean may be on the right track on this.
There was the Trump factor, but the over 20 Repubs running, including a number of vanity candidates, they all blended together, and Trump played to his strength which was being different, and even more, being the bad boy that could get away with it. At VT we knew the Repubs had to know most of what we knew about Trump, and were waiting for the opposition research to be published, and it appears that Shelly Adleson and friends were able to quash that.
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