A Colonel in the Brig
Today a Marine Corps Lieutenant Colonel, Stuart Scheller, is languishing in solitary confinement in the Brig at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina for posting a video on his Facebook page demanding accountability from military leadership over the Afghanistan withdrawal debacle. LTC Scheller is a decorated combat veteran with five deployments to the middle east conflict who may be court martialed for this breach of military discipline. Following his heartfelt post, LTC Scheller announced he was resigning his commission and walking away from a potential $2 million pension after 17 years of service.
Because he ripped the senior military leadership following the devastating suicide bombing at the Kabul airport, which killed 13 American service members and scores of innocent Afghans, he was ordered to undergo a mental health screening and told to cease making any further remarks. He followed up with another critique. So now a Marine Corps officer is in the Brig for disobeying an order to stop questioning judgement of superiors. He did disobey orders but did tell the truth.
Throwing a decorated marine officer in jail for voicing what thousands of veterans and active-duty service members believe is speaking factually, is overkill. Punishment for this breach is due, but not a court martial. A lesser disciplinary action, an Article 15 (non-judicial punishment) and an honorable discharge from the military would be appropriate…not a court-martial. Maybe some General with an IQ higher than a hummingbird will figure this out and release him.
Meanwhile in testimony to the Armed Services Committees of the House and Senate this week by the Nation’s senior military leadership, some interesting findings have surfaced. Starting with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Mark Milley, who has leaked potentially classified conversations with foreign leaders to reporters. The man is a sieve. It was further revealed that Milley released extensive details of President Donald Trump’s presidency to several journalists writing books about his administration. General Kenneth Mackenzie, commander of the United States Central Command, confirmed that he did indeed recommend that the military should have kept 2,500 troops, along with our NATO allies forces, in Afghanistan. He also told the House Committee that the US military was aware within four to five hours that an August 29 drone strike in Kabul ‘hit civilians.’ The Pentagon failed to disclose the full incident until weeks after the aerial attack. They did not know that zero terrorist targets were killed “until sometime later.” Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, a former four star general, confessed that the collapse of the Afghan Army “took us all by surprise”. Right Lloyd. As the hearings droned on for two days, the senior military leaders of the Republic came off as the Three Stooges instead of generals like Eisenhower, MacArthur, and Marshall.
Furthermore, we have discovered that President Biden lied to the Nation regarding the “extraordinary success” of the Afghanistan withdrawal. This happened despite the efforts of partisan Biden enablers on the House and Senate committees attempting to cover for Joe’s stupid, capricious decision during the hearings. Joe Biden claimed that no military leader advised him to leave a small troop presence in Afghanistan. When ABC’s George Stephanopoulos interviewed Biden on August 19 after the catastrophic pull out, he asked Joe, “Your military advisers did not tell you, ‘No, we should just keep 2,500 troops. It’s been a stable situation for the last several years. We can do that. We can continue to do that’?” Then Biden replied, “No. No one said that to me that I can recall.” This is diametrically opposite of what the Generals testified to. One more thing…Joe said Al-Qaeda wasn’t in Afghanistan. Not true. They’re back, according to the senior military leaders.
Their testimony in Congress looked like a warning shot to the Biden handlers that they weren’t going to take the fall for the Afghanistan retreat and subsequent planned failure, nor were they going to endorse it as an “extraordinary success”. In fact, General Milley characterized the war as a “strategic failure”. So, a Marine Corps officer has been relieved of his command, thrown in a military jail, for questioning judgement of these senior leaders over their bungled Afghan withdrawal and the loss of 13 service members. But a four-star general gets praised for betraying the former Commander in Chief in a Bob Woodward book, another four-star is clueless about a drone strike and a Secretary of Defense isn’t criticized for being “taken by surprise”. Does that sound right?
Hunter Biden, a former naval officer, tested positive for cocaine while in the service. He was not jailed, didn’t face a court martial and was never decorated for heroism. He was given a general discharge. Does that sound right, when compared to the 17 years of heroic service given by LTC Scheller? Are the possible heinous consequences he faces for speaking up fair?
The Afghan abandonment is the greatest foreign-policy embarrassment in the history of the Nation. The damage to this Republic is made worse by the failure of accountability, starting with the current addled Commander in Chief and some of the most ham-handed military leaders ever seen in the Pentagon.