Last week, I posted an editorial from the Combat Veterans for Congress PAC that condemned the NYT editorial by ADM McRaven who argued for an “immediate replacement” for POTUS. This article provides some amplification and additional background on McRaven and his editorial. To start with, McRaven previously had an editorial published in the Washington Post in August 2018 chastising the President for directing the rescinding of John Brennan’s security clearances. That opinion piece is linked in this article here; I refuse to quote from it because it was as disgraceful as his latest diatribe in the NYT.

Perhaps the best rejoinder to that 2018 McRaven article was posted by Ray Starmann, editor of US Defense Watch, as excerpted here:

You … wrote, sir, in reference to the President, “Through your actions, you have embarrassed us in the eyes of our children, humiliated us on the world stage and, worst of all, divided us as a nation.”

Actually, Admiral, the only person who has humiliated the US on the world stage in the last decade is Barack Hussein Obama. During the eight years of the Obama administrations, the world watched as the US cow-towed to Iranian thugs, let the Chinese run rings around us in the Pacific, while ISIS murdered tens of thousands of innocent people in the Middle East. Believe me, Admiral, the children of Syria and Iraq are rejoicing in their liberation from ISIS mass murderers. And, the people of the Middle East and across the world are sleeping soundly tonight, knowing that an incompetent, narcissistic maniac like Hillary Clinton isn’t sitting in the Oval Office.

As far as the nation’s current political schism, you need only look at your fellow liberals who are inciting violence and propagating hatred on a daily basis. You then dared the Commander in Chief to revoke your security clearance.

I’m sure you’re aware of the following regulation in the UCMJ. Retired military officers are subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) under Article 2 of the UCMJ, which extends the jurisdiction of military law to “Retired members of a regular component of the armed forces who are entitled to pay.” “Retirees are subject to the UCMJ and may be tried by court-martial for violations … that occurred … while in a retired status.” Article 88 of the UCMJ criminalizes “contemptuous words against the President, the Vice President, Congress, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of a military department, the Secretary of Homeland Security, or the Governor or legislature of any State.”

How does a guy like you still support the destructive policies of Obama, and furthermore, how does a guy like you support Brennan, when you know damned well Brennan was a communist, and that he perjured himself in front of Congress, how does that happen? You, sir, are representative of what is, in my opinion, as a former Army Captain and combat veteran of the 7^th Cavalry, the worst generation of senior leaders this nation has ever fielded. Bar None. The majority of you, were and are what the late Colonel David Hackworth so eloquently described as ‘perfumed princes.’

It doesn’t matter how many degrees you have; how many combat tours you did and how much fruit salad you earned. It doesn’t matter that you have the SEAL Trident. Your generation of senior leaders sold and is selling out the nation’s defense to the highest bidder and that bidder is social engineering and leftist ideology. You and your generation of leftist senior leaders have allowed our military to be destroyed for the greater glory of pensions, Tricare and political power, national security be damned.

Now, that you’ve overseen the decimation of our military, you are determined to overthrow a sitting President because he represents everything anathema to the left – America First and the fact that the USA IS AND ALWAYS WILL BE THE GREATEST COUNTRY ON THE FACE OF THE EARTH. You are all nothing more than political hacks; Obama leftists fighting some kind of insurgent anti-Trump campaign like a division of crazed left-wing fanatics holed up in the Beltway National Redoubt, waiting for a last op order from der Fuehrer, Barack Hussein Obama.

Read the rest here. I would add to Starmann’s piece that Article 134 of the UCMJ applies to McRaven, too. It is a general article and covers items such as “to the prejudice of good order and discipline,” “breach of custom of the service,” and “Conduct of a nature to bring discredit upon the armed forces.” A conviction under Article 134 would be relatively straightforward. It’s possible that Article 94 would apply to him, too, as that editorial he wrote is perilously close to sedition.

To return to McRaven’s NYT opinion piece, here is some back-and-forth between the chairman of the Combat Veterans for Congress and BG Donald Bolduc, USA (retd’), who is a Republican candidate for the US Senate in New Hampshire this election cycle. General Bolduc was an Army special forces operator. He commented on the McRaven article and the CVFC PAC editorial response in an email to CAPT John, the CVFC PAC chairman:

Joe,

I have no issues with your Op-Ed.

I worked directly for ADM McRaven and have a lot of respect for him.

I am not sure why he submitted his op-Ed.  I was surprised to see it.

Best,

Don

CAPT John has also allowed me to post his email response to General Bolduc here because it amplifies his reasoning for writing his rebuttal editorial to ADM McRaven’s NYT article.

BGen Bolduc,

Thank you for the below listed E-mail. It may be appropriate for me to provide you with the many reasons why I drafted an Op Ed about the actions of a 4-Star Admiral who, for the first time in 243 years, publicly called for removal of a sitting US President—“the sooner the better’, even before the President could stand for his re-election in 12 months; in effect, supporting what Schiff, Brennan, Clapper, Pelosi, Nadler, Comey, Clapper, Perez, McCabe, Strzok, Schumer, and Soros have been working aggressively towards for three years. I also took note of what a very famous 4-Star General did when he was relieved of his combat command by President Truman. Never did General McArthur call for removal of President Truman from the Oval Office.

Among the many reason I broke my silence on McRaven’s actions over an 8-year period, was how Karen and Bill Vaughn, the parents of SOC Aaron C. Vaughn, USN (SEAL Team SIX), informed me they were treated by McRaven after their son was lost. Chief Vaughn was one of 17 Navy SEALs from SEAL Team SIX killed, among all of the 30 Spec Ops military personnel killed in the 2011 Extortion 17 disaster, which was a direct result of Obama’s very dangerous Rules of Engagement (ROE) that prevented  suppression fire from being initiated before the operation to make landing zone safe for one slow moving helicopter. Bill Vaughn was so upset that he authored the book, “Betrayed: The Shocking True Story of Extortion 17,” as told by a Navy SEAL’s Father. Karen and Bill informed me that McRaven pressured them and other parents of the 17 deceased Navy SEALs to keep their concern about the ROE to themselves while he continued to praise Obama’s ROE and also tried to convince them that the 30 US Special Operators should have gone into the operation as ordered.

Karen and Bill said McRaven infuriated the parents of the 17 Navy SEALs killed. They insisted their sons were betrayed because the 30 operators should have been in about 5 different fast-moving Spec Ops helicopters, and the landing area should have been well softened up before the slow moving lumbering helicopter went in. In short, that helicopter was a sitting duck.

Another issue that prompted me to draft an Op Ed was my knowledge of a memo McRaven signed on March 22, 2013 when he served in the Obama administration that “applauded” DoD’s decision to eliminate the Direct Combat Assignment Rule (DCAR) and called for the “eventual and complete integration of women into US Special Operations Forces tip of the spear units. Obama rewarded McRaven by promoting him twice to 4-star rank over other very highly decorated and qualified SEAL Officers.

VADM Pete Heckman drafted the following comments about McRaven: “McRaven is a loose cannon of the worst kind and should have been fired long before he achieved Flag Rank, while thereafter he was protected by Obama and his crowd. President Trump saw to it the guy did not get another tour and sent him into retirement.  He has never shut up, and bears a big-time grudge. He surely lusted after the CNO job, as did Obama’s four-star black woman Admiral and the reason Navy moved Richardson over from SEA 08 to the CNO job. McRaven’s present actions and commentary fall far outside established protocol. Would be interesting to see if he was retired at the four-star rank officially. This takes an appointment by the Senate. Normally all Flag retirees officially retire at the 2-star rank, but may, for social purposes, be addressed at their highest rank. I was retired with a Senatorial appointment as a permanent Vice Admiral, subject to recall at any time. I will bet he was retired as a permanent 2-star. He should go somewhere and spend his time fishing.” [end of VADM Heckman’s comments]

I wanted to especially point out McRaven’s very close association with a “very dangerous” man, John Brennan, who voted for a Communist running for president, placed many members of The Muslim Brotherhood International Terrorist Organization into sensitive key government positions for Obama, and initiated the false Russian Collusion hoax. I do believe Brennan will soon be indicted for being involved in trying to overthrow the President of the United States – something McRaven was supporting by inappropriately using his rank and reputation as a SEAL to convince the broader American public, in his New York Times Op Ed, to get behind the impeachment of President Trump.

For all the above reasons, I drafted that Op Ed. I’ve written President Trump and recommended that he follow McRaven’s own suggestion made to directly to him, that the President revoke McRaven’s security clearance, after Brennan’s security clearance was revoked. Article 88 of the UCMJ would authorize the revocation.

Respectfully,

Joe

It should be noted that McRaven isn’t the only former Obama flag officer/general officer (FOGO) who has trashed @POTUS over the past three years. The list is long: McChrystal, Clapper, Stavridis, Allen, and others. Oh, and the miserable Bush 43 FOGO Hayden, too. I have posted a couple of previous threads on the general subject. Here is one that provides some blowback on ADM Stavridis’s article in Time Magazine some months ago.

All of these Obama FOGOs are in violation of Articles 88 and 134 of the UCMJ and should be recalled to active duty and dealt with accordingly. Time was, retired FOGOs kept their mouths shut about politics, and certainly never publicly criticized a US president. They should remember that they never leave the reach of the President. FOGOs are always on call, always recallable to active duty.

Obama cashiered nearly 200 FOGOs during his tenure and ensured that those selected to FOGO ranks – especially at the 3-star and 4-star levels – were politicized and controlled. The result has been diminished military readiness in favor of crackpot social policies and horrible ROEs. Thank God for POTUS, as military readiness – and morale – have been improving virtually since the day he was inaugurated in January 2017.

To conclude, President Trump is just the type of unorthodox guy who could test the system and bring the naysayers back to active duty to be charged under the UCMJ. Wouldn’t that be interesting to watch: hammer someone who lets his mouth overload his arse.

The end.