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Remember the good ol’ days when a president could be talked out of his worst impulses? So do we. This week the guys had a chance to chat with one of the people our current president should have listened to: Wisconsin Representative (and Marine Intelligence Officer) Mike Gallagher.
The Congressman takes us through the poor leadership, political and operational failures, and the dangers we face now that Afghanistan has collapsed. (And if you can, please donate to this GoFundMe campaign to help the family of Rob’s friend Habib.) The hosts also get a chance to chat about progressive colonialism and Peter’s good feeling about the California recall.
Music from this week’s podcast: Memory Motel by The Rolling Stones
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How is that “Donald Trump isn’t fit to be president” working out for you, Rob?
I had that same thought too.
I thought about making it ruder, but eh. He likely won’t see it anyway.
You want me to pass it on?
In light of the great things being done by the French Special Forces ( As well as our own retired Special Forces), I can no longer use the term “surrender monkeys” with regards to the French. That term is now reserved for the President of the United States, joebidenstan.
Probably best not to. In some ways it seems like Rob doesn’t take a lot of this kind of thing very seriously to start with – I mean stuff like “who gets to be president” – as if it’s just another type of Hollywood or something that doesn’t matter very much except for how it “looks” or something. Maybe an unfortunate but predictable fallout of the work he’s done for years. If he took it seriously, maybe he’d care less about tweets and more about lives and stuff.
So reminding him that “Donald Trump isn’t fit to be president” ends up with a bunch of dead Marines and dead Afghans, is probably “bad form.”
And we wouldn’t want that on Ricochet.
On the other hand, feel free to send the same message to Jonah Goldberg. He doesn’t have the same excuse.
Something tells me both gentlemen know exactly how you feel. Rob acknowledged as much on the show today.
I must have missed that. Did Rob say something about how he feels about dissing Trump, now that Biden is standing on a pile of bodies, many of them US Marines?
He acknowledges that his stance on the former President is not popular with the membership.
Oh, boo hoo.
I think it’s not popular with a bunch of Marines and Afghans too, among others.
From what I’ve heard, Americans military dudes really respect the French. But I will continue to make fun of them.
Here we disagree. James Burnham mentioned this in his book, Suicide of the West. Leftists are attracted to professions based on words and not on things. Historians can’t get promoted on the basis of selecting the best policies. They get promoted for words. Jonah Goldberg, Rob Long and JPod have all exclusively worked in jobs that relied on saying the right words. Not doing the right thing. So Trump comes along and says bad words but does the wrong thing and the NTers just can’t get it. Victor Davis Hanson recognizes right away that Trump says things that he doesn’t like but he does good things and his policies are good so he can deal with it.
Maybe the American military respects the French military, and it’s actually the French civilian “leadership” who are the surrender-monkeys?
Just for the record, at least one member doesn’t give a damn about him one way or the other. Though Letters From Al was funny.
After the Vichy surrender in 1940, General Weygand, CinC for the french immediately began a secret rearmament program, but was eventually sacked and put in prison by the Vichy government.
The best French General (Weygand) and the Best UK general, Wavell, had been in France in 39-40, WW2 would have gone very differently. But they were both in Egypt and Syria instead.
And now we wear the title.
Some of the Ricochet membership. I’m still a big fan.
I made the right choice when I stopped listening to the podcast.
Well Congressman Gallagher was impressive and seemed very knowledgeable – thought his observations and insights pretty interesting. I’m unfortunately represented by the ridiculous Gwen Moore. I hope he doesn’t get Paul Ryan disease.
My Son trains at Fort McCoy for Wisconsin National Guard duty each month so I’ll be curious to hear what type of briefing he gets on the Afghans.
I heard Senator Johnson talk about this on Wilkow siriusXM. Long interview. The commander had 10 days notice. It sounded like a real cluster you know what.
Not necessarily relevant to our own time, but as I recall from the book Band of Brothers by Stephen Ambrose, he says that the GIs preferred the German civilians to the French Civilians as they moved through Europe during WWII, because the Germans immediately moved ahead with cleanup and recovery as their towns were occupied, while the French sat around and waited for the Americans to take care of them.
This was one of the best podcasts in months. I hope Mike Gallagher is a more frequent guest. He further solidified the impression I formed during my career in the intelligence community of Marine intelligence officers as being the best-prepared, most insightful and, crucially, most outspoken on critical matters in the community. His seeming lack of partisan orthodoxy on matters of national security will (hopefully) make him an effective and credible voice on such matters in the future, regardless of who is in the White House.
I was reading Rob Long–with admiration–long before Donald Trump appeared on the horizon as a politician…I think it is quite possible to go on respecting those who hold RL’s view of DT, recognizing that there are indeed reasons for “not being a fan” of the last president, and still deeply regretting (as I do) that he lost to the breathtakingly dreadful Joe Biden and the entire leftist agenda.
This is good, not as critical as he could be about the military. It’s very hard to imagine how this country ended up in the hands of several layers of incredible incompetents. Some of it can be explained if we inject serious Chinese influence along the way. Which is the reason we must get rid of Biden no matter how horrible the demented left wing VP appears to be. But even Chinese influence can’t explain leaving the weapons and cash to the Taliban. Why did the military not destroy it? It’s simply beyond understanding. Has anyone on any side offered any explanation?
First, a quick practical question for which I apologize: Though a loyal Ricochet member, I do not know how to go about giving a five-star rating. Where do I go?
I have friends and relatives in the Bay Area of California, all well endowed with money, graduate degrees, and absolutely predictable “liberal” views. My guess (and that is all it is, as we practice ideological as well as social distancing) is that they will unanimously vote against the recall, as will all of their book-club amigos and amigas…From their point of view, any compromise with their virtue-signaling class interests would diminish their ability to empathize with the downtrodden.
This is only if you have Apple’s podcast app or iTunes. I don’t believe you can access it through a browser. There will be a button that says “Write a review” and that will lead you the page that allows you to give the podcast stars.
The politicazation of the USA military started by Obama has led to a degradation of the capabilities. The USA military is becoming more like a fascist state, where promotion is based on loyalty and ideology. Competence is weeded out as a threat.
Looking at most the of joint chiefs it truly reminds me of the last days of the Soviet Union.
It is at least arguable that it began under Clinton. There were articles in various publications back in the 1990s saying that the way to get promoted in the new military was to go along with the idea that the military was a test bed for implementing progressive social policies.
Can’t answer for him, but here’s a logic problem for you.
P1 T is not fit for office.
P2 B is not fit for office.
Prove: (P2 = TRUE) IMPLIES (P1 = FALSE)
Good Luck!
Biden’s new motto:
Bug Out Better!