Flynn Flam Man
By: Paul Coogan
Tags: Opinion, Politics, Propaganda, Current Events, Russia

Opinion

Flynn Flam Man

Photo by kat wilcox from Pexels

Michael Flynn just can’t stay out of the spotlight. Sometimes it feels like he is competing with Oliver North for Top Asshole while other days he tries to throw shade at G. Gordon Liddy for not being loyal enough.

His latest escapade at the Dallas QAnon conference in May 2021 (I was agape that such a thing could even exist) had him praising the brutal Myanmar coup and advocating a similar coup in the United States. Normally I would attribute such behavior to mere political attention-seeking but there was something much more rank in the consistency of his actions. It seems to be more than Alex Jones theatrics, it seems he may like the taste of Kool-Aid.

Photo by René Porter on Unsplash

But why would a man who had worked his way to the rank of three-star general go to such lengths to violate the oath he took to the United States and the military legacy of a family that served in both World Wars? I decided to take a look at the man behind the medals.

Flynn’s time in juvenile detention as a youth is shrouded by the expunging of the records after serving a year of probation but it is clear the actions that led to his detention were not thoughtful or considered, a trait that was not expunged from his personality.

At the University of Rhode Island, he managed to get a 1.2 GPA during his first year but an award of a three-year ROTC scholarship kept him in school. It may have had something to do with his banker father who had serviced under General George S. Patton in WWII.

General George S. Patton, Jr., 1945, Oil on canvas by Boleslaw Jan Czedekowski via Cliff on Flickr CC BY 2.0

Flynn’s lack of executive function served him well in his early military years. He once leaped off a 40-foot cliff to retrieve two soldiers stranded in the ocean. The action was unauthorized but respect was gained for his demonstration of loyalty. His poor decision-making continued as he entered military intelligence and shared classified information with Pakistani officials without authorization.

By 2013 Russia had taken note of this loose cannon and invited (aka lured) Michael Flynn into becoming the first U.S. officer to enter the Russian military intelligence (GRU). A second visit and a request for inviting GRU to the US were denied by none other than James Clapper.

By the following year Flynn’s chaotic management style, abuse of staff, and insubordination lost him an extension of his two-year term as director of the Defence Intelligence Agency at the Pentagon. During his tenure, his adherence to fiction was termed “Flynn facts”.

Photo by AbsolutVision on Unsplash

Flynn retired that same year and began working for foreign clients while ignoring federal laws regarding disclosure. His full embrace of being a Russian asset was attending the RT dinner in Moscow, put on by the Russian government-owned English-language media outlet, where he sat next to Russian President Vladimir Putin (and Jill Stein). His involvement with, and the payments received from RT violated the Foreign Emoluments Clause.

The limelight would be most intense as a speaker at the Republican National Convention when he verbally attacked Hillary Clinton and led the chant “Lock her up!”. His statement “if I did a tenth -a tenth- of what she did, I would be in jail today.” did not age well.

Flynn facts continued to pour out of Flynn as he posted conspiracy theories including Pizzagate and signs near the border in Arabic to help Muslims sneak into the US. It is hard to know if his spewing falsehoods was loyalty to fascism, a fanatical devotion to Islamophobia, or a flexible ethic in service of his ego. What we do know is his ideas are unethical, dangerous, and illegal.

Photo courtesy of Flickr CC0

Even before his thumbs up on an American coup, he had proposed abducting Fethullah Gülen and turning him over to Turkey, bypassing the U.S. extradition legal process. Now Flynn is the poster child for QAnon embracing the call to declare Martial Law have the military implement a national re-vote and appearing at Stop the Steal rallies.

Flynn and his gal pal, Sidney Powell, have been suspended from Twitter but even so he continues to harp on every crackpot theory that seems to serve his agenda. So far nothing about the contrails but it won’t be long.