Marine officer pays price for blasting Biden on Bagram
Remember Alexander Vindman?
He is the woke U.S. Army lieutenant colonel who was lionized by Democrats and the media in 2019 for throwing President Donald Trump, his commander in chief, under the bus
This was over Trump’s phone call to Ukraine, which was used by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in her political and personal jihad to impeach the president.
Vindman at the time was one of several National Security Council aides who listened in on Trump’s phone conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
This was the call in which Trump allegedly pressured Zelenskyy to investigate financial deals worked out by Hunter Biden and his father, Joe Biden, when Joe Biden was vice president.
Zelenskyy denied the charge and the Senate failed to convict Trump.
Nevertheless, Vindman, whose information about the call was leaked to the media and to Adam Schiff, the Trump-hating chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, made headlines.
Vindman was paraded before Schiff ’s committee in full uniform as though he had just captured Osama bin Laden. He was made out to be a hero by the anti-Trump establishment media, which found it not only acceptable, but honorable, for a military officer to rat out his commander in chief.
As long as it was Trump. “I did not think it was proper to demand that a foreign government investigate a U.S. citizen,” Vindman testified. “I was worried about the implications.”
Vindman retired in 2020, but only after he blasted the Trump administration for blocking his promotion to full colonel, which would have enhanced his pension. His lawyer charged that Vindman’s retirement was a result of “a campaign of bullying, intimidation and retaliation” by the Trump administration.
It is too bad Vindman did not stick around. Joe Biden might have made him chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. It has certainly become obvious that he would have done no worse that the politically correct Gen. Mark Milley, who preferred to wage war against alleged white supremacists rather than the Taliban.
Contrast this to the way the Democrats and the progressive media have treated Marine Lt.. Col. Stuart Scheller, a combat veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan.
He is the Marine, with 17 years of service, who posted a video demanding accountability for the disaster at the Kabul airport that took the lives of 13 U.S. service men and women, left hundreds of Americans behind and abandoned thousands of Afghans who had worked for the U.S.
In that video, Scheller said the U.S. should never have abandoned its most strategic airbase — Bagram. In June, Milley said the base was not “tactically or operationally necessary” for the U.S. withdrawal.
Scheller said, “I’m not saying we’ve got to be in Afghanistan forever. But I am saying: Did any of you throw your rank on the table and say, ‘Hey, it’s a bad idea to evacuate Bagram Airfield, a strategic airbase, before we evacuate everyone?’”
Scheller called out Milley and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. He said the American people were upset not because the Marines let people down, but because their leaders did.
He could have included secretary of State Antony Blinken, who is as impressive as a ball boy who trips at the U.S. Open.
“People are upset because their senior leaders let them down, and none of them are raising their hands and accepting accountability, or saying, ‘We messed this up,’” Scheller said.
No sooner did Scheller post the video than he was relieved of his command of the Advanced Military Training Battalion at Camp Lejeune, N.C.
He shortly announced that he was leaving the Marines, three years short of a full pension.
There is no sign that the media will give Scheller the attention it gave Vindman. Nor will Pelosi or Schiff invite him to appear before a House Committee.
But at least somebody is listening. Some 130 former generals and other military figures signed a letter calling for the resignation of both Milley and Austin.
They said that the pair should have recommended “against this dangerous withdrawal in the strongest possible terms. If they did not do everything within their authority to stop the hasty withdrawal, they should resign.”
Resign? Biden will give them medals.