A US Marine Corps Lieutenant Colonel who posted a video demanding accountability from military leaders over the evacuation of Afghanistan has been relieved of his duties and will leave US service, the marines and the officer involved said on Friday.
Lt. Colonel Stuart Scheller posted his video to Facebook and LinkedIn on Thursday, the day 13 US service members, 11 of them Marines, and reportedly as many as 170 Afghans, were killed in a suicide bomb attack at the airport in Kabul.
“I have been fighting for 17 years,” said Scheller, then commander of the advanced infantry training battalion. “I am willing to throw it all away to say to my senior leaders: ‘I demand accountability.’”
Scheller said he was “willing to risk my current battalion commander’s seat, my retirement, my family stability to say some of the things that I want to say”. Doing so, he said, would give him “some moral high ground to demand the same honesty, integrity, accountability for my senior leaders”.
Scheller criticized the commandant of the Marine Corps, David Berger, for a note sent to marines about how they might feel about the near-20-year US presence in Afghanistan.
“I’ve killed people and I seek counselling and that’s fine,” Scheller said. “There’s a time in place for that. But the reason people are so upset … is not because the marines on the battlefield let someone down … 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.’
“We have a secretary of defense, Lloyd Austin, a former army general, that testified to Congress in May that the Afghan national security force could withstand the Taliban advance. We have [the] joint chiefs [of Staff], the commandant is a member of that, who’re supposed to advise on military policy. We have a marine combatant commander. All of these people are supposed to advise.”
Scheller said he was “not saying we’ve got to be in Afghanistan for ever, 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?’ Did anyone do that?
“And when you didn’t think to do that, did anyone raise their hand and say, ‘We completely messed this up’?
“I’ve got battalion commander friends right now that are posting similar things, and … wondering if all the lives were lost, if it was in vain … Potentially all those people did die in vain. If we don’t have senior leaders that own up and raise their hand and say, ‘We did not do this well in the end,’ without that we just keep repeating the same mistakes.
“This amalgamation of the economic-slash-corporate-slash-political-slash-higher military ranks are not holding up their end of the bargain.”
The video went viral. Less than a day later, on Friday afternoon, Scheller said on Facebook he had been “relieved for cause based on a lack of trust and confidence as of 14.30 [2.30pm] today”.
He would not comment further until he had left the Marine Corps, he said, adding: “My chain of command is doing exactly what I would do … if I were in their shoes.”
Now folks, this is the scariest thing I have seen since our current administration came to power.
Why? Not because they fired this soldier. The real story is what the soldier was saying. He was willing to give up everything to let us know that our military has lost confidence in its leadership.
He knew the consequences, but had the guts to tell us all, that things must change, or they will be changed for us.
So, why am I scared?
The answer is simple, history.
All we have to do is look at the past and we can see what happens when a nation’s military loses confidence in the government and is used to bring about change.
Let’s start with Russia.
Vladimir Illyich Ullanov, who we know as Lenin, wanted to overthrow the Russian Czar Nicholas and started spreading the word. For this he was arrested in 1895, exiled to Siberia in 1897 and expelled from the country in 1900.
He returned to Russia in 1905 and stayed until 1907 when he was again threatened with arrest and fled the country.
While in exile, Lenin still participated in the politics and publications of the Russian social democratic party (that’s right folks, I said Social Democrats).
Lenin’s biggest problem with true Marxian socialism was that it called for a long slow progression to a truly socialist society.
Lenin wanted rapid change and advocated any means of bringing this change about even if it meant resorting to terrorism.
In early 1917 there were no more than 25,000 to 30,000 Bolsheviks in Russia.
Fairly early in the revolution, Lenin preached that it should become a civil war among the classes and that this civil war should spread to all countries of the world.
Lenin was smuggled back into the country by the Germans during WWI to launch his revolution.
He immediately denounced the provisional government and promised the people the 2 things they wanted LAND & PEACE.
Lenin’s timing was perfect. People were starving to death and the war had cost the lives of over 6 million Russian soldiers.
Lenin’s battle cry was “all power to the soviets!” (Local councils)
With the full backing of the Russian military who wanted out of the war, Lenin’s November 1917 revolution was accomplished easily.
Lenin’s men captured the Petrograd (St. Petersburg) communication, transportation, and utility installations.
Kerensky, (Leader of the Provisional Government) simply didn’t have enough support to put up any resistance.
Moscow put up nearly no resistance at all.
Lenin quickly learned that the international revolution he foresaw was not going to happen.
With the Russian army virtually extinct since they had all joined the revolution, Russia was at the mercy of the Germans.
In early December Lenin began negotiations with the Germans at the polish town of Brest -Litovsk
Lenin knew it was folly to think that Russia could stop a German invasion at this point and went ahead with the signing of the treaty on March 3, 1918, ending Russia’s participation in WWI.
Russia was forced to give up territory which held 26% of the population, 27 % of the cultivated soil, and 75% of their iron and steel production.
This settlement was a devastating blow to the people of Russia but they were powerless to resist.
Having seized power rather than being elected to it, the Bolsheviks did not have the full support of the people.
Once in power, the Bolshevik assembly called for elections. Lenin said elections weren’t needed but the assembly insisted.
Lenin finally gave in and in the elections his party got only a quarter of the vote.
Lenon now simply called upon the military, who were loyal to him for getting them out of the war, and they ousted the assembly.
Lenin now purged the country of all opposing parties and suppressed all press.
The Russian people weren’t about to take this lying down and a civil war now broke out between the reds (military loyal to Lenin) and the whites who were a smorgasbord of groups opposed to Lenin.
Lenin now moved the capital of Russia from Petrograd to Moscow. (more protected)
The red army now systematically wiped out the whites.
As a result, Russia was even more ruined and then to make matters worse, a famine set in in 1921.
That same year, the soldiers and sailors of Kronstadt, the island base in the Gulf of Finland, revolted. They wanted the people freed from Lenin’s control and supported by the local soviets, the people revolted.
Lenin now sent in the military who gunned down the protestors.
The revolution that had promised land and peace now brought civil war, famine, and a return to serfdom.
How did Lenin do it? Using Russia’s own, well equipped, WWI, battle hardened military.
Still not convinced that a military who has lost faith in their leadership is a frightening thing?
Here is one more example from history.
In 1916, 18 socialists were expelled from the Reichstag (German Parliament) for voting against the war.
This small group of German socialists openly opposed the war. They were call spartacists.
In September 1918, the Germans were on their last legs in WWI and were now ready to negotiate a peace settlement.
The morale of the people now fell apart. they couldn’t believe they had lost the war!
Everything they heard up until now said they were winning.
Kaiser Wilhelm was forced to abdicate in disgrace and the socialists (yes you hear me right again, SOCIALISTS) now proclaimed a republic.
The German people had just suffered a terrible defeat and were starving but unlike the Russians, they did not want to add to their problems by launching a socialist revolution.
The socialists did make an attempt at a coup in January 1919, but it was quickly put down by the government,
Two leaders of the Spartacists, Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht were arrested, released and then murdered by Berlin soldiers in what amounted to a lynching.
In Germany the people looked upon the socialist/communists as being the people to blame for betraying the nation at a time when it was hurting.
As a result, the returning WWI troops saw the socialists as stabbing the country in the back after they had just fought so hard to defend it.
Once the army came home it regrouped and formed the “free corps” which then terrorized the socialists.
With the support of a disgruntled military, a new form of government now emerged. Fascism.
Fascists hated socialists, intellectuals, Jews, and the old aristocracy.
Their sole aim was to restore order at any cost.
In November 1923, a time of political and economic chaos, Hitler led an uprising (Putsch) in Munich against the postwar Weimar Republic, proclaiming himself chancellor of a new authoritarian regime.
Unfortunately for Hitler, he did not yet have the military support he needed, and the revolt collapsed.
As leader of the plot, Hitler was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment and spent the eight months he actually served dictating his autobiography Mein Kampf (My Struggle).
Following the war, Germany was forced to pay reparations. They spent all their money on the war, so they were broke. What did they do? They printed money. Sound familiar? As a result, inflation now ran rampant in Germany.
10,000 marks worth $2,500 in 1922 by the end of 1923 were worth one millionth of a penny!
Life savings were completely wiped out
A 100 billion mark note which would have bought the whole Rhineland the year before now was barely enough for a loaf of bread.
This is the environment into which Hitler now began his rise to power.
Needless to say, the German people were not happy with their government
In 1925, Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg was elected as president where he would remain in power for the next 9 years
He ran for the presidency again in 1932 as the only one who could defeat the National Socialist (Nazi) party candidate Adolf Hitler.
The new party grew slowly, and principally in Bavaria. Convinced of the necessity of violence to achieve its ends, the party soon organized the Sturmabteilungen (Storm Troops), or SA, to defend its meetings; to disrupt the meetings of liberal democrats, socialists, Communists, and trade unionists; and to persecute Jews, especially Jewish merchants.
In 1921 Hitler was elected “unlimited chairman” of the party.
He now called on the disgruntled German Army veterans to help him take control. WWI Flying Ace Herman Goering, General Erich Ludendorff, and Captain Ernst Rohm are just a few of veterans who joined Hitler’s cause.
There are many other examples of this scenario throughout history. Napolean used the French Military to overthrow the government of France and take control. Francisco Franco, a General in the Spanish Army, used the military to take control of Spain. The list goes on and on.
So, let’s get back to our original point of this history lesson. If the military loses faith in the government, what could be the consequences? Even our forefathers saw this threat. The very first act of Congress following the American Revolution was to disband the Continental Army.
23 of the 40 men who signed the Constitution had served in uniform during the Revolutionary War.
While the war had helped focus the attention of all the delegates on areas of mutual concern, the separate, shared experiences of those who had served under arms undoubtedly acted as a catalyst in moving the majority toward final compromise and action on national problems.
These 23 signers had volunteered to fight for independence, had sacrificed and suffered to win the war, and then, with their fellow Patriots, had shed their uniforms to resume civilian careers.
Many of them would go on to lead the new government established under the Constitution.
The founders had a total fear of standing armies. Bear in mind, that had just fough a revolution against their own army, led by the King.
This fear led them to provide Congress with specific power to determine the size and composition of the armed services, make rules to govern those forces, mobilize and oversee the federal use of the militia, control the size and distribution of the military’s budget, and, most importantly, declare war.
These congressional powers and the designation of the president as commander in chief of the armed forces were designed to ensure civilian control of the military with ultimate direction, oversight, and decision-making authority over the military in the hands of properly elected and appointed civilian officials.
Now folks, let’s get this straight. I am not saying we should fear our military. They are heroes and are the reason we have our freedom today.
And no, I am not saying they will lead us to a life under a Stalin, Hitler, Napoleon, or Franco.
What I am saying is that history shows us that if they lose faith in their leadership, they can, and do have, the power to overthrow the government of the United States.
What they want, is for us to do our jobs and call out a corrupt government that is incapable of leading them. The ball is in our court and using the tools our founding fathers gave us, the military is counting on we the people to take action to fix the problem.