What do you call a government in which incompetence and iniquity are rewarded and honor and duty are punished? Some call it the government we now have, and the latest example is an ex-Marine officer sitting in prison for criticizing the Keystone Kop military leaders responsible for the Afghanistan debacle. So intent are the powers-that-be on destroying this man, in fact, that his mother was prompted to lament, “They’re trying to bury our son.”
A 1985 Marines ad stated “We’re Looking for a Few Good Men,” and they certainly found one in Lieutenant Colonel Stuart Scheller, Jr. After having served in the Marine infantry for 17 years and becoming a battalion commander, Scheller made a Facebook video that would go viral and which opened with the caption, “To the American leadership. Very Respectfully, US.” Made just after news emerged about the explosion in Kabul that killed 13 servicemen, Scheller said, “One of those people who was killed was someone I had a personal relationship with.”
“I’m not making this video because it’s potentially an emotional time,” he continued. “I’m making it because I have a growing discontent and contempt for … perceived ineptitude at the foreign-policy level and I want to specifically ask some questions to some of my senior leaders.”
The officer would go on to state, criticizing military brass, “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?’”
“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?’”
Scheller then informed the next day, “Last night, when I posted the video I immediately had multiple Marines call and ask me to take down the post. ‘We all agree with you Stu, but nothing will change, and it will come at a huge personal cost to you,’” they said.
They sure weren’t wrong. “Scheller would go on to release several more videos, generating praise and controversy while drawing the ire of military leadership,” reported Fox News Monday. “Eventually, he was told by superiors to stop posting to social media altogether, an order he immediately ignored by posting about the gag order.”
Consequently, even though Scheller had resigned from the Marines effective 9/11, he was thrown into the brig. He “is currently in pretrial confinement as he awaits a hearing, which has not yet been scheduled,” the Washington Examiner informed yesterday.
“He has not been charged, but four charges will be considered during his hearing: Article 88 (contempt toward officials), Article 90 (willfully disobeying a superior commissioned officer), Article 92 (failure to obey lawful general orders), and Article 133 (conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman),” the site continued.
Scheller’s father, Stu Scheller, Sr., told website Task & Purpose it is “mind-blowing” that military leadership won’t apologize for the mistakes they’ve made. Not only that, the officer’s mother, Cathy Scheller, states that her son is being railroaded. They “announced to his lawyers this morning with less than 24 hours notice that he’ll be in pre-trial tomorrow … and they dumped a 640-page document on them with 24 hours [notice],” she said Wednesday on Tucker Carlson Tonight. “They’re trying to bury our son” (video below).
Of course, while it’s maddening and maybe even “mind-blowing” that the pseudo-elites won’t apologize for their incompetence, it’s hardly unexplainable. A person doesn’t usually apologize when he has no intention of changing his ways — or when he lives in such a world of rationalization that he doesn’t even accept that he has erred.
As for the lack of accountability, there isn’t really honor among thieves, and criminals in a syndicate, all complicit in the same conspiracy of evil, don’t seek to hold fellow syndicate members accountable for standard syndicate actions.
COVID policy is the ideal example. Can establishment pseudo-elites admit that lockdowns and other mandates have all been counterproductive, that they seared our economy and social fabric for nothing? They all have the same dirty hands. Their hole is too deep — all they can do is keep digging.
It’s likewise with Afghanistan. Acknowledging error via apology means total career destruction. So unless a pair of dirty hands has a conversion of heart and will walk off into the sunset and enter a monastery for decades of prayer and penance, it’s not happening.
As for Scheller, he clearly understood that his dissent would bring establishment wrath and had decided, apparently, to “take one for the team.” Of course, just as he’s following his conscience, some may say the military must ensure orders are followed, lest discipline go by the wayside. While this is true, there’s an issue.
Where is the rule of law in our wider society? Where is discipline? General Mark Milley can violate military code and approach treasonous behavior by telling a Chinese general he’ll warn him of any American attack, and he still has his job. Joe and Hunter Biden can have information proving they peddled influence for money go public (the laptop), and Big Tech buries the story. Citizens are being required to take genetic-therapy agents (the “vaccines”), but Congress and its staff and illegal aliens get exemptions. This is now par for our two-tiered “justice” system’s course, too.
How long can this continue before people start saying: If the pseudo-elites and illegals don’t have to follow laws, why should I?
Note, however, that all part of our moral decay, this lack of public virtue just reflects a lack of private virtue. It’s also how corruption becomes endemic — and that’s a disease more dangerous than any virus.
