Hello ladies and gentlemen this is the Victor Davis Hanson show the traditionalist we are recording on Friday October 1st in the year of 2021 I'm Jack Fowler. I am the director of the Center for Civil

Society at American Philanthropic. The namesake of this show is Victor Davis Hanson he's the Martin and Eli Anderson senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. Now Victor I think this show even though we're recording it on the first is probably up on October 5th and I'd like to get out front and let our listeners know that on October 6th you will be appearing on gutveld. Now you're on a lot of shows.

This week because your new book is out of the dying citizen actually it will be out from the time we're talking right now but it will be out next week so you're going to be doing a lot of publicity and marketing for it but I wanted our listeners to make sure they set the dial or whatever set their timer to catch you on gutville next week.

Victor we've got a lot to talk about today though and one of the things that's on top of the list is the imprisonment of marine lieutenant colonel Stuart Sheller and we'll get to talking about that and other important issues right after this message.

We're back with the Victor Davis Hanson show the traditionalist Victor what are your thoughts about what has been done to lieutenant colonel Stuart Sheller I think he is yet to be charged with any particular crimes and as many folks have said he is of all the debacle that's gone on in the last

month is the one man that's paid any price for it.

Yeah I think that the issue that people are struck by is not that he did or did not break the chain of command he did and obviously you can't have an army where every single officer in the chain of command captain majors lieutenant colonels then question their superiors publicly so he admitted that but what usually happens Jack when that occurs is that they bring the

officer in they try to suggest that what he's doing or what he has done is on wise and then they usually if the officer persist and they either offer him a different command or they suggested he retire with his retirement and full pay

except for what's unusual about this is two things one he's in the break as we speak in jail and number two what he did is a misdemeanor compared with the felonious behavior of his highest superiors because what we're talking about is a complete destruction of a 20 year project in Afghanistan multi billion dollars equipment left for the Taliban

Americans still there stranded the most humiliating defeat in 50 years and the loss of deterrence betrayal and somebody did that somebody did that was at the sent com commander was at the Afghan theater commander was at the secretary of defense was at Joe Biden but somebody has not taken responsibility so when they start when you listen to them before Congress under

oh them being Austin and Millie and McKinsey the state department did it no I told the president so nobody's coming up and saying I made a recommendation that was wrong and people died from it and I'm sorry and I am going to resign but this officer did he said I cannot stop from telling you that these people are responsible and they will not resign and they will not take blame and I'm not going to be quite until they do

and so morally ethically he has the high ground and then customarily and legally he should be punished but not to the degree of their punish him a and b especially not to the degree that they're completely immune from their own culpable and we and we'll get in later

but we're not even talking about the violation of article 88 of the uniform called military justice that says you cannot disparage the commander in chief when the joint chief's milley was calling at least three authors and telling them on the record that the president was a mind conflite figure a Nazi and that is a violation he suffered no consequences for it

or he was violating the chain of command in a much more egregious fashion by interrupting the normal chain of command involving nuclear matters or calling up his Chinese counterpart so it's that asymmetrical hypocrisy that makes us so angry

and sympathetic to him and he was honest about saying that he violated the chain of command he was willing to take the punishment but to put somebody in jail for that is way out of proportion to the crime

we mentioned and this is one of the other topics we're going to discuss today the appearance this past Tuesday September 28th general mark milley chairman of the joint chiefs of staff general Kenneth McKenzie who is the central commander and then the defense secretary Lloyd Austin all spoke to Congress

a big expected anticipated event where he least milley would be called out on some of these matters three or four weeks ago victories are called when the book parol came out folks are saying no way he's going to survive this he's got to

got a resign to be thrown out et cetera et cetera I assume you watch the testimonies what are your thoughts about it what are your thoughts about how republicans handled the matter that day and any other thoughts about consequences if any are going to happen

they were very good I was surprised especially the senate I mean march to blackburn just to ask him were you the source and she just rattled off books of muck raking liberal journalist and then why are you doing this that was asked by a house member

and he had the most preposterous incoherent response possible he said part of my duty is to be a public relation and a transparent condo

I'm thinking and they pointed out wait a minute being an off record in city is anonymous source to damage the prior administration and give your version and leak and disparage people that's part of your job is to talk to investigative journals who have an agenda as a bipartisan advisor to the president that's your job

and he'll he acted like as if he had perfect memory do you really believe when he says then if he has perfect memory when he's asked you said to one journalist that you wrote in your journal

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