In Trump's Security Pick, Michael Flynn, 'Sharp Elbows' and No Dissent

[highplainsdem]

Source: NYT

WASHINGTON — Days after Islamist militants stormed the American diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, in 2012, Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn reached a conclusion that stunned some of his subordinates at the Defense Intelligence Agency: Iran had a role in the attack, he told them.

Now, he added, it was their job to prove it — and, by implication, to show that the White House was wrong about what had led to the attack.

Mr. Flynn, whom President-elect Donald J. Trump has chosen to be his national security adviser, soon took to pushing analysts to find Iran’s hidden hand in the disaster, according to current and former officials familiar with the episode. But like many other investigations into Benghazi, theirs found no evidence of any links, and the general’s stubborn insistence reminded some officials at the agency of how the Bush administration had once relentlessly sought to connect Saddam Hussein and Iraq to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

-snip-

Many of those who observed the general’s time at the agency described him as someone who alienated both superiors and subordinates with his sharp temperament, his refusal to brook dissent, and what his critics considered a conspiratorial worldview.

-snip-

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/03/us/politics/in-national-security-adviser-michael-flynn-experience-meets-a-prickly-past.html

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His "refusal to brook dissent," the article goes on to explain, included telling senior DIA officials that he was always right and his staff would know they were right when they agreed with his views.

Oh, and he wanted to cozy up to Russian intelligence even after Russia attacked Crimea. His superiors canceled his plans to travel to Moscow then, and to invite Russian intelligence officials to Washington.

And he got in trouble while at the DIA, too, for sharing sensitive intelligence data with other countries, including Pakistan, without permission.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. The kakistocracy grows unabated.

[Skittles]

2. anyone noticing a pattern

Trump is picking people as controversial and fucked up as him?

[blm]

3. and people who have loyalties to Russia.like him.

These people are crazy and they are about to be in charge.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/03/world/americas/alt-right-vladimir-putin.html

[DK504]

9. That and he is picking people that are

out right psychos and traitors to this country. Wonder if he will pardon Snowden.

[COLGATE4]

4. Sounds like he'll fit right in with

all the other Alex Jones followers in the Drumpf 'administration'.

[exboyfil]

5. This makes him singularly unsuitable for NSA

I would like to have seen Mattis as NSA, and Flynn not part of the cabinet. I think Flynn is ill suited for the role of NSA who should be, "Being an “honest broker” means running a fair and transparent process for bringing issues to the President for decision. It means maintaining a “level playing field” in which ideas and views can compete with one another on an equal basis, without “stacking the deck” in favor of one or another approach. It means in particular not using the privileged position accorded to the National Security Advisor in this process to “tilt” the process in favor of the outcome favored by the National Security Advisor.

http://defense360.csis.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Scowcroft-Paper-1_Hadley_The-Roll-and-Importance-of-the-NSA.pdf

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

6. in order words

A self aggrandizing asshole.

[progree]

7. "and what his critics considered a conspiratorial worldview." The last thing we need in that

position.

[paleotn]

8. Flynn is an absolute nut....

...that's why he got sacked at DIA. He reminds me of....