Are Retired French and American Military Generals Standing Up against Tyranny?
Article by J.B. Shurk in The American Thinker
Are Retired French and American Military Generals Standing Up against Tyranny?
Three weeks ago, over a thousand active and retired members of the French military (including twenty retired generals) signed their names to a letter warning President Macron that "multiculturalism," "racial war," and "fanatic partisans" are destroying French society and leading the country to "civil war." The blunt message caused a tizzy — not just in France, but across Europe. The French government and the French media immediately condemned the unsolicited warning (with Macron and the minister in charge of the armed forces, Florence Parly, promising punishment for those involved), but the French people did not. Subsequent polling showed that 58% "support the words of the soldiers," 73% believe France that is disintegrating, 84% feel that violence is increasing, and 49% think the military should "restore order." In their letter, servicemembers warned, "The hour is grave, France is in peril," and to the great consternation of Macron and his government, the French people overwhelmingly agreed.
Now we have a letter in the United States from 124 retired generals and admirals warning Americans in a strikingly similar tone: "Our nation is in deep peril. We are in a fight for our survival as a Constitutional Republic like no other time since our founding in 1776. The conflict is between supporters of Socialism and Marxism vs. supporters of Constitutional freedom and liberty."
The flag officers take aim at the Democrats' "tyrannical government," their "full-blown assault on our Constitutional rights in a dictatorial manner," and their "population control actions," including "censorship of written and verbal expression." After enumerating what can only be called "a long train of abuses," including the government's intentional creation of a crisis at the southern border and intentional destruction of America's newly won energy independence, the administration's decision to give aid and comfort to Iran's regime of terror, and the Democrats' use of the military as "pawns" to intimidate conservatives while coddling Antifa and Black Lives Matter insurrectionists, the retired U.S. generals and admirals warn Americans as bluntly as the French generals warned France: "The survival of our Nation and its cherished freedoms, liberty, and historic values are at stake."
While the American letter ends with an exhortation for citizens to get involved in local, state, and national politics in order to "Save America" and "hold those currently in office accountable," it is clearly asking Americans to do more than simply vote responsibly. Only four words are underlined in the whole text: "all," as in "all Americans," is underlined once, and "act" is underlined three separate times. This is not a run-of-the-mill letter reminding Americans about the importance of elections; this is a modern version of Thomas Paine's Common Sense urging Americans to action.
So within a three-week period, esteemed former high-ranking members of the French and U.S. militaries have finally decided to sound the alarm that the futures of both countries now hang in the balance. Maybe the spirits of Lafayette and Washington have something yet to say before the West drinks the hemlock of the "Great Reset" and disappears into darkness for good. What an interesting turn of events!
What are we to make of these developments? For one, the battle looming before us is real. For too long, the powers that be have pretended that the expanding encroachments upon our liberties by an ever more intrusive State were the delusions of "conspiracy theorists" and not the realistic concerns of serious individuals. Those same powers scoffed at the idea that flooding the nation with tens of millions of illegal aliens was undermining American cohesion and national security. And they mocked Americans who have fought to protect and preserve American culture in the face of unrelenting public relations campaigns pushing "diversity" and "multiculturalism" as strengths. Now military professionals in both France and the United States are admitting that by failing to defend the achievements and hard won lessons of Western civilization, two of the world's great nation-states are at risk of collapse.
Secondly, the coordinated timing of these two letters should be seen as an acknowledgment that what battles lie ahead will not resemble insular civil conflicts that remain quarantined within the borders of the U.S. or France. Rather, they will be transnational wars waged between freedom-minded peoples seeking limited constitutional government and Marxist-socialists demanding total State control. We are walking into Samuel P. Huntington's nightmarish Clash of Civilizations, where cultural upheaval renders national boundaries inconsequential.
For the French generals, decades of steady Muslim immigration with little integration into French society have produced a nation within a nation at war with itself, a situation that cannot hold.
In the United States, a country that attracts immigrants from all over the world, the abandonment of its founding principles has destroyed the bonds that have given disparate generations of new Americans a common American identity. From whatever lineages an American may trace his past, America's success has depended upon shared futures, where liberty is cherished and individual rights are preserved. By sacrificing America's historic collective identity, unity has been destroyed and replaced by the sheer exercise of power by one faction against another. Without a common political culture or a common political language, America is now many nations within one nation, all at war with each other. The United States is in the midst of civilizational conflict, not because it is made up of peoples who have come from all over the world but because it has forfeited the rule of law and individual conscience for monstrous forms of extra-constitutional government, rule by administrative fiat, and a new state religion of political correctness enforced by "woke" priests.
Finally, these two complementary French and American letters should be seen as implicit promises to the citizens of both nations that they are not alone. Too many people have suffered in silence as their countries have been "fundamentally transformed" against their will. When they do speak up and exercise their rights to assemble and petition their governments for redress of grievances, it is they who come under attack. Four months after protesting for "free and fair" elections in the United States, too many Americans are being held prisoner with shockingly little due process or constitutional protection of any kind. Too many Americans are right now being surveilled and targeted by the U.S. government, not because they have committed or plan on committing a crime, but because their political beliefs conflict with those in power. Time and again, Americans in disbelief at the rapid deterioration of their nation's constitutional protections have rhetorically asked, "Is anyone going to step forward, assume a position of leadership, and fight back?"
Consider these two letters the first official answers to that question. The American letter ends in what can only be seen as a mission directive: "The 'will of the people' must be heard and followed."
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