Masha Gessen: John Kelly and the Language of the Military Coup
In the pages of the New Yorker, this woman, Masha Gessen, imagines that John Kelly’s speech to the press the other day was a prelude to a military coup;
Consider this nightmare scenario: a military coup. You don’t have to strain your imagination—all you have to do is watch Thursday’s White House press briefing, in which the chief of staff, John Kelly, defended President Trump’s phone call to a military widow, Myeshia Johnson. The press briefing could serve as a preview of what a military coup in this country would look like, for it was in the logic of such a coup that Kelly advanced his four arguments.
Gessen concludes her little paranoiac ramblings with Kelly’s final words;
Before walking off the stage, Kelly told Americans who haven’t served in the military that he pities them. “We don’t look down upon those of you who haven’t served,” he said. “In fact, in a way we are a little bit sorry because you’ll have never have experienced the wonderful joy you get in your heart when you do the kinds of things our servicemen and women do—not for any other reason than that they love this country.”
Yeah, I don’t “feel sorry” for people because they didn’t serve. They made a choice, a poor choice, in most cases. Our pages here are replete with examples of people who have tried to correct their poor choices by pretending to have served beside us. Gessen, on the other hand, tries mightily to bring us down to her level.
There is no plot for a military coup – the Constitution has put under the control of our civilian masters, and we have sworn to protect and defend the Constitution, so a military coup would violate the tenets of the Constitution, but media goofballs like Gessen haven’t read the Constitution, so they woudln’t know that. If ever there as going to be coup, it would have happened while President Obama was dismantling the Defense Department.
Maria Alexandrovna “Masha” Gessen should stick to writing about Russian politics and quit trying to tear down the American military,
Category: Dumbass Bullshit
Masha has an adams apple.
Disregard last. I found other pics. Just looked like she has one in this photo.
I’m confused also. It kinda looks like Weiner.
Carlos Danger!
My first thought was ‘that is one strange looking dude. What’s he claiming to be”.
A New Yorker…explains everything.
Who grew up in the Soviet Union.
‘Nuff said.
One EXTREME UGMO.
Nonetheless, as ugly as this chickie is, she should shave her ass and walk backwards. Not a real good grasp of reality either.
I think Aerosmith wrote a song about this.
For “xer” sake I hope “xshe” does have an adams apple. Otherwise, I think she is one of the ugliest females I have seen in the lamestream media since Helen Thomas. I wonder if we can be sure about the sex of it without a DNA test. Maybe Marsha was formerly a Russian “woman” athlete.
You know who doesn’t love Bunny Swan?
COMMUNISTS, that’s who!
This leftist, communist bitch looks like a full blown dike to me! imho
(S)he’s a looker, all right!😱
A lot of people say, “What’s that?” It’s Masha!
A lot of people ask, “Who’s he? Or she?”
A ma’am or a sir, accept him or her
or whatever it might be.
It’s time for androgyny.
Here comes Masha!
(credit and apologies to Julia Sweeney from Saturday Night Live’s skit “It’s Pat”)
Is that a guy, and is he or she from Florida?????????
Seriously?? Would anyone telegraphing an upcoming coup would use this language to do it?
Highly unlikely. Of course, I am not aware of being around anyone planning one.
This Masha character needs a realty check.
That dude is the Russian Rachel Maddow; they could be brothers.
Maybe from another mother. They clearly have the same hair stylist and have been drinking the same Kool-ade.
That’s a woman?
Have to ask IDC-SARC about that.
You beat me to it! I was thinking the Aerosmith song.
Exactly what I said.
Damn….
Gessen is a him, not a her. Tell it to strip off to prove otherwise.
At least my girl parts are real.
Geez, how much more do these people have to do to prove to the rest of us how utterly useless and stupid they are?
“Tell it to strip off to prove otherwise.”
No No No No No!
Eye bleach. PLEASE!!!!!!
Well I want to click the New Yorker link, but I can’t get past my revulsion at the author’s looks.
Good for you. I made the mistake of reading part of the article, now I am also overcome by revulsion against her article.
Hey you hideous looking troll, your opinions on the military mean jack shit. Piss off.
John Kelly is a civilian now, isn’t he? Couldn’t be talking about a “military coup”.
Besides; who the hell would want to engage in one? The troops I served with kinda liked getting their paychecks every two weeks, and being able to spend said paychecks at local watering holes. If you held a coup, who’s gonna pay you?
Nah. Ain’t gonna happen “Mashama”, or whatever your name is.
Yep, he’s retired. At first I kept thinking he wasn’t, but I was thinking about McMaster, who is still serving.
Good point, but not the key point.
The key point is legal liability. Every recruit is briefed and rebriefed, and asked to backbrief, on the difference between a legal and illegal order. Following an illegal order makes you liable. There is no excuse that can save your ass.
Besides that, we are all trained and retrained on the concept of civilian control of the military.
Our legality, our moral high ground, comes from the fact that our military is under the control of the civilian leadership, elected by the people, who ultimately pay the taxes who pays our salaries.
The civilian leadership tells us where to fight and under what rules of engagement. This system is why we are the only democracy with 241 years without a coup d’etat.
Like GEN Patton said:
“I am a Soldier. I fight where I’m told, I win where I fight”.
I think if anything, the writer is proving General Kelly’s point. The Civ-Mil divide is extreme and too many civilians know absolutely dick about the military. What’s worse are cock-gobblers like this one who act like they do know anything about the military.
Exactly. They are completely clueless. Of course the same holds true for the local big-city police force that absolutely insist on identifying protesters as ‘civilians’, as though law enforcers somehow aren’t. Did I miss Congress formerly engrossing law enforcement into the armed forces under rule 4? Somehow I’d expect the police union to be complaining more about their due paying members being subject to the UCMJ.
Webster would disagree with you.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/civilian
If I am not very much mistaken, law of land warfare refers to police as civilians and civilian authorities, despite being armed and in uniform, as long as they refrain from combat, they are civilians and noncombatants.
JAG types, can you clarify?
I’ve heard that term, “civilians” used by law enforcement, too. I wonder if it may have something to do with the “progress” of gun control legislation, restricting access to some weapons to civilians, which by their definition, would not include LEOs.
I think it’s more a matter of both take an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution, both wear a uniform, are required to follow orders even if they don’t agree and in are given power over other citizens.
Yeah, let some leftist try to talk THIS VET into taking up arms against his Government and see just how quickly that libtard gets his, her or its head embedded into the nearest wall.
Military Coup? How? Think about the size of this country and the ratio of civilians to military. Makes no sense. Trying to think of a country that is really large with a huge population that has had a military coup and have it succeed for long. Chile and Argentina come to mind but they have a lower population density than we do.
Wouldn’t work here and the troops would not cooperate.
My esteemed Amphibious Brother, in this case you’re looking at it in shades too close to black & white.
An intelligent and properly planned coup would appear to those on the ‘outside’ to be a valid defensive response to a credible threat to the constitution and rule of law.
By the time the relevant people knew the ‘real deal’, power would be consolidated and things would be running too smooth for too many to get too upset about it.
The only coup that I’m even remotely worried about is from the dark pool of Soros/Clinton monies and their Communist/anarchist army of f*ck boys/girls/genderqueer/unicorn/snowflakes.
I think I’m going to go workout with combat focused pt. Log drags simulating casevac. Yep, work off that whiskey.
4 Nov, I’ll be ready.
Read up on Turkish military history.
The Turkish military knows successful coups like the Steelers know ‘how to get to the Superbowl’.
Which is why the pros saw through the BS of the most recent, supposedly ‘real’ coup in Turkey from day one.
The Left has reached the point where it demands that all serve its cause, or be destroyed.
The -want- to overthrow the current administration, and demand that all loyally support this. SSinc the US Milirary remains loyal to the Constitution, andd thus the constitutionally-elected president, then the left believes the milirary disloyal and guilty essentially of a coup.
This whole kerfluffle over a call to a widow is intended ass a wedge issue to drive between the miltary and Trump.
Yes, as insane as all that sounds, there are folks who are thinking down that path. Evidence in support are the articles such as the one cited above.
When the current efforts to generate disloyalty in the Armed Forces fail, they will double-down in efforts to destroy them. They will say / spin oughtright lie whatever is needed to come up with “dont trust them anymore”.
“The Left has reached the point where it demands that all serve its cause, or be destroyed.”
I think they’ve been that way for decades at least, and they’re not going to give up. They’ve wanted a civil war as well and they’re not going to give up on trying to incite one either. They won’t throw in the towel thus assuring us that President Trump WILL get reelected in 2020.
it is the nature of leftist thought to demand complete obedience.
This is because the left is entirely composed of sophistry. There is no rationality to anything they originate and this is why, in the end, it becomes murder inc.
Yes indeed.
This has been going on since the 1930s right on up through and including the most recent military activities. It is not something new. They’ve had eight decades of it and still haven’t succeeded in tearing the USA or the military apart at the seams.
However, it is necessary to be both vigilant and aware, which is why we need to see -NOT HIDE OR IGNORE – such articles and writers like Gessen and company.
Cockroaches hate light and these new LED models put out a butt load of it. To quote John Adams “Liberty can’t be preserved without a general knowledge among the people.”
Mangina.
That is all.
Out.
“but media goofballs like Gessen haven’t read the Constitution”
Not to mention that those who have sworn to defend that hallowed document have generally read it and understand it.
And didn’t the military vote overwhelmingly for Trump? Why would they want to overthrow the government they elected? You’d sooner see a coup against a president the military doesn’t like or respect, like a a Clinton.
More alarmist claptrap from an irrelevant “news” source.
It’s not so alarmist if you consider the ‘average mind set’ of the source of the clap trap.
One of the riskiest moments, as far as a coup being initiated goes, would be when a far left government attempted to emasculate the military ‘from within’.
When you think of a combat unit, were the senior leadership were accused of trumped-up treasonous crimes and ‘internal security types’ showed up to arrest and remove them, what would the reaction of the rank-and-file war fighters be?
Combat units are very close to tribal in nature.
‘They said the captain was a traitor!? He saved our asses 20 times at least in Afghanistan. Fuck these guys!’
Food for thought.
I’m glad this thing wrote that article.
It tells us that ‘they’ are scared, as well they should be. That ‘they’ realize how close they are to being lined up against the wall of an interior courtyard with only barred windows looking on their bullet-ridden bodies.
If they’re scared they might hesitate before pushing things too far.
Because ‘they’ have come close before, and the majority of America wouldn’t oppose a coup if things got too bad. Because day-to-day life in Everytown, USA wouldn’t change one bit and the people would know that the federal government was actually being run (for a time, until absolute power corrupted, like it always does) with efficiency and integrity.
And there are certain people at the highest levels of power and influence that know (correctly) that a world-wide ‘Veterans revolt’ (a la Heinlein) is only a coup in the USA, China, or Russia followed by a couple of stupid, bloody wars away.
There is a bloody, bloody civil war brewing in Europe and the UK. And when it finally goes high order, the world order is going to be shuffled like a deck of cards in the hands of a drunk Sailor.
We still need to know about them, sharkman, as much as possible, and to do whatever it takes to have them running scared.
They should be scared. There are those of us that think a “right wing” General Strelnikov and his trainload of troops might be the way to finally deal with them.
For the record, sharkman, I used to deal poker as a second job, and can shuffle cards REAL well…(wink)
not at all…they are not scared, they are simply warning us all of their intentions.
Those who have completely embraced the sophistry of the left are so completely convinced of their sophistry that they see those who do not embrace as intellectually useless, unable to understand their rhetoric.
The left has always told everyone of their murderous intentions long before they had power. It is part of their game. It is why they prattle on about “power structures” and “big fill in the blank”.
Their violence is righteous, holy, and totally justified because we are just too dumb and dangerous to have around.
The only good news is that once their vision is cemented by their hero, they are no longer needed, and being not only unneeded, but completely useless for anything other than agitation, they get dealt with first.
We have seen it every time the left triumphs, but the ‘tards just can’t learn the lessons because they have rejected knowledge and reason.
There is a passage in Romans 11 were Paul repeats older wisdom:
God gave them a spirit of stupor,
eyes that could not see
and ears that could not hear,
to this very day
Take the religious viewpoint out of this and you see the anthropological truth in play here–they are simply no longer capable of seeing truth because they have rejected that truth even exists.
The rest follows naturally from this central truth.
That’s a woman? Show me the DNA test. What is it with these liberal/leftist women, did every single one of them fall out of an ugly f’ing Sequoia and hit every branch on the way down? Did Nurse Ratched leave the door to the ward unlocked this morning? Two nuts in one day talking about a coup. Man, I need a drink and to rinse my eyes out with acid after seeing that mug. Post a warning or something next time. I can take blood, major trauma, etc, but this was much. Dayyyyyyyyymmmmm…
A coup d’etat, eh?
What is that saying? Be careful what you wish for. You might get it.
I may not be a great shot with gunpowder involved, but I know how to feed the troops.
I’m cunfused. Weren’t these leftist assholes just asking for the military to remove Trump just a few weeks ago? Now they are bleating about the possibility of a military coup? I wish they would make up their fucking minds!
Well, I guess that is a bit much to ask considering they can’t seem to decide if they are male or female.
The left conveniently forgets that each of us took an oath to protect and defend The Constitution of the United States against ALL enemies, foreign and domestic and they seem to think that we don’t take it seriously.
Interesting.
So, according to the New Yorker, Masha Gessen, a Jewish émigré who was run out of Russia for being an aggressive LGBT radical activist, is to be considered more of an expert on the American military than a former Marine Corps general, and current Chief of Staff of the White House.
It seems to me that although a big problem with Gessen’s New Yorker piece is that it fails due to the logical fallacy of misplaced authority, it points to a systemic rot on the part of a current news media dependent on the failing dominance of New York City as a cultural locus. Gessen is welcome to her opinion, it’s a free country after all, but what she thinks about the topic at hand should actually carry no more weight than some random guy working in a gas station in New Jersey.
Every single one of the points Gessen makes can be refuted fairly easily by someone who actually does know the topic. Not that such a thing evidently matters to the New Yorker, who also ignore the fact she has no formal training in journalism, and her main authoritative claim apparently is as the fired editor of a Moscow-based scientific journal.
And that’s the biggest problem of all.
Moscow based science like Lysenkoism, the Velikovskyism? Yeah… bet phrenology is still big over there.
Wait a minute I thought these people were begging the military to replace Trump.
Hack is confused. Wasn’t it a few months back that American journalists were calling for a military coup to oust President Trump?
I guess they can cancel that order for
“Junta Now!” posters and stickers.
My first thought was “wait a minute, I thought Sal Mineo was dead”. Then I realized that Mineo was much prettier.
Serving in the military was a privilege. Coup has nothing to do with it.
The original author has never had to work for such a privilege.
I am not convinced that “Masha” is female. He/she/it/xe/whatever looks more like a guy than Manning (who also doesn’t look like a girl).
I laugh at people when they earnestly ask me about military coups. Anyone that has ever served can tell you the possibility of that happening. People have been watching too many old Bruce Willis movies.
Woman?
I don’t think IDC SARC would hit that sans at least a triple paper bag.
((((OVER))))
People like Masha Gessen live in their own little dystopian bubble of reality where the mere mention of the Constitution comes across as a foreign language. This works for them with their own little social realm of influences within New York, DC, Chicago, San Francisco, and LA, but they would be lost throughout much of the rest of America.
People like her/him/it seldom admit that life even exists outside the confines of NYC, LA and San Foo-foo.
Yuck.
That is all.
(OVER)
You did not say OVER.
OVER.
[…] The Political Hat: Court Upholds Legality Of Objective Biological Reality This Ain’t Hell: Masha Gessen – John Kelly And The Language Of The Military Coup, also, ISIS “Nipped In The Bud” In The Philippines Weasel Zippers: Melania Trump Cuts […]
Here is a link to a pdf of Instapundits legal paper on the chance of a coup being successful.
Long and well written.
Much better than this tripe from Masha Gessen and the New Yorker.
https://poseidon01.ssrn.com/delivery.php?ID=423027122029099008114026096100082085055056033007026070025023077117106124081088092030097010120030123038049120109080067014027096016054063082050077121080113122013111038062040120066003023006124025126007031067018113125112120080093107073082093074005074067&EXT=pdf
[…] obviously generates criticism. The editors of a pro-military website called This Ain’t Hell (but you can see it from here), which features a large “Stolen Valor” section devoted to “outing” phony veterans, […]
[…] obviously generates criticism. The editors of a pro-military website called This Ain’t Hell (but you can see it from here), which features a large “Stolen Valor” section devoted to “outing” phony veterans, […]
[…] obviously generates criticism. The editors of a pro-military website called This Ain’t Hell (but you can see it from here), which features a large “Stolen Valor” section devoted to “outing” phony veterans, […]