Lt. Col. Scheller may be a jerk, but he still said something important

And then Scheller turned out to be a . . . NeverTrumper with nothing but disdain for Trump and his supporters—who also happened to be Scheller’s supporters. As part of a long, manic Facebook post, he attacked everyone, a whole bunch of people, starting with Trump, and moving on to Obama, Dubya, Clinton, Hillary, Mattis, Petraeus, Flynn, and many more.

 Andrea Widburg  "Lt. Col. Stuart Scheller has turned out to be a disappointment to the conservatives who supported his willingness to say that the military brass should have suffered meaningful consequences after the disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal. Unfortunately, he’s contemptuous of Trump, which means he’s contemptuous of Trump supporters. Still, it’s important to remember that his original point was and remains valid.

"The withdrawal from Afghanistan was a disgrace. It was done in an intemperate, bass-ackwards way that saw the military abandon $85 billion in high-tech equipment to Taliban fighters in the grip of a 6th-century mentality. Worse, our generals abandoned Americans and true American allies, while shipping out from Afghanistan over a hundred thousand people of mysterious origins and bona fides.

"Then, after congratulating himself for an “extraordinary success,” Biden made clear that no heads would roll. General Mark Milley, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, and General Kenneth McKenzie will maintain their positions and assuredly add more ribbons to the fruit salads on their chests. Four men with enormous power, no humility, poor values, and a deficit of common sense, intelligence, and decency, publicly discounted any responsibility for what happened.

"The next chapter in this story was Marine Lt. Col. Stuart Scheller’s video expressing dissatisfaction with the fact that no high-level people were paying for the disastrous withdrawal. He made the righteous point that it’s very bad for military discipline if consequences only occur when the lower ranks do wrong, while the upper ranks always get a pass.

"People who know their British history keep mentioning Admiral John Byng, who was court-martialed and executed in 1757 for failing to “do his utmost” to keep a British garrison at Minorca from falling. We don’t expect executions when our generals fail but we do expect some consequences, and the troops logically do too.". . .