Bucks County Courier Times
Guest Opinion: Uncle Sam needs you to stand against the enemy within
Steve Nolan – February 12, 2022
Recently an old college friend was offended that I made an analogy between Adolph Hitler and Donald Trump. He correctly and redundantly reminded me that we have no concentration camps, our neighbors are not being carted off in cattle cars — truthful, logical arguments that prevent us from solving problems before they get out of hand.
Charlottesville and January 6 were the handwriting on the wall. People we would have to disqualify from military service due to anti-Constitutional beliefs, were called “fine people“. We had witnessed this perversion before, when the president told America that he and Kim Jong Un, a human rights monster cited by the United Nations for crimes against humanity, “fell in love”; and when the president helped a Saudi Prince cover up the murder and mutilation of a journalist.
Days ago the RNC censured Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger for their opposition to “legitimate political discourse.” Here are the facts: on Jan. 6 an army attacked law enforcement to breach our Capitol; 140 police officers were assaulted and injured, five would die. It was a lawless coup attempt, not legitimate discourse, and Republicans who prefer the truth to a lie are being targeted. The big lie, as Goebbels said, is more believable than the smallest and we are witnessing proof of that obscenity.
Here’s another fact: a Christian nation once threw 6 million human beings into ovens and followed a leader screaming about his struggle (Mein Kampf) and the Luggenpresse (German mainstream media). Charles Dickens, in “A Christmas Carol,” has a ghost tell Scrooge that mankind should have been his business not the pursuit of wealth. In America today millions of people who claim to have dedicated themselves to following a master of love and forgiveness have turned themselves over to a person of cruelty and selfishness.
And my college buddy and I are the perfect example of Putin’s strategic accomplishments. The DOJ, Senate and House investigations into Russian cyber warfare informed us that Putin’s main objectives were to divide the American people and make us lose faith in the electoral process. With the widespread belief in “The Big Steal” it is mission accomplished for an enemy state (with the main agent being Donald Trump). There is no way to sugarcoat treason. We let the former president get away with it once before in Helsinki, where Donald Trump told the world he had confidence “in both parties,” meaning U.S. intelligence and the enemy’s denial. This prompted Senator John McCain to respond and recoil that the president of the United States abased himself in front of a tyrant. As a career military officer it would be a betrayal for me not to voice the same truths (especially since the Soviet Union/Russia was enemy number one my entire career).
The genius of our federal oath of office is that it says we will defend against all enemies, foreign and domestic. We are used to enemies being foreign, as my parents experienced in WWII, my brothers in Vietnam and me in Afghanistan. But Abraham Lincoln told us that this great nation could only fall to an enemy that would rise up within our own shores. Robert Mueller told Congress that his findings deserved the attention of every American, the threat as serious as any he’d seen in his career. Defending our country and our Constitution is the duty of every citizen of the United States. Uncle Sam needs us, every one of us.
Steve Nolan, Major, U.S. Air Force retired, career military and Afghanistan veteran, is a resident of Newtown.