At JSOC, Flynn was tasked with dismantling insurgent networks in Iraq and Afghanistan — an experience that seems to have informed his later view of of jihadists as the greatest and most significant threat America faces.
.. Flynn was often accused of being disruptive, and not in the good Silicon Valley sense of the term. According to the Washington Post, he frequently butted heads with the Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence, Michael Vickers. Vickers wanted the DIA to focus on doing analysis and traditional gathering; Flynn wanted its operatives out in hot spots supporting soldiers on the ground.
.. Implying that the US should level the entire city of Raqqa because ISIS controls it: “If we know that their headquarters exist in a place called Raqqa, Syria, we should eliminate, we should destroy Raqqa, Syria.” (Hugh Hewitt Show)
.. The book, according to Flynn, will highlight the “world war” nature of the flight with radical Islam. It’s coauthored with Michael Ledeen, a conservative writer who said in 2002 that “every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business.”
.. On December 10 of last year, Flynn attended a dinner celebrating the tenth anniversary of RT, the cable network formerly called Russia Today. He sat at the head table, with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and had delivered a talk on his view of foreign affairs today beforehand.
.. “Flynn now makes semi-regular appearances on RT as an analyst, in which he often argues that the U.S. and Russia should be working more closely together on issues like fighting [ISIS] and ending Syria’s civil war,”
.. Flynn’s argument takes Russia’s claim that it is fighting “terrorists” in Syria at face value, when in reality Russia’s intervention is aimed at propping up dictator Bashar al-Assad’s regime.
.. But it’s possible that Flynn genuinely doesn’t care that Russia’s real aim is propping up Assad, because he thinks that anyone who’s against ISIS — as Assad is, at least nominally — is worth supporting.
.. And that, I think, would be the ultimate significance of a Flynn pick. Trump would be telling the world what his priorities are — and that they aren’t promoting democracy or opposing an increasingly aggressive Russia.
Instead, Trump would be signaling that he believes he needs to 1) project strength/toughness and 2) take a strong stance against jihadist groups. These objectives would be so important, in his eyes, that he’s willing to embrace someone with questionable ties to a hostile power in order to further them.