Flynn

The new US National Security Advisor, Michael Flynn, has made vague but menacing threats against Iran in a statement that is inaccurate about the past and unspecific about the future - a dangerous and worrying move, but not (in the context of this new Administration) a surprising one.

The following quote from a New Yorker profile shows that he also has a problem with “facts”.

[…] without loyal junior officers at his side to vet his facts, he found even more trouble. His subordinates started a list of what they called “Flynn facts,” things he would say that weren’t true, like when he asserted that three-quarters of all new cell phones were bought by Africans or, later, that Iran had killed more Americans than Al Qaeda. In private, his staff tried to dissuade him from repeating these lines.

Flynn co-wrote, with the notorious Michael Ledeen a book which sounds from Jim Lobe’s description to be a mixture of lies, fantasy and paranoia. Ledeen’s violent hatred for Iran is well known. His apparent view that everyone he doesn’t like is combining in a consipracy against the United States is bizarre.

But these are the kind of people advising the new president. We are living in very dangerous times.