Retired general and former Trump administration national security advisor Mike Flynn says he wasn’t calling for a coup this weekend when an attendee at a Dallas conference entitled “For God And Country: Patriot Round-Up” asked why we can’t have a military coup in the United States like the one that took place in Myanmar earlier this year.
If you watch the video, it sure sounds like Flynn said “No reason. I mean, it should happen here. No reason,” but Flynn insists in a post on the social media app Telegram that his response was actually the opposite of an endorsement of a military coup.
“Let me be VERY CLEAR – There is NO reason whatsoever for any coup in America, and I do not and have not at any time called for any action of that sort,” Flynn said.
“I am no stranger to media manipulating my words and therefore let me repeat my response to a question asked at the conference: There is no reason it (a coup) should happen here (in America),” he said.
I’m willing to take Flynn at his word, but there’s no doubt that most of those in attendance at the Omni Hotel in Dallas were enthusiastic about the idea. Before Flynn even responded to the questioner, the audience had erupted in cheers over the suggestion of a military coup. That’s an odd response for self-styled patriots, at least if they’ve been following the events in Myanmar since the military overthrew the democratically-elected government over claims of election fraud. In the months since the coup took place back in February, nearly 1,000 civilians have been murdered by the military junta, and some former police officers who’ve now joined the pro-democracy movement are sharing their story.
“We were told that we could shoot the protesters if they gathered in more than five. We could arrest them and shoot them,” Officer A, a former police officer says.
“We were ordered to shoot but we couldn’t do it.”
The allegation echoes the claims of both protesters and human rights groups after February’s military coup.
Myanmar’s security forces have been accused by Amnesty International of “premeditated” attacks on peaceful protesters – including “extrajudicial executions” and indiscriminately spraying bullets in urban areas.
While a shoot-to-kill policy has never been officially confirmed by the junta, the defectors claim they were encouraged to open fire.
“My friends said if they shot the protesters, they would get a promotion as a reward and be praised for being brave and following the junta’s order,” another former police officer, Officer B, tells Sky News.
“They were promoted from police second lieutenant to police lieutenant, from corporal to sergeant. As far as I know, those who shot the protesters got promoted.”
As we’ve documented here over the past several months, Myanmar’s military, which ruled the country from the early 1960s until 2011 (when it entered into a power-sharing arrangement with a civilian government) established draconian gun control laws that disarmed much of the populace. Now the civilian government is calling on citizens to arm themselves in self-defense against the junta, and you’d think that “patriots” in the U.S. would feel a kinship with those citizens trying to resist a tyrannical and un-elected regime from seizing power and slaughtering those who dare to speak out.
For me personally, it’s not a difficult decision. Heck, I’m all in favor of arming the Myanmar people to allow them to more effectively fight back against the military regime that’s seized power. I’d rather see a civil war than totalitarianism, and I’d much prefer to see armed citizens defending themselves against a tyrannical regime than watch them get slaughtered in the streets.
Of course, the specifics of the military coup in Myanmar probably matter less to those in attendance at the conference this past weekend than the idea of returning Donald Trump to power. Myanmar’s military claims there was election fraud and that’s why the generals had to seize the institutions of government, and that’s good enough reason for attendees to cheer on the idea of a similar coup at home. Whether they realize it or not, however, those applauding the idea were actually cheering for tyranny, not liberty, and if (God forbid) a military junta were to ever seize power here in the United States, you’d better believe that our Second Amendment rights would be threatened in a way that Joe Biden, Michael Bloomberg, and the rest of the anti-gun crowd can only dream of.
