Following an uncomfortable face-to-face encounter with Red Hat leader Col. Kurtz, Gen. Smith issued a decree.
He firmly stated that officers under his command could not have dual or split allegiances. Their duties as White Hat officers, he wrote, were fundamentally incompatible with the Red Hat’s agenda.
“Any officer under my charge who espouses support for the Red Hats is violating the Constitution and the UCMJ and is as deceptive as any Deep Stater ever was,” the general wrote in a memorandum sent to thousands of Armed Forces officers in the U.S. and abroad.
As reported yesterday, Gen. Smith got blindsided at Friday’s meeting when his aide—a Marine Corps captain who had attended countless White Hat council assemblies—revealed himself to be a Red Hat and an ally of Col. Kurtz, a revelation that must have demoralized the general.
Why he exposed himself instead of staying covert is a mystery, but Gen. Smith postulated that Kurtz orchestrated the deception to rattle him and to prove that Red Hats had infiltrated the White Hat command structure.
In his memo, Gen. Smith called Kurtz “recklessly dangerous” and said that officers obeying Kurtz’s commands were acting in contravention of Article II, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution, which states, “The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States.”
“President Trump has not sanctioned Red Hat operations against our Deep State adversaries, and neither have I.
As you well know, President Trump ceded provisional authority to General David H. Berger when he left Washington, D.C., and when Gen. Berger retired, his responsibilities became my own. I have discharged those duties to the best of my ability.
The man calling himself Colonel Kurtz, the fictional antagonist in the film Apocalypse Now, is a civilian. He resigned because he wanted to fight the Deep State his way instead of according to the commander-in-chief’s plan.
Some of you might be frustrated, but you are dutybound to uphold the Constitution. Not follow some disgruntled Marine’s interpretation of it.”
Gen. Smith concluded his letter with a stern warning: “If you privately sympathize with Red Hats, that’s your prerogative.
However, if you identify as a Red Hat or are sharing our intelligence with them, you’re as dishonorable as a Deep Stater and should resign your commission.
Any among us caught sharing classified info risks a court-martial.”
