General Michael Flynn Visits Idaho on Tour, Shows Film in Meridian

Lt. General Michael T. Flynn, USA (Ret.) visited Meridian over the weekend on a stop in his tour across the country showing his film, FLYNN – Deliver the Truth, Whatever the Cost, taking photos, and interacting with audiences in live question and answer sessions.

From his website, Gen. Flynn’s bio explains,

“With more than 33 years of service in the United States military and current Chairman of America’s Future, General Michael Flynn’s military career culminated as the Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and as the nation’s highest serving military intelligence officer.

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After retiring from the Army in 2014 and as a private citizen, General Flynn went on to serve in a variety of business, educational, and non-profit roles, to include supporting veterans’ organizations around the country, something he continues to do today.

His public service included selection and service as a foreign policy advisor to several Republican U.S. presidential candidates (2016) and subsequent appointment and service as the National Security Advisor to the 45th President of the United States of America.

General Flynn is a National Bestselling Author, holds three master’s degrees, and is recipient of numerous military, intelligence, and law enforcement awards.

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He is married with two sons and has several grandchildren.”

The film details Gen. Flynn’s experiences – what he saw, heard, and learned about the United States – over his long military career, appointed government positions, volunteer work, and work as a private citizen.

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Idaho Dispatch interviewed Gen. Flynn just before the film showing. When asked about “forever wars,” Flynn said,

“There is no purpose for a war… it’s a failure. If you are going to war, you’ve failed. It doesn’t mean you don’t stand strong for who you are and what your country is about… If someone comes at the USA in a really harsh way… when there are attacks like that… what do we do about it? There have been no stated objectives for why we were ever in Iraq or Afghanistan. For why we are in Ukraine right now. Why do we do what we are doing? What are the objectives?? If we are going to go to war, you better set some clear objectives.

We have not had a war in the last 60 years… that has made the United States stronger. Not one.

We didn’t set objectives. We didn’t complete anything.

Warfare is a failure of leadership. It is a failure of diplomacy. And it is a failure of foreign policy.”

One question in our interview was about U.S. Senator for Idaho, Jim Risch. He is the ranking member of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, a member of the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, as well as a member of three other Senate committees.

Risch has been vocal about his strong stance in favor of U.S. support for Ukraine. Here on the Foreign Relations Committee website he writes,

“The sooner we give Ukraine the equipment it needs to defeat Russia, the sooner the war will end, the cheaper it will be, and the more lives will be saved. I will continue to do everything in my power to push the White House to move faster in providing critical support to the Ukrainians, while conducting robust oversight and encouraging our allies to carry their share of the burden. There can be no more delays – the president must back up his words with actions.”

This article used this photo and captioned it, “U.S. Sen. Jim Risch, R-Idaho, meets with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in June 2022 in Kyiv. (Courtesy of U.S. Sen. Jim Risch).”

Flynn responded to this in our interview, talking about the violation of the Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances which was signed in 1994 at the Budapest Accords Treaty meeting. It said the U.S. and other NATO nations, “would not encroach on the Russian frontier.” Flynn told us,

“Ukraine is filled with all kinds of criminal activities and frankly, horrific activities.

We are there because we violated a treaty. We violated an agreement. We – the United States, France, UK, NATO. And now we have an encroachment on the frontier of Russia.”

Risch continues his support for our involvement with Ukraine. He is quoted here saying,

“I’m tired of hearing about escalation,” he said. “If you don’t escalate, you’re going to lose. I want Putin to wake up in the morning worried about what he’s going to do that’s going to cause us to escalate, instead of us wringing our hands and saying ‘we can’t do that.’”

When asked about the involvement of Risch in contributing to the endless wars, Flynn said of Risch and his position as ranking member on the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee,

“Those are the power bloc. If you are the chairman or the ranking member, like this Senator is, [he has] a lot of power. The foreign affairs committee, which is hugely important, we are talking about the guys that are going to be influencing the decision to send money over to Ukraine, influencing the decisions to promote some of these nation-states that are overseas that are not necessarily aligned with our values… The foreign affairs committee gets involved in a lot of different things, a lot of issues and they are responsible for… from the legislative branch of the government, to be able to communicate what our foreign affairs policies should be or will be, to the executive branch of government.

If you’re ranking member, [and] he is buying into the foreign policy we have [from the current white house], I would question him.

The one thing we can never compromise on… is our American values. And frankly the further deterioration of America. And it’s very real… We are heading down a very dark path.

If politicians are compromising on American values, that’s a problem. I have a problem with that.”

Flynn also told us,

“We are now involved in a domestic battle between ideologies – one ideology is this ideology of continuing to be an American Republic versus a socialist republic and we are further down the socialist path than I think most Americans, most Idahoans, realize.”