Army • DOW

Lieutenant General Sylvia and Institutional Rot

29 October 2026

By Col. Tom Anderson, USA ret
@CynicalPublius on X

Last night, that execrable house organ of the Democrat Party, The Atlantic, published an article regarding the dismissal of U.S. Army Lieutenant General Brett Sylvia (USMA 1994) from his position as the director of the Directorate for Strategy, Plans, and Policy at the Joint Chiefs of Staff, otherwise known as the JCS J-5.

The Atlantic framed this event as being yet another bullheaded, amateurish action by Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, one that they suggest will greatly harm America’s war efforts in Iran.

In this false narrative, Sylvia was advising the Pentagon’s Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, Elbridge Colby, with information Colby did not want to hear, so Hegseth petulantly fired someone for daring to disagree, and at the worst possible time given suspected upcoming offensives in Iran.

Or so The Atlantic claims.

While it appears true that Sylvia and Colby have, in fact, butted heads on some substantive issues, THAT was not the cause for Sylvia’s removal. After The Atlantic article rolled out, Laura Loomer and Jack Posobiec each reported (based on anonymous sources inside the Department of War) that Sylvia was relieved of his duties because he is

“. . . the subject of an investigation for leaking classified information about the Iran War, the war between Russia and Ukraine, and more. Due to the Pentagon’s media policy requiring journalists to have escorts in the building, Sylvia began meeting with journalists outside of the Pentagon in order to leak classified information.”

Those of you who have followed me on X for any period of time know that I absolutely loathe any media story based solely on anonymous sources, so I have been reluctant to highlight the stories from Loomer and Posobiec in my X feed. However, this morning, Sean Parnell, Assistant to the Secretary of War for Public Affairs, posted this  on X:

I take Parnell’s X post as solid proof and confirmation that Sylvia actually was relieved from his post for the reasons stated by Loomer and Posobiec, so now I am writing this article to explain the deeper meaning of this whole affair.

The Rot Within

Ever since Donald Trump raised his right hand on January 20, 2017 and first became President of the United States of America, he has faced on unrelenting cabal of unelected federal bureaucrats, careerist members of the Senior Executive Service, viciously lying media outlets, nefarious NGOs, Democrat and NeverTrump politicians, foreign powers, and the insanely violent, low-IQ street warriors of the Democrat Party, all bent on thwarting Trump’s agenda.

This is because Trump represents an existential threat to the globalist, neo-Marxist, critical theory-based form of unconstitutional governance that has been metastasizing in America for over 60 years.

This cabal has used any number of tactics to try and cripple both the Trump 45 and Trump 47 administrations, but few of those tactics are more despicable than the anonymous leak from “sources close to the matter.” (I get angry just writing those words!)

Let me explain how that works:

1, The American people (i.e., the sovereign authority of our American nation), through the Constitution, elect a President.

2. That duly-elected President has Constitutional authority over certain federal departments and agencies such as the Department of War, the Department of State, the Department of Justice, the Environmental Protection Agency, etc.

3. That duly-elected President then appoints, with the advice and consent of the Senate, well-qualified men and women to lead those departments and agencies.

4. Those department/agency heads then act within the lawful powers of their department/agency to enact the policies that THE AMERICAN PEOPLE VOTED FOR.

5. Certain unelected, arrogant, careerist federal employees decide that they know what is best for the American voters and violate their oaths to the Constitution through any number of passive/aggressive tactics designed to thwart the implementation of the policies the American people voted in favor of.

6. The most nefarious of these tactics is the “anonymous leak.” While there are rare occasions that an anonymous federal leaker is a genuine whistleblower for actual wrongdoing, the overwhelming majority of such leaks are merely a dissatisfied bureaucrat, unhappy with guidance from his/her boss, who then “leaks” information to a “journalist” who is an eager member of the Democrat/Media Complex. The leak will either be (i) wholly fabricated (i.e., a complete lie), (ii) a half-truth that leaves out the information that undermines the leaker’s assertions or (iii) a combination of actual facts that are presented in such a way to create a false conclusion. The “journalist,” eager for a “scoop,” fails to check the validity of the leak or take any effort to pursue other information that would nullify the leaker’s assertions, and *presto* a front page story appears on a propaganda rag such as the Washington Post or the New York Times, spreading a false information warfare narrative specifically designed to thwart and undermine the policy changes that the voters overwhelmingly support.

Call it the Deep State.

Call it The Swamp.

Call it Washington D.C. in 2026.

It’s all evil and all is designed to deny YOU, the American citizen, the right to exert your sovereignty as baked into our Constitution.

Is the Military Rotten Too?

Thus far I have been talking about leaks from CIVILIAN employees of the federal government. We have unfortunately sort of come to accept such bad behavior at a certain level.

However, it’s a whole other matter when the “resisters” are uniformed U.S. military generals and admirals. These are the men and women we entrust with our very lives, and to see them consumed with a lust to undermine their elected leadership and the will of the American people is shocking and disturbing on a whole other level.

When I was coming up in the Army in the ‘80s/’90s/’00s, I knew many officers who refused to vote because they saw it as a wrongful signal of military partisanship. Back in the day, it was exceptionally rare to know the political inclinations of those you served with, and criticizing the decisions of elected leaders, even in private, was considered to be in exceptionally bad taste.

The military is largely conservative, and those of us who served under Clinton or Obama know what it is like to serve under a Commander-in-Chief you neither like nor respect. Yet, we all kept that to ourselves and never would speak out against those Presidents, either publicly or privately. To do so would have violated our honor and our oath–and we ALWAYS enthusiastically followed the lawful orders of those Presidents, because it was our duty to do so.

Somewhere along the way—likely in the Obama Administration—that honor was lost in our military’s senior ranks.

We saw it when General Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told China he would warn them about President Trump’s military decisions. We saw it when a cadre of generals and admirals decided that DEI was a core competency of our military.

We saw it when General CQ Brown, then the Chief of Staff of the Air Force, decided that skin color was the key criteria for choosing Air Force officers. We see it when these same generals and admirals retire from active duty and become talking heads, endlessly spewing hatred for the electoral process they once swore to defend.

I’m not entirely sure how we descended into a miasma of senior officers who have lost sight of their oaths. @InfantryDort, a serving Army lieutenant colonel and vocal supporter of his current chain of command, thinks it a function of a readiness culture that taught officers to lie routinely.

My personal belief is that this is an unintended negative consequence of the noble “Thank you for your service” culture. Americans hold their military in high regard. That regard is there because of the military’s history of SELFLESS service, yet somehow along the way the Courtney Massengales of our military started to believe that same public admiration entitled them to SELFISH service; that they could do no wrong and that they knew best even if the will of THE PEOPLE disagreed.

The support of the American people went to their heads, and they lost sight of their first and most important duty: to support and defend the Constitution.

Put simply, our senior military leaders stopped being warriors and started being clones of their careerist Senior Executive Service civilian bureaucrat bosses.

Back to Sylvia

Which brings us back to Lieutenant General Sylvia.

If what he is accused of is true, it’s criminal and must be punished.

However, let us instead imagine a good and decent officer as JCS J-5. He is a war plans guy. Colby is not his direct boss, but he is his superior. When Colby says something this good and decent general disagrees with, that general’s duty is to clearly and unambiguously voice his disagreement. When Colby says “I hear you, I understand your concerns, but we’re still doing it my way,” that general’s DUTY (so long as it’s not an unlawful order) is to salute smartly, say “Yes Sir!,” do an about face and then enthusiastically adopt Colby’s directions as if they were his own orders.

So what did Sylvia do instead, allegedly? He disagreed with his superior on war plans, got told to do it anyway, so he ran outside the Pentagon and found a willing “journalist” to whom he could spill CLASSIFIED half-truths designed to undermine the lawful war plans of the United States of America.

Allegedly.

But—if true—there are few things more heinous than a serving senior officer engaging in such behavior. It threatens our nation’s very survival.

Why is Pete Hegseth purging so many senior generals and admirals?

Because they have lost sight of their oath and their mission and have betrayed the American people.

Thank God and all that is holy for Pete Hegseth and all those remaining generals and admirals who DO remain true to their oath.

The Sylvia affair says so many things, none of them good.

*********************
P.S.: The Atlantic alleges that Sylvia is central to the Iran war plan. Wrong. That authority lies with the J-5 of the combatant command responsible for the Iran War: U.S. Central Command.

P.P.S: Geez, isn’t turning the military against the lawful authority of the President and his appointees a key component of the Color Revolution? Hmmmm….

First published on X

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