Commentary Culture Investigations

A Leaky General?
Army Lt. Gen. Brett Sylvia has been relieved of his former job as a top Defense Department strategist by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. This action comes in light of Sylvia’s being accused of leaking classified information on the Iran and Ukraine wars.
Gen.Sylvia is accused of leaking details of our involvement with Ukraine and in the Iran war. He reportedly lied to polygraphers on three or four occasions when tested in the investigation of the leaks.
Gen. Sylvia served in the Joint Chiefs of Staff directorate for strategy, plans, and policy.  He is a veteran of 32 years’ service and a former commander of the 101st Airborne.
Gen. Sylvia — if he is guilty of the leaks — had to know the risks he was taking. Was he so foolish to believe that he wouldn’t be discovered? Investigations of leaks — especially if they include polygraphs — are nearly certain to find the leaker out.
What could make a man throw away a long and honorable career like Gen. Sylvia apparently has? We may never know.
The leaks began as early as June 2025, according to a Fox News report. They reportedly included encrypted Signal messages and a meeting with a reporter at an Arlington, Virginia diner.
First reported by Axios is the fact (?) that Gen. Sylvia has admitted to the leaks. Did he actually admit to the leaks? If so, a court martial would be quick and sure to punish him.
Not knowing what information he allegedly leaked makes it impossible to determine his motive.
If Gen. Sylvia is guilty of leaking classified information to the press he could face significant jail time. Under several articles of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, and 18 US Code 798, he could face up to 10 years in federal prison.
I have had security clearances equal to what I believe Gen. Sylvia has, top secret-sensitive compartmented information. At no time did I ever even think of leaking classified information. But he reportedly did.
Every leaker has an agenda and Gen. Sylvia would be no exception. We don’t know what his agenda was but it could be that his goal was to embarrass his bosses — President Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth — or that he wanted to save his own reputation from the impact of the Iran war or many other things including that he wanted to make buddies in the press to help a future career.
Moreover and generally speaking, the press — and I’m speaking as both a former Defense Department official and a former Air Force officer — is not a friend to any DoD official or any other official. Bonds can be formed over years or decades but how could a rookie leaker be assured of not being discovered? Or did Gen. Sylvia get used to leaking and grew reckless?
The what’s and why’s of the case are all in the accused’s mind but we have to at least try to analyze the matter. We don’t know what role Gen. Sylvia played in war planning. Did he warn against our failing strategy of deterrence? Did he predict our use of too many defensive missiles in the Iran war or did he predict the failure of our drone and counter-drone strategy in Ukraine? It’s useless to speculate while we don’t know what the leaks consisted of.
One of the biggest mistakes that has been made is in the anticipation of Iranian and Houthi attacks on ships and Saudi oil facilities. We can’t even deter the Houthis from attacking the Saudis so how could we possibly deter the Iranians from attacking ships in the Strait of Hormuz? It seems to be a huge failure in planning and strategy.
And will it fail in larger wars such as the possible — and highly likely — attack by China on Taiwan? In truth, it already has.
But these are bigger issues and probably not the subject of the leaks. Gen, Sylvia was concerned with the nitty-gritty of the two wars and it is in those details he was caught up.
Any trial won’t be open to the media because it will have to contain the details of the leaks which are classified. Unless his lawyers attempt to make a political show trial of it (and even if they do) we should expect no details of it.
The case against Gen. Sylvia is pretty tight regardless of whether he admitted to the leaks. What could make a man throw away a long and honorable career like Gen. Sylvia apparently has? We may never know.
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In 18th century London, the Bethlehem Royal Hospital, better known as Bedlam, was a popular attraction. Visitors paid a penny to walk the halls staring at, and often taunting, the inmates. They found entertainment in watching powerless beings manifest their madness, some in a hostile manner. American patriots may soon have a similar experience, absent the spectatorial cruelty.
There are countless reasons for voting red down the line on Tuesday, starting with saving the country from people who despise it and the values that built it. But there’s a less noble yet no less satisfying reason. If the Republicans hold both houses of Congress and win some governorships, Leftists won’t be able to handle it. They will actually go berserk. And that will be amusing to see, with the proper safeguards such as the cell bars at Bedlam.
But if they lose on Tuesday … and the GOP keeps the Senate and House — it will not only be great news for America, it will be bedlam for Democrats.
Because the danger liberals pose in their lunacy is quite real. It almost killed Donald Trump, killed Charlie Kirk, and wants to kill all who supported both. You need only watch the  video of Isabela Lemgruber, 19, at a University of Texas at San Antonio Turning Point USA event with her feminist-mandated oversize glasses reading a poem she wrote celebrating Charlie’s assassination:
“The flags were hung proudly/The memes all on deck/As we solemnly remembered/A shot to the neck. The podcast grew weary/For tomorrow, dear friends, is the great Kirkversary. That’s all,” Lemgruber added, smiling smugly. “Are you happy with yourself now?” event speaker Christian Collins asked her. “Baby, I’m thrilled,” she preened, adding, “You’re brave or being out here, you know, no protection, no nothing, no like neck brace …”
I had one new observation while watching the video. What kind of English education are these kids getting that would invoke such a putrid, incoherent variation on The Night Before Christmas (“The podcast grew weary”)? I already knew the answer to the bigger question. What would turn a semi-attractive teen girl into a soulless monster? I posited the answer in a piece here last summer, “The Demonic Possession of Liberal Women.” Christian Collins told Lemgruber he’d pray for her. But what she needs is an exorcist, despite her recent “hostage” video.
What America needs is a Republican hold on power this Tuesday. For there’s no limit to what the Left will do in its quest for power and its hatred of conservatives, such as wreck the Constitution. Case in point — Poland last week.
Under the Polish constitution, judges of the Constitutional Tribunal, which performs some functions similar to those of the U.S. Supreme Court, are elected by the Sejm, the lower house of Poland’s parliament. A separate statute requires newly elected Constitutional Tribunal judges to take an oath before Poland’s president. President Karol Nawrocki, an ally of the conservative opposition to Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s governing coalition, refused to administer the oath, understanding that the new judges would serve as pro-immigration, pro-European Union loyalists of Tusk’s government.
So, Tusk did just what Democrats here would do if they could. He waited for the opposition leader, Nawrocki, to leave the country on a diplomatic flight to Africa, then acted swiftly. Tusk-allied judge on the Constitutional Tribunal, Anna Korwin-Piotrowska, suspended the Chief Justice, Bogdan Święczkowski, a Nawrocki ally, declaring herself acting head. She ordered a police barricade around the Constitutional Tribunal building.
The power grab would have come off without a hitch only President Nawrocki reacted too quickly and decisively. He turned the plane around in mid-flight, tweeting, “At such a moment the President must be in Poland.” Nawrocki forced his way through the police barricade into the Constitutional Tribunal building. He told Korwin-Piotrowska and her cabal, “You are not judges of the Constitutional Tribunal,” and cited a “violation of the constitutional order.” He may have saved Poland from a leftist takeover. As we must do for our country on Tuesday.
Polish Member of the European Parliament (MEP) Dominik Tarczyński sounded the alarm Saturday on Fox News. “If America will elect socialists — let’s call them communists because they are communists — then America is going to be gone for this generation and for two or three generations.” Longer than that, I think. Because unlike during the Cold War, there would be no America to keep the communists at bay.
Leftists believe that Tuesday is their big, possibly last, chance to seize power. They can taste victory so badly, the truth is escaping ahead of their guarded speech. They have their target, the man who has twice repelled their statist ambitions, Donald J. Trump. And they’ll punish not just Trump, again, but anyone who empowers him over the next two years. Including college graduates, whom Senator Elissa Slotkin’s recently threatened.
“I want young people coming out of school to say, ‘Should I go work for the Trump Administration? Like, that sounds fun, I might get an opportunity.’ I want them to be like, ‘Lord, that might be buying myself a ton of problems that I don’t want, and so let me avoid participating in that.’ I want that deterrence message sent.”
But if they lose on Tuesday — if James (“God is non-binary”) Talarico goes down in Texas and Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan, and the GOP keeps the Senate and House — it will not only be great news for America, it will be bedlam for Democrats. And we won’t have to pay a penny to see them screech and scream, only look at our screens. And stay alert. Because some of them will be coming for us.
READ MORE from Lou Aguilar:
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This Christmas, you have your pick of two great gift books by yours truly. For the tough guy in your life—my amazingly relevant and exciting political-thriller mystery, The Camelot Trail (coming out November 17th). For the special lady in your life, my sweet yet haunting Christmas romantasy, The Christmas Spirit. Both available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other fine booksellers.