Streetwise Professor

Twitter is a strange place, part information gold mine, part cesspool. One of the distinctive phenomena is that of the Twitter exhibitionist who tweets incessantly, and gains a following of acolytes who retweet and tweet sick-making praise to him (or her). The exhibitionist often has some expertise, but usually gains a following more through repetition, bravado and the ignorance of the followers, who often don’t know any better.

One such exhibitionist is John Schindler, who in addition to being a Twitter exhibitionist, is one in real life: he had to resign his position at the Naval War College in disgrace because he texted below-the-belt selfies to a woman, who (a) did not appreciate it, and (b) was not impressed. Normal people would go under a rock and hide after such humiliation. But not Schindler. He laid low for a while, but soon returned to Twitter with a vengeance. He has parlayed his Twitter fame into appearances on Fox News and guest pieces at various publications, including the Daily Beast and the L.A. Times.

He is a nasty piece of work, as a look at his timeline shows. Recently he leveled a very bitter attack on the retiring Army Chief of Staff, General Raymond Odierno:

Odierno’s sin? At the time of his mandatory retirement, he signed on as an advisor to Jamie Dimon at J. P. Morgan. So this apparently makes him a sellout and a whore.

What was he supposed to do? Take up needlepoint? Commit seppuku for “fucking over soldiers” and “losing wars”?

And let’s look at Schindler’s accusations. As for being a “mouth breather” and “idiot”, Odierno has a masters degree in nuclear effects engineering. A subject a little bit more rigorous than Schindler’s (history). It’s not a subject for dummies. (One of the most impressive profs I had at Navy was a Marine Corps major who was a nuclear effects engineer whom I called Major Mohawk. Smart guy.) Odierno also has a degree from where Schindler used to teach before his photography hobby got him into trouble.

As for losing wars, Odierno served in a variety of positions in Iraq from the invasion in 2003, where his 4th Infantry Division was part of the follow on force (because Turkey denied it from being deployed to launch a planned assault from Turkish soil). Odierno’s role in the occupation was subject to some criticism for overaggressiveness, but the division has in the middle of the hornet’s nest of the Sunni Triangle. He subsequently was in operational command of The Surge, which was far more successful than the efforts that preceded it.  He didn’t lose Iraq. In fact, he was instrumental it creating the possibility of saving it, before that was thrown away.

As for “fucking over soldiers”, which Schindler insinuates he saw: well, if you make a charge like that, you better back it up with credible evidence. Schindler does not.

As for working after retirement, it’s not uncommon for generals and admirals. Omar Bradley was chairman of the Bulova Watch Company. Matthew Ridgeway, a true American hero in WWII and Korea (whom I compared to Petraeus at the onset of The Surge), was on the board of Gulf Oil. Many flag officers have served on corporate boards after retirement.

The public record clearly does not support Schindler’s accusations, which border on slander. Odierno has had a distinguished public career. If you talk smack like Schindler did, you have to bring more than a Tweet to the game.

So what explains Schindler’s attack? That Odierno went to work for a bank (as an advisor, mind you)? Maybe: Schindler exhibits some Occupy tendencies, admitting that he is a socialist who believes the “power structure” is unjust. But the vitriol seems very personal, even for someone as routinely nasty as Schindler. I’m guessing that Odierno does not suffer fools, and that in his interactions with Schindler at NWC he made that plain, and it left a mark on Schindler.

As for the bulk of Schindler’s Twitter output, he cashes in (figuratively!) on his stint working for the NSA years ago. Kind of ironic, isn’t it, that a guy who blasts a four star general with decorations out the wazoo for trading on his government service does the same. Though for a lot less money. Come to think of it, that may be part of the issue here. Schindler brags about his counterintelligence expertise, which begs the question: if he was so good, why did he punch out? I am also skeptical about people who are so vocal about their work in intelligence: the real pros don’t brag.

His commentary on Twitter and on his blog is rather tedious and not that insightful. I guffawed at his presumptuous tweets announcing how he has to keep telling people that the US Secretary of State is a target of foreign intelligence services. Who knew? What would we do without such penetrating insights?

And I have to say that I have to doubt Schindler’s counterintelligence genius based on events that came to light after his scandal. For some months prior, Schindler had been trolled hard on Twitter by someone who trolled me as well, on Twitter and here on the blog: this troll appeared in comments on SWP as Mr. X (whom I am sure long-time readers remember with fondness!) and a variety of other incarnations every time I blocked the source IP. On Twitter, this troll had one account (before being banned) that had a handle based on Schindler’s XXCommittee blog name. This individual also emailed me a few times, including one in which she included a picture of a hanged Nazi war criminal and insinuated that come the revolution I would be dealt with by citizen’s justice.

It turns out that Schindler was engaged in an email exchange with said troll, which came to light as result of a FOIA request to NWC. I figured out who the troll was. I know Schindler was told who the troll was. One clue that it is the same troll is the reference to the Hatch Act, which featured in Mr. X’s comments as well as in one of the emails in the linked piece. But he apparently never figured it out. So yeah. He’s your man to ferret out GRU agents (whom he sees behind every tree, BTW).

So go ahead, fanboys. Follow your hero. Retweet him. Even though he slanders far better men than he on zero evidence whatsoever. When he’s not engaged in art photography, that is.