Dreyfus and Flynn

Dreyfus and Flynn



Alfred Dreyfus was an artillery captain in the French army and came to Paris after the Franc/Prussian war of 1871 from Alsace when the New German state took possession after the treaty. In 1894 it was discovered that Germany had an intelligence source in the French military. Dreyfus came under suspicion, probably because he was a Jew and also because he had access to the type of information that had been supplied to the German agent. Despite his protestations of innocence, he was found guilty of treason in a secret military court-martial, during which he was denied the right to examine the evidence against him. The army stripped him of his rank in a humiliating ceremony and shipped him off to life imprisonment on Devil’s Island.



In 2017 Lieutenant General Michael Flynn was appointed to be incoming President Trump National Security Advisor. Flynn was forced to leave this position by a panicked national security apparatus, fearful that he would disclose the, as yet to be uncovered, corruption at CIA, FBI and the DOJ. Following his resignation, Flynn was prosecuted (persecuted) and agreed to plead guilty of perjury to protect his son from prosecution.



Dreyfus seemed destined to die in disgrace. He had few defender’s anti-Semitism was rampant in the French army. An unlikely defender came to his rescue, motivated not by sympathy for Dreyfus but by the evidence that he had been “railroaded” and that the officer who had actually committed espionage remained in position to do.



Lieutenant Colonel Georges Picquart, an unapologetic anti-Semite, was appointed chief of army intelligence two years after Dreyfus was convicted. Picquart, after examining the evidence and investigating the affair in greater detail, concluded that the guilty officer was a Major named Walsin Esterhazy. Picquart soon discovered, however, that the army was more concerned about preserving its image than rectifying its error, and when he persisted in attempting to reopen the case the army transferred him to Tunisia. A military court then acquitted Esterhazy, ignoring the convincing evidence of his guilt.



It was at this point that the renowned novelist Emile Zola took up the case and in a series of newspaper articles denounced the army establishment. Zola had to flee to England, fearing imprisonment for printing the truth. Dreyfus was tried and convicted a second time but later pardoned by the French President. His former rank was restored, but never his reputation.



General Flynn will not have another faux trial. The DOJ has declined to prosecute on the grounds that there is no evidence. Flynn has withdrawn his guilty plea and after spending every dollar of a lifetime of service is given an (Emily Littila never mind.) If it were not for Flynn’s current attorney Sidney Powell the Dreyfus level of corruption would never have been uncovered. Flynn, like Dreyfus, will never recover his reputation. However, President Trump can right this injustice by bringing Flynn into the government.



An interesting side note. One of the reporters sent to Paris to cover the case was Theodore Herzl from Vienna. The overt anti-Semitism of the French army and media convince Herzl that the only solution was a Jewish state in the traditional homeland. Herzl would spend the rest of his life in pursuit of that goal which became fact in May of 1948.