Retired U.S. Marine Lt. Col. Stuart Scheller, the Marine infantry officer who demanded accountability from military leaders during the chaotic final U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, said last week that he plans to run for office in 2024.<\/p>\n
Scheller gained viral attention in August and September as he made multiple videos and social media posts calling out military leaders for their handling of the Afghan withdrawal<\/a>. Scheller released his first video on the day 13 U.S. troops were killed by a suicide bomber while providing security for evacuation efforts at the Kabul airport. Scheller was ultimately court-martialed for his critical comments and he pled guilty to all six of the misdemeanor level offenses.<\/a> <\/p>\n Now, after gaining national attention, Scheller is eyeing a run for public office. Scheller described his political aspirations in a Thursday interview<\/a> on the John Solomon Reports podcast.<\/p>\n Scheller told podcast host John Solomon he never intended his viral videos to be a political jumping-off point. \u201cIt was always apolitical for me and it just seems like a lot of Republicans supported me because Biden was the president.\u201d <\/p>\n Scheller, who was discharged from the Marine Corps last month<\/a>, went on to say he probably doesn\u2019t have \u201cthe physical, mental, spiritual endurance right now to jump into a race,\u201d in 2022.\u00a0\u201cSo what I plan on doing is supporting this coalition that I built \u2014 and it\u2019s still growing \u2014 and I\u2019ll probably jump into a race in \u201924.\u201d<\/p>\n Scheller said he\u2019ll \u201ctake a knee\u201d during the 2022 election cycle and support other military veteran candidates through an organization he started called Votes For Vets<\/a>.<\/p>\n When Solomon pressed Scheller further on the possibility of running for elected office in 2024, Scheller said, \u201cI\u2019m sure I will. I mean, what else am I going to do? I can\u2019t go fishing.\u201d<\/p>\n Describing his political views, Scheller said he has an interest in politics and \u201cI am a conservative, but I think we need leaders and not politicians.\u201d<\/p>\n Scheller also said, \u201cBiden has a lot of problems, and he\u2019s not, in my opinion, very good.\u201d Scheller then said while a president can be held accountable through voting, but accountability for the military is less straightforward and often has to come from within the institution.<\/p>\n The \u201cmilitary on the tactical level is very effective,\u201d Scheller said. \u201cWhere we are failing wars is at the operational level and the strategic level. And that\u2019s the general-officer-to-the-political-realm link that\u2019s just consistently failing. And I think that starts with accountability. I think if you hold senior leaders accountable, you\u2019d be more effective.\u201d<\/p>\n While he was still in the Marine Corps, Scheller called for charges of dereliction of duty against U.S. Marine Gen. Kenneth McKenzie<\/a>, the commander of U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), which oversaw military operations in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n During his interview with Solomon, Scheller said McKenzie should face accountability for the withdrawal from Afghanistan because it was his job to convince the president of \u201cthe best course of action\u201d during the withdrawal.<\/p>\n \u201cOr, if [the plan is] just not executable, and you can\u2019t pull it off,\u201d Scheller continued, \u201cyou resign, or you assume responsibility and accountability for the resources applied to you by that civilian leadership. Like there is no fourth option. There\u2019s no, like, then the plan fails, and everyone just points at each other, and that\u2019s that. That is not acceptable.\u201d<\/p>\n During his interview, Scheller also criticized Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. <\/p>\n \u201cWhat really is deeply troubling to me . . . you\u2019ve got a secretary of defense, Lloyd Austin, who comes in and spends 100 days orienting to all of these problems \u2014 I could list off so many deep systemic problems in the military \u2014 and then he publicly announces \u2018alright, I\u2019ve done my problem framing and decided the biggest problem facing the [Department of Defense] is COVID,’\u201d Scheller said. \u201cAnd I just like wanted to put my head through the wall.\u201d<\/p>\n Scheller went on to list a series of military concerns, such as concluding wars like the one in Afghanistan and resolving spending and procurement problems. <\/p>\n Scheller also described \u201csenior general officers exacerbating the oligopoly between the government contracting companies\u201d and noted Austin was on the Raytheon board of directors between serving as an officer in the military and serving as the defense secretary.<\/p>\n \u201cFor him to take COVID and make that his focus,\u201d Scheller continued. \u201cLike I just don\u2019t know if these guys are don\u2019t understand the problems facing the military or if they\u2019re just singing the political narrative, but either way it\u2019s unacceptable.\u201d<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Retired U.S. Marine Lt. Col. Stuart Scheller, the Marine infantry officer who demanded accountability from military leaders during the chaotic final U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, said last week that he plans to run for office in 2024. Scheller gained viral attention in August and September as he made multiple videos and social media posts calling… Continue reading Viral Marine who slammed military leaders for Afghan debacle says he\u2019ll run for office in 2024<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[20,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-63964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economic-empowerment","category-national-security","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63964","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=63964"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63964\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=63964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=63964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=63964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}