Casey Michel Profile picture
Sep 6, 2021 15 tweets 5 min read Read on X
NEW: I wrote about one of the greatest traitors the US has ever produced, a man who deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as Benedict Arnold: Robert E. Lee.

newrepublic.com/article/163557…
Robert E. Lee was a quisling who:

—Disavowed his oath of loyalty to the US
—Led a movement that slaughtered hundreds of thousands of US troops
—All so that he could no longer be American
—All so that he and other insurrections could continue/expand enslavement of Black Americans Image
Robert E. Lee's treason is there for all of us to see.

As Ulysses S. Grant wrote, Lee chose to lead a movement that was “one of the worst [causes] for which a people ever fought, and one for which there was the least excuse.”

And all of it fought to shatter the U.S. Image
And the idea that viewing Robert E. Lee as an anti-American traitor is a modern phenomenon couldn't be more wrong.

Lee was indicted by a federal grand jury for rank treason shortly after Appomattox—spared only because Grant intervened.

newrepublic.com/article/163557… Image
Even after the Civil War (and being indicted for treason) Robert E. Lee did nothing while white supremacist terrorists targeted Reconstruction governments.

He and other former Confederates "undermine[d] the government's policies"—and tried to prevent Black Americans from voting. Image
Yes, it’s fantastic news the Robert E. Lee statue in Richmond is finally coming down.

Not least because this statue was such a watershed in Lost Cause mythologizing—and symbol of the American apartheid that followed. Image
New York Times obituary of Robert E. Lee, 1870:

Lee “cast his lot with traitors, and devote[d] his splendid talents to the execution of a wicked plot to tear asunder and ruin the Republic”.

archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.co…
Today is a fantastic day in the U.S.
April 20, 1861: Robert E. Lee resigns from the American military to begin his efforts to shatter the U.S.

April 21, 1861: Ulysses S. Grant writes, "There are but two parties now, Traitors and Patriots and I want hereafter to be ranked with the latter.”

There’s a great, just irony in the fact that Robert E. Lee sided with the white supremacist traitors running his state into the ground, all in pursuit of cleaving apart the US… only to see his “beloved” Virginia cleaved apart as a result.

Couldn’t have happened to a worse guy.
“Down with the traitors / Up with the stars”
This reads like a third-grader who’s just come from a summer camp devoted to the Lost Cause.
Robert E. Lee 'went to great lengths to see [the people he personally enslaved] whipped and even ordered that their wounds be doused with salt water to increase their suffering.' washingtonpost.com/history/2021/0…
'There were eight colonels in the U.S. Army from Virginia at the time the state seceded. All West Pointers, seven remained loyal. Lee and only Lee chose treason, chose to try to destroy the United States.' nbcnews.com/think/opinion/…
'80 percent of all colonels from the South [remained loyal to the U.S. during the Civil War]. “Lee’s the outlier,” Seidule said. That may be because at that level of Army officers “no one benefited from slavery more than he did.”' washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…

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More from @cjcmichel

Oct 27, 2023
What do you know about Russia's colonization of Alaska? What do you know of what Russian colonizers did to Alaska Natives?

And why is it still so ignored by so many Americans?

My essay in @POLITICOMag on this ongoing blank spot, and Russian colonialism: politico.com/news/magazine/…
Spending decades ignoring Russian brutality against Alaska Natives is bad enough.

But overlooking the topic meant Americans missed an opportunity to understand more about Russian colonialism—and the outright imperialism still driving Russia.
politico.com/news/magazine/…
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Enslavement. Massacres. Hostage-taking and sexual violence—and clear signs of genocide. All in the name of stripping Alaska Natives of their wealth.

Russia’s conquest of Alaska was as colonial as it comes. And it was no better, or worse, than other European colonialism.

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Read 4 tweets
Apr 2, 2023
I'd forgotten that Jim Mattis was a military advisor to the UAE *before* he was appointed Defense Secretary—and never publicly disclosed that relationship.

Wild that that wasn't a bigger scandal.

cnn.com/2017/08/02/pol…
'The most prominent American cheerleader of the Emirati armed forces is former defense secretary Jim Mattis... [Mattis] again extolled Sheikh Mohamed and downplayed concerns about human rights in the UAE' washingtonpost.com/investigations…
The UAE's operations in DC is one of the—maybe *the*—most successful foreign influence and infiltration operation of the past decade.

An adviser as defense secretary, and another Trump insider as an agent. Millions saturating think tanks and universities. An army of lobbyists.
Read 4 tweets
Feb 24, 2023
We're starting to see the contours of how the Russian elite is going to pin this (ongoing, eventual) loss in Ukraine on Putin. (See: ft.com/content/800025…)

It is, to pick a term, bullshit. They were all fully on board with Russia's initial invasion, and moves to carve Ukraine.
The only reason gullible Westerners may buy this line—"It was Putin, it wasn't us!"—is because there's still a failure to recognize this invasion began not a year ago, but in 2014.

Russia's invasion began when troops rolled into southern Ukraine, and first stole Ukrainian land.
And guess what? The Kremlin's invasion was **insanely popular in Russia**. Putin's new social contract laid its cornerstone on this invasion (the "Crimean Consensus").

Beginning to carve up Ukraine was arguably the single most popular thing Putin ever did.
Read 7 tweets
Feb 22, 2023
A year into this war, Western policymakers are finally realizing one thing: for Ukraine—and Europe—to be at peace, Kyiv must regain control of Crimea.

My latest for @POLITICOMag on how things have shifted, and why Crimea is now in play.

politico.com/news/magazine/…
There are three major reasons Western views have shifted on Ukraine retaking Crimea:

1) Military necessity. So long as Russia retains Crimea, it will be a forward operating base for Russian troops to rest and resupply—a dagger aimed directly at the rest of Ukraine.
2) Economic reconstruction. So long as Russia retains Crimea, it can effectively suffocate a rebuilding Ukrainian economy—all while destabilizing Black Sea maritime security.

As @general_ben told me, “Crimea is decisive for this war.”
Read 7 tweets
Feb 20, 2023
This sure reads like Navalny has, for the first time, come out and said Crimea must be returned to Ukraine.
For more context on how Navalny’s views on Crimea have evolved: newrepublic.com/article/167944…
Between Navalny calling to respect Ukraine’s 1991 borders (Crimea!) and Khodorkovsky gesturing at potential independence for the North Caucasus, been one of the most interesting few days for Russian opposition in… some time.

Read 4 tweets
Feb 17, 2023
All of these concerns about Putin being replaced by someone “more hawkish” are faintly ridiculous.
If Putin goes because of this war, it will come after rolling military defeats, accelerating economic stagnation, spiraling internal divisions, etc.

Any successor will be immediately inundated in domestic crises. Do people really think they’ll, what, invade NATO? Launch a nuke?
Western officials need to stop buying into Putin’s “apres moi, le deluge” framing.

And they need to stop worrying about—and stop calibrating—what effect arming Ukraine will have on Russia internally. Just do whatever it takes to evict Russia from every inch of Ukraine.
Read 4 tweets

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