Recent videos and articles remembering Rich Higgins:
Col. Derek Harvey reports to Steve Bannon from the memorial service being held for Rich Higgins, the American hero who died recently at the age of 47. Higgins had tried to warn President Trump about the dangers he faced in his own administration from Deep State operatives. The memo he wrote actually got him fired from his job at the Department of Defense, and then the people he warned against tried to impeach Trump twice. In part 2, watch more tributes from those at the memorial service.
Part 1: Remembering Rich Higgins w/ Col. Derek Harvey:
Part 2: Bill Gertz and Louie Gohmert Speak on the Memory of Rich Higgins:
Eulogy for a Bureaucrat With a Conscience
By Frank Miele in Real Clear Politics
“When statesmen forsake their own private conscience for the sake of their public duties, they lead their country by a short route to chaos.” —Robert Bolt, “A Man for All Seasons”
Sir Thomas More’s pronouncement above correctly states the danger to a nation when our leaders don’t follow their conscience, but it is silent on the danger when men of conscience such as More are themselves silenced.
A statesman died recently who did not sacrifice his conscience, and paid a price for it. His death, so far as I know, had nothing to do with his conscience, but his firing from his public duties had everything to do with it. And because he was removed instead of rewarded, the nation did edge toward chaos.
In July 2017, Rich Higgins was unceremoniously dismissed from his job at the National Security Council, forced to resign as the result of a seven-page memo he wrote describing an internal and external threat to Donald Trump’s presidency.
“This is not politics as usual but rather political warfare at an unprecedented level that is openly engaged in the direct targeting of a seated president through manipulation of the news cycle,” he wrote. “It must be recognized on its own terms so that immediate action can be taken. At its core, these campaigns run on multiple lines of effort, serve as the non-violent line of effort of a wider movement, and execute political warfare agendas that reflect cultural Marxist outcomes.
Higgins went on to outline how the media, academia, the Deep State, global corporatists and bankers, Democratic leadership and Republican leadership would all benefit from the destruction of Trump’s presidency. He also concluded that all those institutions used political correctness as a tool to achieve their political ends.
Little did Higgins know that he would become the next target of the destructive anti-Trump campaign. Ironically it was Higgins’ own rejection of political correctness that gave Trump’s enemies an opening to paint him as a fringe conspiracy advocate. That’s because Higgins not only saw the hand of communists behind the attacks on Trump, but also Islamists. As Trump himself learned when he tried to institute a ban on travel from Islamic countries that harbored terrorist organizations, the ruling elites refuse to acknowledge any threat to the United States from the religion that spawned al-Qaida, the Islamic State, and Hezbollah.
So Higgins, an Army veteran who had served in the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations in the Pentagon during the long occupation of Iraq and the war in Afghanistan, had to go. At the time of his dismissal, he was the NSC’s director for strategic planning and had a thorough understanding of the geopolitics of the Middle East as well as a deep knowledge of Maoism, cultural Marxism, and the methodologies of propaganda.
He was, in other words, a mid-level bureaucrat whose name you would not be expected to know and yet who probably understood the workings of the so-called “intelligence community” as well as anyone.
That’s why his warning to Trump titled “POTUS & Political Warfare” was so invaluable and why his boss, National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster, was in such a hurry to show him the door. Higgins, following his conscience, had explained in plain language the “withering information campaigns designed to first undermine, then delegitimize and ultimately remove the President.” McMaster, as we came to understand later, was a key player in those campaigns.
Unfortunately, President Trump did not fight to protect Higgins, who was escorted out of the building by security just as Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman was three years later after he led a campaign to impeach Trump. Ironically, as Higgins noted in a Wall Street Journal op-ed in 2020, “in contrast to Lt. Col. Vindman, I lost my job because I was loyal to the president.”
Perhaps an even more exact counterpart to Higgins than Vindman is Miles Taylor, the Homeland Security official who used his inside knowledge to write an anonymous op-ed for the New York Times in 2018 that characterized Trump as “impetuous, adversarial, petty and ineffective.” Taylor (under the cloak of anonymity at the time) “vowed to thwart parts of [Trump’s] agenda and his worst inclinations.” In other words, he was one of those “individuals and groups seeking the destruction of President Trump” whom Higgins warned about because they “actually seek to suffocate the vision of America that made him president.”
In that regard, Taylor represented the vast majority of the federal bureaucracy, most of them Democrats, almost all certainly liberal in outlook, and completely out of sync with Trump’s “America First” priorities. Under the designation of the Deep State, these bureaucrats had worked tirelessly to sabotage Trump’s policies and to undermine him personally. There is no need to rehash the uncritical role of politicized intelligence community operatives in inventing and spreading the Russia Collusion Hoax – or their role in convincing the public that Hunter Biden’s laptop full of incriminating documents, videos, and emails had somehow been invented by the Russians to help Trump. When the mainstream media refused to investigate the laptop and its confessions of corruption in the Biden family, it helped secure victory for Joe Biden and defeat for Trump.
In hindsight, everything Higgins wrote has the sanction of experience. Just six months in, the Trump administration was already being hamstrung. National Security Adviser Michael Flynn had been forced out. Chief strategist Steve Bannon was soon to follow. The “attack narratives” that Higgins wrote about were in full swing. Two impeachments would follow.
In his memo, Higgins cautioned that “the White House response to these campaigns … is intensely reactive, severely under-inclusive and dangerously inadequate to the threat.” For many on the right, that remained frustratingly true throughout Trump’s presidency.
Higgins concluded that “If action is not taken to re-scope and respond to these hostile campaigns very soon, the administration risks implosion and subsequent early departure from the White House.”
It is only by sheer persistence that Trump avoided that fate, and as Higgins noted, “Attacks on President Trump are not just about destroying him, but also about destroying the vision of America that led to his election.”
That battle against the people, against the Deplorables, did not end with the departure of President Trump from the White House. In fact, it has intensified. Higgins, who died due to complications from an earlier bout of COVID-19, will not be able to carry on the fight against the cultural Marxists who want to tear down America, but we are fortunate he left us with a clear understanding of what we are up against – and how to fight back.
His cry of conscience has earned him the title of American hero.
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Frank Miele, the retired editor of the Daily Inter Lake in Kalispell Mont., is a columnist for RealClearPolitics. His new book, “What Matters Most: God, Country, Family and Friends,” and his earlier books are available from his Amazon author page. Visit him at HeartlandDiaryUSA.com to read his daily commentary or follow him on Facebook @HeartlandDiaryUSA or on Twitter or Gettr @HeartlandDiary.
In Remembrance of American Hero Rich Higgins
By Gray Delany on behalf of the entire team at Calamo Press (Benjamin Braddock, Harry Stein and Robert Matheson), publisher of Rich’s book, The Memo
It is with a heavy heart that we announce the passing of American hero Rich Higgins. Rich died of heart failure during the early morning hours of February 23rd. As many of you knew, Rich was left without a small bowel after suffering from a massive blood clot in his mesenteric artery in late January of 2021. Over the course of 2021, he underwent over twenty surgeries, many of which could have ended his life, but displaying his usual toughness, he made it through them all. Heading into his transplant the week before last, although he could not eat or drink, he was in good health and in good spirits. The transplant went well and the doctors indicated he was on track for a full recovery. The night before he passed, Rich was talking and texting with friends and family. But, unfortunately, his heart gave out just a few short hours later.
It is almost impossible to describe in this short a space how special a man Rich Higgins was, and how vital his contributions to our fight to reclaim our Republic. But I will do my best.
Rich was always about fifty steps ahead of everyone else. Many of us too readily dismissed Rich as a “conspiracy theorist”— only to find Rich completely vindicated by events a few months or years later. Why? Because his knowledge of the Deep State -the military industrial complex, Islamists, globalists, international financiers etc.–was hard-earned — gained through real world experience, rather than through serving time behind a desk at a think tank. Rich prided himself on his street smarts and his common touch. Years in Washington never turned his head. He wore his learning lightly. He had a talent for boiling down complicated political events and theories into language that anyone could understand.
I got to see Rich in action when I recruited him as a surrogate for Trump at the convention in Cleveland in 2016.
My task was to help assign surrogates to the various state delegation breakfasts, and I quickly realized we had a big problem: The RNC-run surrogate selection team had no understanding of Trump or his candidacy, and so were ill-equipped to counter Ken Cuccinelli’s plan to steal the nomination from Trump by getting the required number of states to vote for Cruz and force a brokered convention.
So I called Rich and said: “Drop what you are doing and come to Cleveland—now!”
I wanted Rich and his colleagues to convince the Cruz delegations to vote for Trump. I knew no one could better frame the issue at hand for what it was: a battle of Americanism v Globalism, with Trump representing average, decent, hard-working Americans.
Rich went into the most hostile Cruz delegations and won converts. Several of the states Rich briefed even ended up voting for Trump on the first ballot. Mission accomplished!
At that crucial moment, no one could have been more effective than Rich.
No one ever stood more firmly for truth, even if it was in the face of ridicule and derision. Because he always knew what was at stake, he always had the guts to tell it straight even when others would not. He was Bunyan’s Mr. Valiant-For-Truth.
Of course, he also knew how to pick his spots. He didn’t unnecessarily overexpose himself — when he stepped out, he went for the kill.
I remember Rich telling me, “Gray, war is nine parts deception and one part combat. How many times do I have to tell you to read the War of the Flea? It is all in there. Wake the f**k up.” This was Rich Higgins: immense learning but delivered in the common language of his hometown Boston.
Rich went for the kill when he wrote his famous “POTUS and Political Warfare” memo warning President Trump to “wake up,” or risk being removed from office.
Tragically, Trump did not listen, and the rest is history.
A few months after Rich was perp walked out of the White House for telling the truth, I started urging Rich to write a book. His story needed to be told. After months of back and forth, Rich finally agreed to write the book and we were proud to publish it. It is titled The Memo: Twenty Years Inside the Deep State Fighting for America First.
And now that Rich is gone, I am more thankful than ever that we were able to put Rich’s story between two covers. After you read the book, your understanding of the tumultuous years of the Trump Administration will be forever changed. Through Rich’s story, you’ll learn how the Left, Establishment republicans and globalists wage unprecedented political and information warfare operations against the American people. You will see national and world events through a whole new lens.
Rich, you will be sorely missed. You were an example to us all of love of country; of courage, civil and personal; and of stoic good humor in the face of adversity. We will pick up the torch and carry on the fight in your honor. We will make you proud. We promise you that.
Rich leaves behind his wife Karin and four young children. Karin has shown remarkable strength throughout the last year and has been a rock for Rich. We will not forget you, Karin and will be there to support you both emotionally and financially. To donate to the Rich Higgins Memorial Fund, click here.
Rich Higgins: Seeker of Truth and Patriot
By Guermantes Lailari in The Epoch Times
Rich Higgins passed away on Feb. 23, 2022. More than 3,300 people have donated over $275,000 to his GoFundMe website to cover his expensive medical costs as a result of COVID complications.
Why would so many people give their money to him? Who was Higgins? What did he do to inspire people?
First and foremost, Higgins was a relentless seeker of truth. He was an independent who worked under Republican and Democratic administrations.
In an interview on leadership in August 2020, he stated: “On social issues I’m probably more liberal than most people and on economic and foreign policy issues, I’m a lot more conservative than most people. And I think that’s what it means to be an American … I’m that five percent in the middle that gets to actually use my freedom to decide which path we want to go down. I’m not hide bound to some ideology.”
He would challenge assumptions about freedom of people on the left and the right, and he believed that “in America, the individual is the sovereign, and this idea of America is in the Declaration of Independence,” and that “the Constitution is the legal means that we swear to protect because the nation exists under law.”
In other words, anyone, any group, or any country that attacks the idea of the United States or the Constitution is a threat to Americans’ freedom.
From this framework, Higgins grew from being a U.S. Army Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) officer to Defense civilian—quickly making the senior grade to GS-15. From 2002 to 2010, he designed and implemented innovative ways to use technology and people to win hearts and minds through irregular warfare at the Combating Terrorism Technical Support Office (now called the Irregular Warfare Technical Support Directorate or IWTSD, which is subordinate to the assistant secretary of defense for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict or ASD-SO/LIC). Higgins later accepted a Special Operations Command-sponsored chair and was a student at the National Defense University’s College of International Security Affairs.
Most of Higgins’ NDU colleagues were senior foreign military officers and senior civilians, some even from royal families. His NDU research and studies guided him for his remaining years. Higgins’ 2010 Master’s thesis paper was titled “No Common War: Mundus Vult Decipi”—which comes from the Latin phrase “Mundus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur,” meaning, “the world wants to be deceived, so let it be deceived.” One of his many prescient recommendations was to follow Sun Tzu’s instruction to know ourselves and the enemy.
Americans once learned about civics (ourselves), communism (our enemy), and Karl Marx during the Cold War. During our war with Islamist terrorist groups, learning about the adversary’s doctrine and strategy was hindered by government officials. Higgins argued the same obstacles work against us today as we face off with communist China; we no longer learn civics nor Marxism, Leninism, Communism, and Maoism.
Like Saint George, one of the most prominent Catholic military saints and his favorite, Higgins slew metaphorical dragons—threats to the idea of America—totalitarian and authoritarian ideologies. Whether one dragon was Islamists, who continue to infiltrate and beguile Americans via the many Muslim Brotherhood organizations that support al-Qaeda, Hamas, ISIS, and Hezbollah, or the other dragon, Marxist groups, who seek to foment a race war in the United States, Higgins led in warning political leaders, intelligence, law enforcement, and defense officials, and provided them clear, logical, and persuasive proof of these foreign and domestic dragons’ malicious intent.
Higgins was a firebrand and provided no weaknesses in his arguments. Consequently, many tried to remove him from positions in which he served in the U.S. government. Despite their efforts, Higgins was able to convince many people that the United States was allowing these dragons to spread lies and disinformation.
When he was fired from the National Security Council by then-national security adviser General H. R. McMaster, Higgins had just described the threat and how to tackle it in concise and precise terms. His seven-page paper, titled “POTUS & Political Warfare” and dated May 2017, was written at home on his own time and was intended to help then-President Donald Trump to better understand the threat that was rearing its ugly heads from every direction.
After leaving the White House, Higgins wrote “The Memo: Twenty Years Inside the Deep State Fighting for America First” (2020). These examples were not the only time that Higgins had written clearly about threats to America.
Stephen Coughlin, author of “Catastrophic Failure: Blindfolding America in the Face of Jihad” (2015), and Higgins formed a non-profit company, Unconstrained Analytics, in 2015. They wrote and spoke extensively on the Islamist threat (via the Muslim Brotherhood and associated U.S. organizations that supported designated terror organizations). They also dissected ideas espoused by Marxist organizations that had sprung up after the foreign policy establishment went to sleep following the end of the Cold War.
Rich Higgins—American hero, warrior, father, husband, son, boss, colleague, friend—was an inspiration to many. He lives through his insightful writings, speeches, interviews, and his fearless actions that continue to inspire us—dedicated to the idea of the United States described in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution that he loved so dearly.
As one of his friends wrote to him after he passed away: “We who have served our brothers, our sisters, our brethren—Sir, We Have The Mission.”
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Guermantes Lailari is a retired USAF Foreign Area Officer specializing in the Middle East and Europe as well as counterterrorism, irregular warfare, and missile defense. He has studied, worked, and served in the Middle East and North Africa for over 14 years and similarly in Europe for six years. He was a U.S. Air Force Attaché in the Middle East, served in Iraq and holds advanced degrees in International Relations and Strategic Intelligence. He researches authoritarian and totalitarian regimes that threaten democracies. He will be a Taiwan Fellow in Taipei during 2022.
In Memoriam: Richard Higgins
By John Guandolo, Understanding The Threat
This week, America lost one its greatest leaders in the war in which we are engaged – Rich Higgins.
Several fine articles have been written detailing Rich’s background and noteworthy achievements, of which there are many. You can read one such article here.
You can read Rich’s bio at Unconstrained Analytics here.
Rich’s service in the Army, the Department of Defense (DoD), and as the Director of Strategic Planning for the National Security Council (NSC) is tremendous. However, it was his strategic understanding of the enemy, his innate understanding of good and evil, and his inner desire to see the Republic survive that made Rich an invaluable asset in the war for the free world.
I knew Rich as a friend, roommate, colleague, mentor, and sounding board. He was as humorous as he was dedicated to the mission and his oath. He saw the world in raw realistic terms, and spoke the same way.
If Rich Higgins was running the American war effort, many generals would have been fired, the enemy would have been vanquished, and the war would have been over years ago.
While working inside the FBI, teaching and training others about the international and domestic jihadi threat, a friend and colleague of mine told me I need to know Rich Higgins. This was at a time when I, and my colleague from the Joint Staff, Steve Coughlin, were putting together a small group of influential people in the Washington, D.C. area to brief about this threat, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and how America was completely off its warfighting game.
To that end, I called Rich on a Friday evening, introduced myself as an FBI agent who was given his number by a mutual colleague, and asked if he would be willing to attend a brief we were having early Saturday morning at a warehouse in Alexandria, Virginia.
There was a long pause before Rich asked, “Am I under investigation?”
After assuring him he was not, Rich showed up and the relationship began.
After that day, and several more shortly after, Rich was able to take the information Steve and I shared, and put it into a strategic picture which, as he put it, brought everything happening in the “Global War on Terror” into perfect focus.
A couple years later, Rich recruited me out of the FBI into the Department of Defense to continue my work, synergized by Steve Coughlin’s deep understanding of the enemy, and let us operate without the shackles of our former agencies.
Rich Higgins understood the profound practical and spiritual battle that lay ahead for America. He knew that without returning to “the Law of Nature and of Nature’s God” America could not and would not be restored.
I believe this was so because Rich understood evil, and understood it is at the heart of normative Islamic and communist doctrine. These ideologies seek to destroy the very foundations upon which America’s law and government were founded. He took this clear understanding of the world into his decision-making, operations, and his daily life.
Rich’s 2017 memo on political warfare was the culmination of over a dozen years of strategic thinking and planning that lays out in plain sight how America’s enemies do what they do, and what the consequences will be if American leaders ignore the problem.
Rich’s predictions came true. Donald Trump is out of the White House. The communists – Black Lives Matter, Antifa, DSA, CPUSA, et al – openly call for the overthrow of our system. U.S. Islamic leaders are openly calling for the release of an Al Qaeda Weapons of Mass Destruction operative, being held in jail in Texas, which is not surprising because they all subscribe to the same doctrine.
Rich Higgins’ contribution to the war effort, in my opinion, cannot be overstated. Neither can his love of family, friends, God, and country.
Raise a glass and remember Rich Higgins today. Ask yourself what you are prepared to do to restore the American Republic to its founding principles.
Rich Higgins is gone, but those of us who knew and love him will carry on the war effort.
To help support Rich’s wife and four children, please consider clicking here and donating.
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John Guandolo is a US Naval Academy graduate, served as an Infantry/Reconnaissance officer in the United States Marines and is a combat veteran, served as a Special Agent in the FBI from 1996-2008, and was recruited out of the FBI by the Department of Defense to conduct strategic analysis of the Islamic threat. He is the President and Founder of Understanding the Threat (UTT).
Farewell to a truly great American
By Frank Gaffney, Jr,. Center for Security Policy
Early this morning, the United States lost one of its most formidable warriors. Rich Higgins, an Army combat veteran who went on to become a senior civilian national security professional and leading figure in conservative defense and foreign policy circles, succumbed at last to debilitating medical conditions arising from complications of Covid-19.
Rich was not merely a physically imposing and intellectually towering figure. His deep knowledge and expertise with respect especially to the nature and practice of irregular warfare made him one of the most important champions our constitutional Republic has ever produced.
Since most of Rich Higgins’ vital work in defending this country from all enemies, foreign and domestic, was done behind the scenes, he is unlikely to get the credit that he never sought but surely deserves. One exceptional instance that did come to public attention, however, offers an insight into the magnitude of the man’s abilities and impact.
Rich was an early supporter of Candidate Donald Trump and served as one of his campaign advisors and national security surrogates in 2016. After Mr. Trump won the presidency, Rich was among a handful of loyal political appointees brought onto the National Security Council staff.
With his background in irregular warfare, Rich Higgins was among the first in the White House complex to understand the magnitude of the problem posed to the Trump presidency by hostile staff members detailed from the federal bureaucracy’s so-called “Deep State” and many others who were actually hired by problematic officials in Presidential Personnel. He ultimately expressed his grave concerns for the President, his administration and the country in a document that became known simply as “The Memo.”
Tragically, when Mr. Trump favorably received the Higgins memorandum and passed it along to his then-National Security Advisor, H.R. McMaster, for action, the retired lieutenant general summarily fired Rich and had him perp-walked out of the White House complex. The rest, tragically, is history – a history of a presidency sabotaged by enemies within, as well as the concerted, reprehensible conduct of their allies in the media, the Congress, the bipartisan political establishment and assorted foreign adversaries.
To his credit, Rich Higgins continued to serve his President and nation in the years following his departure from government. As an informal presidential advisor, analyst, commentator and strategist, he contributed mightily to the cause of freedom until his dying breath – inspiring and leading countless others with his profound situational awareness, mastery of the art of war, deep religious convictions and unflagging patriotism.
There would never be a good time to lose a man of Rich Higgins’ caliber. That is especially true, however, in our particularly turbulent times – whose ominous portents Rich understood better than just about anybody, and fewer still were better equipped to navigate. He will be sorely missed, particularly by those who will struggle to carry on his desperately needed work despite the huge gap in our line left by his tragic and untimely departure. We can only pray that, as ever, Rich will be calling in plays from his forward position, this time in a far, far better place.
A fund to help the Higgins family can be viewed here.
Frank J. Gaffney is the Founder and Executive Chairman of the Center for Security Policy in Washington, D.C., a not-for-profit, non-partisan educational corporation established in 1988. Under Mr. Gaffney’s leadership, the Center has been nationally and internationally recognized as a resource for timely, informed and penetrating analyses of foreign and defense policy matters. Mr. Gaffney is the host of Secure Freedom Radio, a nationally-syndicated radio program heard weeknights throughout the country. He is an associate author of highly acclaimed Shariah: The Threat to America and the publisher of over a dozen other books and monographs from the Center for Security Policy Press.
The Unsung White House Official Who Warned President Trump in 2017 that the Deep State Was Trying to Prematurely End his Presidency
by John Dale Dunn in American Thinker
No President of The United States ever before faced anything comparable to the organized effort of officials within his administration to sabotage Donald J. Trump’s presidency and drive him from office. The Memo by Rich Higgins [216 pp, Kindle 9.99 Hard Copy 22.34 ISBN-0999705938 Washington D.C. Calamo Press 2020] is a first and only book by an American soldier and patriot who exposes the deep state and the anti-Trump coup activities.
Rich Higgins earned his early reputation as an ordnance (explosives) expert in Iraq during and after the War for Iraqi Freedom of 2002 and 2003. Higgins went from being an ordnance man to becoming an expert on insurgency warfare, since explosives were the favored weapons of insurgents. They are usually outgunned and out manned so they retreat to asymmetric (guerilla) warfare heavily dependent on hit and run and explosives, which demoralize and disrupt the efforts of the larger force.
It was Higgins’s job to deter explosive disruptions planted and detonated by the opposition and that meant he developed an understanding of insurgents — their motives, strategies, limits, patterns of behavior. His depth of understanding was very valuable in Iraq and the Middle East but also at home. He transferred to the White House to provide security. He also developed a high level of expertise on IEDs and how to track and neutralize the insurgent efforts.
Higgins was convinced that George W. Bush and those military and State Department officials who parroted his position were colossally ignorant when they asserted that Islam is a Religion of Peace. Higgins was well informed about Islam and Islamist fanatics, and he knew that the adherents of Islam were committed to conquest and terror — obliged by their religion to wage war against the infidel and to enable by force and political action the worldwide Caliphate.
He also learned that there was a widespread tribal and family culture in the Islamic world and that made a big difference in the dynamics. When the Baathist insurgency in Iraq in 2004-5 got to the point of Muslim Baathist insurgents forcing Muslims to cook and eat their children, the opportunity to reverse the insurgency came around for the American soldiers, particularly the Marines, who had a strategy for the counterinsurgency: take advantage of building relationships with Muslims on the ground and working to create security for them and their families — a concept scholars of asymmetric warfare advocated and the Marines in particular had adopted. Counterinsurgency builds support and cooperation of the local population by creating security for the citizenry and reducing the suffering of population from the savagery of the insurgents.
American defense experts made a big deal about the “surge” in 2007, but Higgins asserts that the turnaround in Iraq was due to Marine-led community contact and confidence developing projects. Classic counterinsurgency strategies. That does not change the morale building efforts of the Higgins group to reduce the impact of the increasingly deadly and devastating impact of Improvised Explosive Devises (IEDs). He helped develop sophisticated counter measures to reduce the havoc of the IED attacks.
The experience for Higgins in Iraq committed him to forever consider the “religion of peace” position to be insane and counterproductive. Higgins also was convinced by his experience that Islamic doctrine would always be the enemy of Western Civilization. There was no place in his vision of the world for a Muslim deception that they were people of peace.
Higgins served a time as explosives security expert in the White House. He later also became a student and then a scholar expert in matters of counterinsurgency and the study of insurgency movement tactics and strategies. Rich Higgins was the vice president of a private security consultancy, Unconstrained Analytics. He was an executive in intelligence and national security company, RED, LLC, a company that developed, tested, and evaluated new combat resources for Department of Defense special operations and intelligence activities. In 2004, he formed the Department of Defense (DOD)’s Irregular Warfare Support (IWS) program office and served as the organization’s first Program Manager until June 2010. From 2010 to 2011, he served as the chair of special operations and low-intensity conflict at the National Defense University. In this role, he was directly responsible for the creation of several new strategic and operational capabilities. He separated from the Army and for a period of time he was in the private sector as a security analyst and consultant, an expert in asymmetric warfare problems and security solutions for state and private concerns.
Donald Trump attracted Higgins’s support when he ran for president in 2015 with his eyes wide open about the Muslim threat. That made Higgins commit to political advocacy on behalf of Trump, who was finally a political figure who agreed with Higgins on security, Islam, communism, and insurrection issues and would put the United States on a more sensible course vis-a-vis the many anti-American opponents around the world and the danger that they represented that would inevitably present as asymmetric guerilla war activities.
After serving in the National Security Council in the Trump administration for less than 3 months Mr. Higgins assessed the situation as dire for the Trump policies and the Trump administration, with a chance of a coup and he wrote this MEMO that nailed down the dangers for Trump and those who wanted him to succeed.
Remember, this memo was written within 3 months of Trump assuming office in late January of 2017 — Rich Higgins was a very alert and perceptive man. I can say with confidence — he was smart about the deep state and other threats.
Mr. Higgins died recently after complicated surgery.
The Rich Higgins Memo
This memo was clearly the reason Mr. Higgins was dismissed from the National Security Council by the National Security Advisor, deep state actor and enemy of President Trump, General H. R. McMaster. I have annotated text for emphasis and inserted ellipses for materials removed in the interests of space—the 5500 word memo is linked.
POTUS & POLITICAL WARFARE
Rich Higgins
May 2017BACKGROUND.
The Trump administration is suffering under withering information campaigns designed to first undermine, then de legitimize and ultimately remove the President…. If action is not taken to re-scope and respond to these hostile campaigns very soon, the administration risks implosion and subsequent early departure from the White House.
This is not politics as usual but rather political warfare at an unprecedented level… the hard left is aligned with lslamist organizations at local (ANTIFA working with Muslim Brotherhood doing business as MSA and CAIR), national (ACLU and BLM working with CAIR and MPAC) and international levels (OIC working with OSCE and the UN)…. [T]hey seamlessly interoperate at the narrative level as well. In candidate Trump, the opposition saw a threat to the “politically correct” enforcement narratives they’ve meticulously laid in over the past few decades…. [T]hey see a latent threat to continue that effort to ruinous effect and their retaliatory response reflects this fear.
INTRODUCTION.
“The establishment and their media enablers will control over this nation through means that are very well known. Anyone who challenges their control is deemed a sexist, a racist, a xenophobe, and morally deformed.” – President Trump, Oct 2016….
Recognizing in candidate Trump an existential threat to cultural Marxist memes…. For this cabal, Trump must be destroyed…. [T]his raises clear Title 18 (legal) concerns.
Responding to relentless personal assaults on his character, candidate Trump identified the players and the strategy:
“The establishment and their media enablers will control over this nation through means that are very well known. Anyone who challenges their control is deemed a sexist, a racist, a xenophobe, and morally deformed.” – President Trump, Oct 2016 . . .
Candidate Trump’s rhetoric in the campaign not only cut through the Marxist narrative, he did so in ways that were viscerally comprehensible to a voting bloc that then made candidate Trump the president; making that bloc self-aware in the process. President Trump is either the candidate he ran as, or he is nothing.
Recognizing in candidate Trump an existential threat to cultural Marxist memes…. For this cabal, Trump must be destroyed….
DISCUSSION.
… [O]pposition to President Trump manifests itself through political warfare memes centered on cultural Marxist narratives…. [S]ome benefit from it while others are captured by it; including “deep state” actors, globalists, bankers, lslamists, and establishment Republicans. Through the campaign, candidate Trump tapped into a deep vein of concern among many citizens that America is at risk and is slipping away. Globalists and lslamists recognize that for their visions to succeed, America, both as an ideal and as a national and political identity, must be destroyed….
Mainstream Media … implementing narratives.
The Academy… principal counter-state…. The Deep State — The successful outcome of cultural Marxism is a bureaucratic state beholden to no one, certainly not the American people….
Global Corporatists & Bankers — Exploitation of populations, unfettered….
Democratic Leadership…. [C]ounter-state enabler… facilitates the deep state.
Republican Leadership — More afraid of being accused of being called a racist, sexist, homophobe or Islamophobe… accepts and enforces cultural Marxist memes… Candidate Trump’s success remains an ongoing existential threat to establishment Republicans.
lslamists — Islamists ally with cultural Marxist [sic] because, as far back as the 1980s, they properly assessed that the hard left has a strong chance of reducing Western civilization to its benefit… “By their own hands!” has been the declared strategy of the Muslim Brotherhood since 1991….
Complicating the current situation, many close to the president have pushed him off his message when he was candidate Trump thus alienating him from his base thereby isolating him in the process. When President Trump is not candidate Trump, he becomes dangerously exposed….
Political Warfare Attacks: A Primer — As used here, “political warfare” refers to political warfare as understood by the Maoist Insurgency model. Political warfare is one of the five components of a Maoist insurgency. Maoist methodologies employ synchronized violent and non-violent actions that focus on mobilization of individuals and groups to action…. Political warfare is warfare….
Cultural Marxism: A Primer — attacks on President Trump… [O]perate in a battle-space prepared, informed and conditioned by cultural Marxist drivers…. [P]olitical warfare assault on President Trump cannot be separated from the cultural Marxist narratives that drive them….
. . . C]ultural Marxism relates to programs and activities that arise out of Gramsci Marxism, Fabian Socialism and most directly from the Frankfurt School. The Frankfurt strategy deconstructs societies through attacks on culture by imposing a dialectic that forces unresolvable contradictions under the rubric of critical theory. The result is induced nihilism, a belief in everything that is actually the belief in nothing….
Marcuse defined tolerance as intolerance… the objective of tolerance would call for intolerance toward prevailing policies, attitudes, opinions, and the extension of tolerance to policies, attitudes, and opinions which are outlawed or suppressed.”
• . . . This means that the ways should not be blocked on which a subversive majority could develop. . .
Battlespace…. While there is certainly a Marxist agenda and even lslamist motivations that must be seriously addressed in their own right, these motivations alone seem inadequate to explain the scope and magnitude of the effort directed against the president…. The overall objective of these economic forces is the forced urbanization of the populace, thereby necessitating a larger, more powerful government. In summary, this is a form of population control by certain business cartels in league with cultural Marxists/corporatists/lslamists who will leverage Islamic terrorism threats to justify the creation of a police state.
• . . .PUBLICITY. Publicity is the straightforward projection of a case that builds a picture in the audience’s mind designed to garner support…. There are two covert lines of effort: PROPAGANDA and INFILTRATION/SUBVERSION.
The Meta Narrative — Meta narratives seeks to delegitimize President Trump, his administration, and the vision of America he projected as a candidate…. “President Trump is illegitimate”
• “President Trump is corrupt”
• “President Trump is dishonest”Supporting Narratives — . . .
• “Russia hacked the election” — illegitimate
• “Obstruction of Justice” — corrupt
• “Hiding Collusion” — dishonest
• “Putin Puppet” — treasonous. . . .
End State — Attacks on President Trump are not just about destroying him, but also about destroying the vision of America that lead to his election…. [B]ut also a demoralized movement composed of a large enough bloc to elect a president that subsequently become self-aware of its own disenfranchisement.
CONCLUSION
The recent turn of events give rise to the observation that the defense of President Trump is the defense of America….
Globalists and lslamists recognize that for their visions to succeed, America, both as an ideal and as a national and political identity, must be destroyed. Atomization of society must also occur at the individual level; with attacks directed against all levels of group and personal identity. Hence the sexism, racism and xenophobia memes…. “Transgender acceptance” memes attack at the most basic level by denying a person the right to declare the biological fact of one’s sex. When a population has 2 + 2 = 5 imposed on it, there are many that benefit:
The president can either drive or be driven by events; it’s time for him to drive.
Islamic Infiltration and the Death of Richard Higgins
By Eileen F. Toplansky in American Thinker
America has lost too many good men lately. Rush Limbaugh, Angelo Codevilla, and Colin Flaherty come to mind, and now, sadly, another good man’s voice has been silenced.
In his 2020 book titled The Memo, Rich Higgins was one of the first to sound the alarm of the Deep State coup to remove President Trump and of the subversives within the ranks. Yet after three short months in 2017 serving on the National Security Council under President’s Trump national security adviser, H.R. McMaster, Rich was fired for telling the truth.
At the time, Rich was labeled as a “conspiracy theorist,” but with all the recent information that has since emerged, Rich has been fully vindicated.
The Memo recounts how Rich Higgins’s twenty-year career fighting for America First within the bowels of the DoD and Pentagon bureaucracy enabled him to discern — well before anyone else — the Deep State’s efforts to stop and ultimately remove the president from office. He was frighteningly accurate in anticipating the ferocity of the Deep State’s assault on the Constitution and President Trump.
Rich Higgins was the vice president of Unconstrained Analytics. He served on the National Security Council in the Trump administration as the director for strategic planning. In addition, he was vice president of intelligence and national security for RED, LLC, a company that develops, tests, and evaluates new combat capabilities for special operations, intelligence, and irregular warfare missions. From 2011 to 2013, Higgins managed a classified project for Special Operations Command (SOCOM). From 2010 to 2011, he served as the chair of special operations and low-intensity conflict at the National Defense University. In 2004, he formed the Department of Defense (DOD)’s Irregular Warfare Support (IWS) program office and served as the organization’s first Program Manager until June 2010. In this role, he was directly responsible for the creation of several new strategic and operational capabilities.
Rich Higgins knew whereof he spoke.
In early February 2022, Rich entered the Georgetown University Transplant Center, where a rare small bowel transplant was done. The surgery went better than expected, but then, suddenly, within hours of the transplant, he passed away.
I made Rich’s acquaintance in August of 2016 when I was invited to speak on Sean Hannity’s radio program about Islamic radicalism. After conversing with Rich, I was elevated to a new level of understanding. A genuine patriot, Rich was kind enough to share his thoughts and his 2010 Master’s thesis titled “No Common War,” wherein he laid out the irreconcilable differences between America and Islam and highlighted the security challenges facing the United States.
Twelve years ago, when writing about Islamic jihad, Rich noted that “the modernist philosophy of US security elites inhibits fact-based strategy making. The conceptual and cultural bias derived from the elites’ philosophy obstructs deliberation and collapses the national security strategy making process.”
Thus, “the current US strategy-making establishment is hindered by concepts, missions and organizations created in a cultural and political framework bound by science and the state, all formed in the context of the Cold War and long since ossified into programmatic solutions sets. Today, the strategic enemies of the US operate almost wholly outside that framework.”
In other words, the United States’ approach to security must account for “religion, non-violent warfare, and the digital operating environment.” American strategy “should analyze the political and ideological synthesis of foreign beliefs, ideas and strategic ends with the beliefs, ideas, and indeterminate ends enshrined in the US Declaration of Independence.”
For example, jihadists know only too well that the American concept of freedom of religion acts as a self-imposed blinder for security strategists. Consequently, the Islamic Movement is “able to apply their non-violent means without fear of detection or retribution.” Moreover, “the Islamic Movement has leveraged the digital information environment … to create a counterfactual understanding of Islam among non-Muslims.” The result is a “strategic pseudo-reality” and a “deceptive narrative about Islam.”
The singular focus on the violent tactics by our enemies “has resulted in a security strategy that is ignorant of history and the contemporary scope of the Islamic Movement.” Consequently, Islamic “peaceful” methods of war such as subversion and economic manipulation have been given short shrift.
Rich pointed out that “in Maoist terms, the political warfare, mass line, united front and international action components of the Islamic Movement are neglected” to the detriment of the United States.
In fact, “the Maoist methodology is described as violence coupled with political warfare; using non-violent methods, such as participation undermining the morale of enemy forces or offering to engage in negotiations as an adjunct to violence. Mass Line is organizing an alternative society through the construction of clandestine infrastructure.”
Repeatedly, the “Islamic Movement makes extensive and sustained efforts to conceal the truth about Islam from security strategists.” Ignoring the fact of the enemy’s stated threat doctrines will continue to bring catastrophe.
One need only see how the infiltration of every aspect of American life clearly reflects the Maoist methodology, whether it be communist or Islamic infiltration.
Toward the end of his thesis, Higgins points out that “the success of the methodology employed by the Islamic Movement is sure to be exploited by other enemies of the United States.”
Indeed. It is apparent every day in this country.
Higgins diligently worked to highlight that our military and political agencies need to understand that this “is no common war” that is being waged against us. To ignore this is to invite our own demise.
Donner Finely speaks of his departed friend:
What I can share is that out of the hundreds of people that Rich and I know and have in common as friends and colleagues, he was a special soul of only one. I loved him dearly like a brother; we walked together into battle, into war, and into political warfare. And he loved each and every step along the way — and I loved being along with him for the fight.
The closest person to Rich’s heart was his wife, Karin. Once, I told Rich when he was in the hospital ‘You are the strongest and bravest person I know!’ Rich said, ‘Wrong Brother — Karin is the warrior in this family, not me.’
Rich’s friends are now establishing the Richard Higgins Memorial Fund in order to pay off Rich’s home so Karin will be able to care for their children, and not have to be burdened by this kind of expense. A memorial fund platform has been established.
It is the least that can be done for this honorable man. May he rest in peace.
Rich Higgins was right in 2017:
POTUS and Political Warfare (May 2017)
“This is not politics as usual but rather political warfare at an unprecedented level that is openly engaged in the direct targeting of a seated president through manipulation of the news cycle,” Mr. Higgins wrote in the memo, a copy of which was obtained by Foreign Policy and published on Thursday.
“Recognizing in candidate Trump an existential threat to cultural Marxist memes that dominate the prevailing cultural narrative, those that benefit recognize the threat he poses and seek his destruction.” . . .
“Complicating the current situation, many close to the president have pushed him off his message when he was candidate Trump thus alienating him from his base thereby isolating him in the process,” Mr. Higgins wrote.
POTUS and Political Warfare (May 2017)
