An Air Force colonel nominated by President Joe Biden once claimed that “white colonels” are the “biggest barriers” to addressing so-called “racial injustice” in the U.S. military, according to a new report.
On Thursday, The Daily Signal’s Rob Bluey reported that Col. Benjamin Jonsson, who is “currently awaiting promotion to brigadier general,” penned an article in the Air Force Times weeks after George Floyd’s death lamenting his fellow white airmen don’t go along with leftist talking points about so-called “racial injustice” in the U.S. armed forces.
“As white colonels, you and I are the biggest barriers to change if we do not personally address racial injustice in our Air Force. Defensiveness is a predictable response by white people to any discussion of racial injustice. White colonels are no exception,” Jonsson wrote. “We are largely blind to institutional racism, and we take offense to any suggestion that our system advantaged us at the expense of others.”
Jonsson went on claim he “drew attention” to the notion that “racial tension remains an important issue to address” while speaking with two white colonels. According to Jonsson, his “introduction of race into the conversation created social discomfort,” allegedly causing both service members to “ameliorate” the situation “with humor.” He furthermore admonished a fellow white colonel who purportedly expressed the meritocratic sentiment that “when anyone joins the Air Force, they need to adopt the culture of the Air Force [and] that [the branch] should not make cultural accommodations.”
“By obscuring any cultural differences in the Air Force, he excused himself from the need to dig into the underlying issue of racial disparity,” Jonsson regurgitated the leftist talking points.
But Jonsson wasn’t quite finished demanding his fellow service members view the world through a racial lens. At the end of his article, the Air Force colonel recommended airmen develop a “game plan” to break so-called “invisible barriers” in the military by reading Robin DiAngelo’s White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism, a bookthat promotes divisive ideologies such as critical race theory (CRT).
“Dear white colonel, it is time to give a damn. Aim High,” he added.
The Air Force Times article is hardly the only incident in which Jonsson has pushed the military to adopt ideas saturated in so-called “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI), a poisonous left-wing framework that dismisses merit and instead discriminates based on characteristics such as skin color and sex.
In a December 2020 video commemorating the service of a Tuskegee Airman, Jonsson said the celebration gives the Air Force a chance to “acknowledge that there’s still progress that we need to make as a service.”
“There’s still barriers, more invisible barriers, that some of our airmen from underrepresented groups … still feel in their service,” Jonsson claimed. “We’re aggressively knocking down those barriers.”
According to a September 2022 Fox News report, the Air Force Academy — where Jonsson had apparently begun serving as vice superintendent in August 2022 — has regularly forced cadets to undergo DEI instruction. In one slideshow titled, “Diversity & Inclusion: What it is, why we care, & what we can do,” cadets are told to utilize words that “include all genders” and avoid using terms such as “mom,” “dad,” and “colorblind.”
An Air Force cadet writing under a pseudonym detailed in the Washington Examiner earlier this summer his experiences with the academy’s embrace of “leftist ideologies.” The cadet specifically noted how “critical race theory and diversity, equity, and inclusion trainings [are] being forced upon us by academy leadership” and that in doing so, the school has “divided the cadet wing from within, in a profession where unity is essential.”
Jonsson’s apparent infatuation with CRT and DEI ideologies further highlights the importance of Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville’s ongoing bid to force individual votes on Biden’s military appointees. Using his role on the Senate Armed Services Committee, Tuberville has been slowing down military personnel moves that require Senate confirmation to protest the Pentagon’s use of taxpayer money to cover service members’ travel expenses to get abortions.
To be clear, Tuberville is not blocking votes, but is forcing the Armed Services Committee to vote on each nomination individually rather than voting “en masse on large numbers of nominations.” The Alabama senator has since faced numerous attacks from Democrats and establishment Republicans, many of whom have baselessly claimed his protest is harming “military readiness.”
“Military readiness” has not been a priority since Obama began the decimation of quality leadership in the military.
It was bound to happen. A gun manufacturer has waded into the cesspool that is woke. What’s surprising, at least to me, is the fact it was H&K.
Angela Harrell, marketing manager for HK USA tweeted out the screenshots below in response to a tweet about the Miller Lite feminist ad. I had to use screenshots because the original tweets were deleted fairly quickly.
The blowback was instant and harsh. It only got worse when Ms. Harrell’s identity was discovered. You see, Angela was/is a bikini model.
Fortunately, HK’s marketing department saw the error of it’s ways.
Woke Capitalism Flunks Early Cost-Benefit Analysis
When Keeping It Real Goes Wrong WSJ: “Disney’s Clash With Florida Has CEOs on Alert; State’s pushback against the company shows the risks executives may confront”
“In private meetings and coaching sessions over the past few weeks, top business leaders have been asking a version of the same question: How can we avoid becoming the next Walt Disney Co.?”
Bloomberg’s Adrian Wooldridge : “Mickey Mouse Is Corporate Progressivism’s Canary in a Coal Mine; The furor facing Walt Disney Co. in Florida is a warning that capitalism won’t regain its legitimacy by alienating half the country.”
“But the problem with corporate progressivism is that it is destined to be as counterproductive as it is windy. How can you renew business’s license to operate if you are alienating the conservative half of the country? Michael Jordan’s famous observation that Republicans buy sneakers, too, needs to be modified in the light of today’s corporate antics: Republicans have values too. The more businesses endorse the left side of the culture war, the more they will motivate the other side.”
“Getting ‘kind of pushed’ by your employees is hardly an exercise in leadership. Corporate progressives like to chide Milton Friedman and his supporters for short-termism. But what could be more short-termist than winning easy applause by promising to solve the world’s most pressing problems? Rebecca Henderson, a Harvard Business School professor and one of the leading gurus of the new paradigm, called one of her books ‘Reimagining Capitalism in a World on Fire.’ Corporate progressives, however, are fighting fire with gasoline.
“The greatest legacy of the stakeholder value movement may well be to add woke-washing to the list of corporate crimes.”
Bobby Burack: “A study found that Americans who align with the ‘woke’ account for only 8% of the electorate. They barely exist. Yet they are to whom media & entertainment executives cater. The brands most responsive to ‘political correctness’ are cratering. All of them”
Corporate executives seem to have forgotten their responsibility IS NOT to their identity driven employees but to the stockholders of their corporation. As the last paragraph states only 8% of those who vote are in the ’woke’ group. It is time for the executives to inform that minority they DO NOT determine corporate policy!
And Putin Unleashed A Hearty Guffaw The Hill headline: “Biden to request $2.6 billion to promote gender equity worldwide”
Gerry Callahan‘s perfect reax: “It’s official: We are being governed by the faculty lounge at Wesleyan”
Daily Wire headline: “U.S. Army Forces All Personnel To Watch Slideshow Using Phrases ‘Assigned Male At Birth’ ‘Assigned Female At Birth’
Josh Mandel retort: “Russia and China are developing hypersonic missiles while our military is playing woke word games.”
Speaking Of Woke Word Games James Lindsay says the quiet part loud: “Every Woke word conceals an agenda, and that agenda is Communism.”
Wokal Distance: “One tactic ‘woke’ (and woke-light) people often use is to slide around in language, hide behind jargon, and play word games in order to dodge the central point of an argument and deflect legitimate criticism”
Max Eden in Newsweek: “This fake-naming [‘Don’t Say Gay’] was an unprecedented propaganda ploy. Never before has virtually the entire corporate media instantaneously united to affix a partisan-manufactured epithet-name on a state legislative proposal.”
David Marcus: “Democrats lose the culture war battle because they are afraid to say their actual position. Parents are troubled by critical race and gender theory in schools, and Democrats say, ‘That’s not happening.’”
Wokal Distance: “To conclude, be aware of these tactics and how they work. Remember, the enemy of nonsense is clarity, so don’t let someone use a lack of clarity to cover up bad arguments.”
They continue to play to their radicals. They refuse to believe this is not accepted by a majority, even in their own party base.
Yesterday UncleE explained where the ’Blue Pill/Red Pill may have originated. Being so well informed, it is now clear these people are addicted to their ’Blue Pills’.
Parameters is the quarterly publication of the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Earlier this year on the Real Clear Defense website, I wrote an article celebrating the 50th anniversary of Parameters. I praised the journal and its editors for publishing important articles by both military and civilian writers. I noted that past issues had featured the works of Gen. Omar Bradley, Gen. Maxwell Taylor, Sidney Hook, Guenter Lewy, S.L.A. Marshall, Michael Howard, and Edward Luttwak. But now it seems that the “woke revolution” has infiltrated the War College with the latest issue of Parameters that features an article entitled “The Alt-Right Movement and U.S. National Security,” by Matthew Valasik, associate professor of sociology at Louisiana State University, and Dr. Shannon Reid, associate professor of criminal justice and criminology at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.
Their article examines what the authors call “the disconcerting connection between the US military and the White power movement,” and traces its historical roots to before the American Civil War. The authors allege that “there is an overrepresentation of military veterans affiliated with far-right groups and the broader White power movement.” Military veterans, they write, have a “greater willingness to join far-right groups than the average civilian.”
The authors allege that the end of each of America’s wars has produced surges in veterans’ memberships in White power groups. They especially point to Vietnam War veterans (who apparently have not been maligned enough for the far Left) whose experience of loss, frustration, and doubt was similar, they write, to Confederate veterans after the Civil War. Vietnam veterans, they write, succumbed like neoconservatives to “the fear of communism spreading across the globe” and channeled their discontent by acting as “soldiers of fortune” in counterinsurgency operations.
As Vietnam faded into the past, the authors write, “the public’s distaste for militarism began to dissolve.” The U.S. victory in the First Gulf War in 1991, the authors claim, was used by the White power movement to portray the federal government as having betrayed Vietnam veterans, and this apparently had something to do with the standoffs at Waco and Ruby Ridge. And they note that Timothy McVeigh was a Gulf War veteran. “Perhaps . . . McVeigh’s experiences and training in the Army,” they suggest, led him to White power groups “and inspired others.”
The next war that revived White power and far-right groups, the authors claim, was the War on Terror, which they assert has produced the “same ‘loss, frustration, and doubt’ felt by Vietnam and Confederate veterans.” The authors then accuse the military of lowering their recruitment standards to fill quotas for the War on Terror, causing the military to enlist “substandard personnel” to fight the war. It was, the authors write, “mass recruitment of less-than-ideal servicemembers.” And the far-right veterans and service members have access to social media and the internet where White power groups connect with them and “harness and pervert” their feelings. And finally, there is apparently a direct connection between the White power groups, veterans, and active service members and the “January 6 insurrection.”
To combat the White power movement, the authors recommend that the military “suppress the far-right activities of both active-duty and retired service members.” They seem to believe that the Uniform Code of Military Justice would permit the monitoring of all digital communications of active-duty service members and veterans, though they acknowledge that the ethics and legality of such monitoring would be “problematic.” The authors, however, need not worry because the woke social media platforms are already censoring “viewpoints” they deem to be dangerous or untruthful, or incompatible with the platform’s standards.
What associate professors Valasik and Reid suggest, couched in sociological terminology, is reprogramming or re-educating our soldiers, sailors, and airmen as they leave the services. There is a need, they explain, to identify those who are “susceptible to White power . . . groups.” Someone —perhaps the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs — would institute policies to assess whether the former soldier is “vulnerable to extremism,” and following such an assessment, the soldier would be “required to participate in the prosocial support groups or one-on-one therapy or risk losing benefits.” In other words, they will be required to submit to struggle sessions where they would have to confess to their White power viewpoints or risk losing benefits they earned defending their country.
As for active-duty soldiers, if they support White power groups, they should be criminally prosecuted instead of simply disciplined, according to the authors. The Army needs to prevent “casual engagement with White power viewpoints” and ferret out the far-right extremists, labeling them as villains who “seek to undermine and corrupt American democracy.” Penalizing “viewpoints” is as Orwellian as it gets.
One wonders if the editors of Parameters, by publishing this far-Left sociological nonsense, are simply trying to curry favor with Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who has been, in Glenn Greenwald’s words, “spouting the theories and viewpoints that . . . depict white supremacy and ‘white rage’ as a foundational threat to the American homeland,” and who has defended the teaching of critical race theory at West Point. The editors should be ashamed of themselves. And the leaders of the War College should be looking for new editors.
Sometime ago, I read an article insinuating the mi,Italy was going to begin issuing warning to former military members concerning their public political statements or comments. With this statement; To combat the White power movement, the authors recommend that the military “suppress the far-right activities of both active-duty and retired service members.”
If my peabrain is functioning, it seems to me the only way they could ‘suppress’ such ‘activities’ is if they are monitoring your ‘activities’.
Questions for our ‘inactive’ Veterans. Does the military retain the authority to monitor your ‘social media’ activity and to censor such activity? Does the military retain the authority to impose penalties on you if you ignore their orders to cease such ‘social media’ activity?
“As the President has repeatedly made clear, great nations such as ours do not hide from our shortcomings; they acknowledge them openly and strive to improve with transparency,” said Blinken in a statement released Tuesday.
“It is in this context that the United States intends to issue a formal, standing invitation to all UN experts who report and advise on thematic human rights issues,” he continued. “As a first step, we have reached out to offer an official visit by the UN Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism and the UN Special Rapporteur on minority issues.” [….]
“Responsible nations must not shrink from scrutiny of their human rights record; rather, they should acknowledge it with the intent to improve,” he said. “I urge all UN member states to join the United States in this effort, and confront the scourge of racism, racial discrimination, and xenophobia.”
For the past two years, we have seen the howling mobs desecrate and pull down Confederate statues. Nary a word is mentioned that these statues have been around for decades with little to no attention paid to them.
The US Military, deciding they must be compliant to the woke mob, has established a “renaming commission”. Originally, it was everything Confederate. Now, as reported by the Military Times;
The Pentagon’s Confederate renaming commission is taking a look outside places and things named after individual Confederates, its chair told reporters Friday, to include anything named to honor the Confederacy.
Fort Belvoir and the guided missile destroyer Antietam have not before come up in the Confederate renaming discussion, but retired Adm. Michelle Howard said that the commission is taking a broad look.
Belvoir, originally the name of a plantation on which the post now sits, was dubbed Fort A.A. Humphreys when it became an Army installation in 1917. In 1935, it went back to Belvoir, at the request of a Virginia congressman who wanted to recognize the historical Belvoir plantation.
“We want to get to Fort Belvoir and dig more deeply into the historical context,” Howard said.
Similarly, she added, the guided missile cruiser Antietam
‘Racist’ USS Antietam
is also under consideration, because it’s named after a Civil War battle.
“… it depends on whether or not you see Antietam as a Union victory,” Howard said, of the battle that ended in a sort of truce, with Confederate troops withdrawing, though the Union took more casualties.
Similarly, the cruiser Chancellorsville, named after what is considered Gen. Robert E. Lee’s greatest victory, is already on the list, as is the oceanographic survey ship Maury, named for a Confederate sailor.
Each of the military departments will be responsible for doing the research to put together their own lists
Basically, these twit brains are, possibly, going to rename the USS Antietam because they find issue with the conclusion of the battle that led to Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation!
In Algebra, everyone is trying to solve for X. I am mathematically challenged so my solving equation on the matter of erasing all things Confederate goes something like this. If you erase all things Confederate, the Union Army had no one to have a war with or never existed. If there was no Civil War, there are two options; slavery still exists or slavery never existed. Going a step further no Union Army means they have to rename every Union named military base, ship, etc.
Now, we have eliminated all the current named military “things”. Time for thoughts on how to select their new names. The Army will choose from nature; Fort Apple Tree, Fort Daisy, Fort Maple, etc. The Air Force will choose from things related to air; Fort Cumulus, Fort Rainbow, Fort Sunrise, etc. The Navy chooses from the fish species; USS Haddock, USS Flounder, USS Salmon, etc. The Marines will choose from land, as they are the “land Navy”; Fort Dirt, Fort Pebbles, Fort Crabgrass, etc. Last, but not least, the Coast Guard will choose from (You guessed it!) coast names; USS Gulf of Mexico, USS Atlantic, USS Pacific, etc.
I see y’all out there rolling your eyes at me. Frankly, my thesis is no more ridiculous than their idiocy. Now, to participate in this renaming, you are all invited to rename something military. To avoid any semblance of choosing either side, you must use the new naming policy.
The majority of the cadets involved in the worst academic cheating scandal at West Point in 45 years are athletes, including 24 members of the football team that is scheduled to play in a bowl game on Thursday, according to West Point officials.
In all, 55 of the 73 cadets accused of cheating on a calculus final exam in May are athletes, including 17 who remain on the football team, according to figures released to USA TODAY by West Point.
A few have played in football games this season after having been accused of cheating. Some of those players could dress and play in the Liberty Bowl on Thursday, according to Army Lt. Col. Christopher Ophardt, a West Point spokesman.
They’re allowed to play because West Point’s superintendent in October suspended a policy that limited or prevented cadets found in violation of the academy’s honor code from representing the academy in public, including athletes at sports events.
We see here once again that sports matters more than honor. USA Today reported in November that my alma mater, Louisiana State University, allegedly turned a blind eye to sexual assault and related violations by its star athletes. Now LSU faces an NCAA investigation that could be a massive catastrophe for the university and its athletic program. This is what happens when athletic success matters more than decency and honor. If the allegations are substantiated, the LSU deserves to have the hammer come down on it hard for this disgrace.
From the original USA Today story:
Army Col. Mark Weathers, West Point’s chief of staff, said in an interview Monday that he was “disappointed” in the cadets for cheating, but he did not consider the incident a serious breach of the code. It would not have occurred if the cadets had taken the exam on campus, he said.
So the West Point chief of staff is willing to cut them a break because they cheated at home?! They say character is what you do when you know that nobody is looking.
So we know that West Point bent the standards to allow accused athletes to play football. Worse, here’s an eyebrow-raising aspect of the West Point cheating story, from USA Today:
Lt. Gen. Darryl Williams, the superintendent, in an Oct. 23 memo, wrote to the faculty that the policy “has resulted in an inequitable application of consequences and developmental opportunities for select groups of cadets.” USA TODAY obtained a copy of the memo.
Wait, “inequitable”? Whenever you see the word “equity” in contemporary discourse, that’s usually a sign that it has to do with race. West Point has not named the accused cheaters (most of whom have admitted to having done so). When it does, I certainly hope that it does not emerge that a disproportionate number of them are black. That would mean that Lt. Gen Williams, the superintendent of West Point, believes in a double standard of honor, based on race. If it emerges that by “inequitable application of consequences,” Lt. Gen. Williams meant that many, or even most, of the cheaters were black, and he withheld punishment for politically correct reasons, then he should be dismissed at once.
You should know that “equity,” in the language of Critical Race Theory, means that outcomes must be proportional to racial representation. In plain language, the West Point superintendent might be saying that if an unusual number of the alleged cheaters are black, then it would be “inequitable” — racist — to punish them.
Maybe I’m jumping to conclusions, but I don’t know what else Lt. Gen. Williams could have meant by “inequitable application.” We will see. If he’s not talking about race here, then what is he talking about? What makes me particularly suspicious is that wokeness has come to West Point — see my post here, and then here. In the second post, a reader wrote:
I graduated from West Point in [date] and currently still serve. I was dismayed, but honestly not very shocked, with the 40-page manifesto fired at the Academy by the disgruntled former cadets. There has been a gradual shift at West Point in recent years to become more progressive, to include:-In 2018, inviting Ta-Nehisi Coates to spend two days at the academy, speaking to cadets about a variety of topics, with an emphasis on race. This is the same Ta-Nehisi Coates who wrote in regards to the police and firefighters who died on 9/11 “They were not human to me. Black, white, or whatever, they were menaces of nature.”-In 2017, Spenser Rapone, an avowed communist, was allowed to graduate from West Point. On his way out, he ensured everyone knew his world views in the form of a Che Guevara t-shirt under his uniform and a “Communism Will Win” sign in the cap he threw upon graduation.
-This year, a “coalition” of graduates fired off a letter to the Class of 2020, blasting President Trump for “politicizing” the military in response to the protests, and urging them to question any orders that don’t fit their world view.
All of this is truly dangerous, as we are creating generations of entitled, embittered junior officers who will reflect those values and spread them within the Army. As I read this list of grievances outlined in the manifesto, I kept asking myself “And then what happened?”
Has West Point’s lurch to the cultural left resulted in the decay of its honor code?
The scandal strikes at the heart of the academy’s reputation for rectitude, espoused by its own moral code, which is literally etched in stone:
“A cadet will not lie, cheat, steal, or tolerate those who do.”
Tim Bakken, a law professor at West Point, called the scandal a national security issue. West Point cadets become senior leaders the nation depends on.
“There’s no excuse for cheating when the fundamental code for cadets is that they should not lie, cheat or steal,” Bakken said. “Therefore when the military tries to downplay effects of cheating at the academy, we’re really downplaying the effects on the military as a whole. We rely on the military to tell us honestly when we should fight wars, and when we can win them.”
The reader who tipped me off to this writes:
It could very well signal the end of our military’s respect and admiration. Every student who cheated should be expelled. The honor the Army and the United States demands it. A cheater is a low and dirty creature not to be tolerated in an organization where responsibility and rank are based on merit. Cheaters threaten the success of the entire institution. If you don’t hate dishonesty and cheaters, you shouldn’t be an officer in the Army. And if our Army can’t do any better than this, may as well hand the keys off over to China and save us the future embarrassment.
He’s right about that. If — if — it turns out that Lt. Gen. Williams did alter his reaction because the honor code violation disproportionately affected black cadets, then this country ought to have an honest reckoning with Critical Race Theory and its power within institutions. If you are allowed to be a cheat and get away with it at West Point because of the color of your skin, then who can respect West Point? And if you can’t respect West Point, where the best of the best are formed… .
The Army officer who outed himself as a radical Marxist had been reported back in 2015 for publishing inappropriate and outright anti-American views online, according to a scathing report obtained by The Daily Caller.
The report gave details on 2nd Lt. Spenser Rapone’s insubordination at the U.S. Military Academy and out-of-regulations online activity. Rapone graduated almost two years later in 2016.
…
The statement leaves readers with the idea that Rapone’s chain of command (and indeed the academy at large) was unaware of his radicalism and frequent Uniform Code of Military Justice violations. It turns out a senior officer reported Rapone to his chain of command nearly two years ago.
In a social media post that concerned retired Army Lt. Col. Robert Heffington, an Academy history professor at the time, Rapone wrote, “F*ck this country and its false freedom.”
When I first heard the story in 2017, it sounded as though Rapone’s views were mostly a secret until he graduated. As it turns out, the Army not only knew years before, but it still permitted him to remain in service and at the academy!
Not only that, the Army tolerated behavior completely unbecoming and totally unacceptable of an officer. His wokeness is just icing on the cake, it’s obvious this guy had no business wearing a uniform:
In November 2015, after being removed from his Ranger battalion for violating standards, Rapone was a cadet in his final year at the academy. According to the report obtained by TheDC, after the latest in a series of incidents involving Rapone’s penchant for insubordination, Heffington became aware of Rapone’s radical leftist activity on social media and notified the cadet’s chain of command.
And:
This reaction is merely one of many indications that Rapone’s activism, radical views and immature opposition to authority were well known around the academy — and especially obvious to his chain of command. According to a former head of the Military History and International History divisions at the U.S. Military Academy, Rapone’s plebe year history professor also reported him to the chain of command.
This is all the more infuriating by the fact that the military recognizes it has a right-wing extremist and White nationalist problem in its ranks. I can only take their word on just how bad the problem is, but their total disregard and complete tolerance of Spenser Rapone is evidence only a certain kind of extremism isn’t tolerated in the service. Mind you, I can tell you from personal experience the military is full of people who either don’t love the country all that much or define patriotism as your willingness to throw your country under the bus. The military’s just a job, a means to an end, and they know wearing a uniform gives them a level of credibility and deference in society that they can’t get elsewhere. Twitter is full of Woke SJW-types who are also veterans, along with some milder examples. Still, large numbers of veterans and civilians alike who’re employed or otherwise associated with the military are openly partisan (while also decrying partisanship on the other side) and openly ascribe to wokeness or allegiance to political movements like BLM.
What’s happening to the military’s also an example of how the supposed “moderates” are the enablers of this madness. The transition to wokeness has been, as a reader described it, gradual, driven by people who lack the militant activism of the far left, but nonetheless think along the same lines. These include those who worked in the Pentagon during the Obama administration, but it also includes the aforementioned who make up the broader national security intelligentsia. A perfect example of this was seen this past summer, when the Pentagon banned all flags not relevant to the U.S., the 50 states, and the military, to include both the Confederate flag and the LGBTI+ “Pride” flag. The banning of the latter generated a storm of protest from people who think the Pride flag should be granted an exception and permitted to be openly displayed on military installations. The invitation of people like Ta-Nehisi Coates was enabled by those who believe White supremacy is “baked in” the military and whose respond to opposition to inviting people like Coates with a simple, “What’s the harm? Aren’t you against racism?”
What you have is a military that exists to serve Woke, revolutionary causes. What you’ll end up with is a force that looks upon itself, its servicemembers, and, eventually, its own country with contempt, scorn, and self-loathing, if not outright hatred. Militaries, to a large extent, represent the sociocultural foundation of a nation. So we shouldn’t be surprised at what’s happening to the U.S. armed forces, because it’s what’s happened to the nation at-large. The military and the broader national security community, like the whole country, has become a massive university campus, except everyone gets paid and they make choices that have profound effects on the country.
This all puts what both of us have said about parallels between what’s happening in the U.S. today and what happened and continues to happen in Spain into greater perspective. The good news to all this is that neither left-wing totalitarians or right-wing authoritarians can use the military to pull off a coup d’état or wage civil war. A military subverted for revolutionary ends is one that cannot fight. The bad news is that there’s no institution out there able or willing to stop the totalitarian onslaught. Ultimately, it comes down to those outside of our institutions with little in the way of cultural power to stand up to the revolutionary forces, but that merely opens us up to malicious actors on our own side.
Of course, we all saw this coming and they told us we were angry at change or crazy. The law of “merited impossibility,” as you put it.
Words simply fail me! With all the potential global power issues, our, tax funded academies, are more focused on “wokeness” then on building honorable leaders for our volunteer soldiers.
Opinion: West Point, Soon to Be Yet Another Casualty of the Left’s Long March. (Part III) Mike Ford for RedState Jan 05, 2021 5:30 AM ET
U.S. Military Academy, West Point
This is Part III in a series regarding the most recent cheating incident at the United States Military Academy at West Point, the response to it, and what that says about the moral compass of the Service Academies and the Military in general…especially the senior leadership. Part II, immediately preceding this, was mostly about a widespread cheating incident itself and the actions of the Superintendent, LTG Darryl Williams that may indicate a climate not conducive to producing the kind of commissioned Officer we need to defend the Constitution against all enemies, both foreign and domestic.
Many of the accused perpetrators were (and still are) members in good standing of the West Point Football team whose recent triumphs over Navy and Air Force resulted in winning the Commander In Chief’s Trophy, now somewhat tarnished by this incident. More disturbing are the decisions made by the Superintendent that appeared to give off the aura of favoritism towards athletes and/or belief in some critical race theory of equitable punishment.
As I have been working on this series, I have been contacted both publicly and privately by officers and enlisted members, both active and retired, Academy graduates and not. These contacts have truly been “Joint Service” in nature, coming from Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, Coast Guard, and even Merchant Marines. Below are a few of the comments, along with my assessments.
This first comment is from one of my Academy classmates. I’ve extracted the critical concept from two separate posts in a “conversation” we were having online. It focused on the plebe class not having “eyes on” supervision, because of a bad senior leader decision to keep them at home. From my classmate:
I agree that it was a dysfunctional decision. The cadets were far safer in the controlled environment at USMA that they were at home…But I still think this decision, right or wrong, had a significant impact on conditions that led to cheating, and must be considered separately.
And in a subsequent post:
Relevant questions:
Was there an attempt to conduct Honor Training, virtually?
What was the interaction between Plebes and their instructors, and their cadet chain of command?
This is one of things that bothered me about the actions taken after the 1976 scandal. They stopped doing take-home tests. I hated that. Tangible proof that cadets could not be trusted.
There are a couple of critical pieces here. First, is what I call the show the whole damned world weakness decision to keep young, healthy Cadets at home instead of back at the Academy because we are afraid of a disease that harms virtually no one in their age group. That alone should be grounds for investigation.
The most important aspect, however, was the idea that being unsupervised, was somehow a recipe for dishonesty. As I have mentioned previously, one of the more practical applications for an honor code, an ethical standard in the Officer Corps of the U.S. Military, is that you have to be able to trust the word of a commander…or even a newly commissioned officer at the other end of a radio or SATCOM connection.
My classmate pointed out one of the decisions made as a result of the 1976 cheating scandal at West Point. From that point, the Academy no longer gave take home (to barracks) exams. As my classmate opined in his post, since that decision, now reinforced by this particular incident, we have tangible proof that cadets could not be trusted. If we cannot trust Cadets to not cheat on a take-home exam, how the hell can we trust them at some future time, to give accurate operational reports, even if such reports might reflect badly on them…or worse, if their prevarication caused friendly casualties?
The outrage expressed to me also came from non-Army sources. Here is one from a Naval Academy graduate. A little inside baseball for everyone; the different branches talk a lot of smack about each other, especially the Academies and especially when the Commander in Chief’s Trophy is on the line. But at the end of the day, we are all on the same team. I am always happy to see a “Zoomie” arrive over my battle position, driving an A-10 Warthog. I am just as thrilled to see a Sea Stallion helicopter come to extract me from durance vile…even if it’s being driven by a “Squid.” With that said, here is a comment from one such. Note that his outrage is as great or greater than mine:
Apparently, learning not to Lie, Cheat or Steal nor tolerate those who do can take up to 4 years to learn. I don’t know if that says more about the teachers or the admissions process.
Frankly, the letter is one of “excuse” for failure to be able to select candidates and instill in them the Honor Code by the end of Plebe Summer – if not sooner. As you track the system they have created, it provides more and more excuses for cadet actions and ways to remediate them – One wonders why they can’t be taught in one day not to lie, cheat and steal and the consequences – but, of course, the consequences have been diluted significantly.
He then follows up with a very cogent question:
Does the Army have a “Willful Admission Process?” for violations of the UCMJ?
Indeed. How hard is it to train someone to not conspire with others to cheat on a take-home test? And most on-point; Are we not setting folks up for failure? The Army I served in didn’t have any, willful admission process for violations of the UCMJ, well, maybe except for plea bargains in a Court Martial. His point about the admissions process, especially where athletes are concerned is also spot on.
This, from a very good friend, retired Marine Corps Lieutenant Colonel and fighter pilot, Vietnam Era.
Mike , this makes me very sad. If the Army leadership is politically indoctrinated we now have our own Red Guard. And I am not talking football.
Sad indeed…especially after you watched, nay were a part of the Reagan renaissance for the Armed Forces.
Another Naval Academy Grad and close friend notes (emphasis mine):
The perspective from USNA alumni is that we are possibly more shocked about it than West Point alumni because we know that there used to be a REAL honor code there while ours was window dressing and has been further undermined by the woke leadership at Annapolis.
A USAFA [Air Force Academy] pal has been a participant in initiating an IG inspection at Air Force for many of the same reasons (wokeness and critical race theory training associated with the football team). All three academies suffer from the effects of Obama’s lingering wokeness campaign and idiotic EOs affecting the military. Maybe the academies’ days are past because it is questionable whether any of them can be resurrected to 70s-era standards again.
Finally, he notes:
You can quote me that I rooted for Army although had I known about the Army cheating scandal beforehand (as it was covered up by your Supe), I would have rooted for a scoreless tie and a few thug wars on-field to embarrass both institutions and shine a light on the cockroaches.
Pretty bad, when a retired Navy Captain is so disgusted with the standards at his own institution, that he roots for West Point in this year’s Army-Navy game.
From another West Point Grad, a most spot-on question:
What happened to the concept that true virtue is evidenced by what you do when you think no one is watching?
What happened indeed?
I’ll leave you with this famous quote from an even more famous and respected General
Duty is the most sublime word in our language. Do your duty in all things. You cannot do more. You should never wish to do less.
General Robert E. Lee
Up next in this series; What do we do about this? Stay tuned.
Mike Ford, a retired Infantry Officer, writes on Military, Foreign Affairs and occasionally dabbles in Political and Economic matters.
The rot is deep in the United States Army. It’s even deeper in one of its major support structures, The United States Military Academy at West Point. In Part I of this series, I laid the historical groundwork showing how leftist infiltration of the military over decades, has resulted in a weakened military bereft of morale and international prestige following the Vietnam conflict. One major line of effort by the left in infiltrating and weakening our Military, was through the service academies, severally.
In the concluding paragraphs of Part I, I noted that my Alma Mater was once again embroiled in a cheating scandal. And once again, the actual cheating isn’t the most egregious part of the incident. We’ve all heard the old political saw, It’s not the crime; It’s the cover-up. While the latest scandal isn’t quite the same, its fairly close; It’s not the cheating; It’s the minimization of moral accountability by those in charge. At the conclusion of Part I, I promised a discussion of Academy reaction to the incident along with an apparently self serving letter by Academy Superintendent, LTG Darryl Williams along with what kind of thought process it appears to indicate in our senior military leadership.
The minimization of this particular instance of moral accountability began this past October, with an official memorandum from the LTG Williams to the West Point Staff. As reported by the New York Post:
Under academy policy, cadets found guilty of cheating would not have been allowed to play on sports teams after Nov 30, the date they were found in violation of the code.
But in an Oct. 23 memo, Williams wrote that the policy “resulted in an inequitable application of consequences and developmental opportunities” for some cadets.
inequitable application of consequences and developmental opportunities?!Good grief!!
Are we attempting to develop leaders in which; The President of the United States has reposed special trust and confidence in the patriotism, valor, fidelity and abilities, or are we following the same path of the Boy Scouts and other venerable institutions by not only allowing, but outright encouraging moral decay?
LTG Williams, obviously responding to press reports and outrage from the military community, including many graduates from not only West Point, but all the other service academies, published a letter on December 30th, attempting to justify his actions. His letter was a study in contradictions, on one hand appearing to accept full responsibility, while on the other, blaming the Wuhan, China Virus for an apparent inability to properly supervise troops. (The letter, in its entirety is at the end of the opinion piece.)
As the Superintendent, I own this cheating incident. Furthermore, I and every leader at West Point own their role in developing leaders of character.
But, further down:
The global pandemic disrupted our developmental process. In an instant, our tried and tested leadership model was interrupted and for a short time the Corps was dispersed to 4400 locations around the world. In this environment our Cadets were void of those critical developmental engagements in the barracks, in the classrooms, and on the athletic fields that help them understand themselves and increase their commitment to the West Point and Army values. Our plebes are the most vulnerable to the effects of losing the inspiration and accountability of an in person cohesive team.
The “global pandemic?” What a crock! The global pandemic didn’t cause these cadets to cheat. Poor ethical grounding caused it while poor leadership and decision making enabled it.
First of all, there was absolutely no need whatsoever to keep the Corps of Cadets, arguably one of the most, if not THE most healthy college cohorts, away from the academy and out of the classroom. That in and of itself, was a weak decision that sends the signal to our enemies that our Armed Forces can be brought to their knees by a disease with a 0.14% fatality rate among those who contract it…much less for those the same age and health status of aspiring military officers.
Then there is this:
As many of you know, over time the Honor System has changed from an attritional model to a developmental model. Since the publication of the findings of the Borman Commission in 1976, Superintendents have used discretion regarding separation for an Honor violation.
I’m all about developing folks and offering second chances where warranted, but, this is about character and character development. In any such effort, there is a baseline…a floor that is a minimum start point and that we expect candidates in world class institutions to remain well above. A widespread cheating operation that required deliberate conspiracy and coordination, isn’t some minor error in judgement or minor slip up that is easily fixed.
Then there is the Army Football Program itself. I am as rabid an Army Football fan as they get. I watched this year’s Army Navy game with a friend who is a USNA graduate, retired Navy Commander, and now flies big iron for Delta Airlines. I have to tell you that although Army won, both of us were absolutely disgusted with the conduct of the players. Late hits, shoving matches after the whistle and just short of an all out brawl immediately following the game. This was the first Army Navy game in over a decade that I did NOT hear the announcers/commenters remark about how few penalties there were compared to a standard college football match…Not. Once.
It’s tough producing a winning Academy Football Team. Military height & weight restrictions along with a 5 year, post graduate service commitment, deter many a promising recruit. Got it. But everyone needs to recognize that producing Commissioned Officers…officers with character, is Job 1.
The other thing we all have to realize, especially the players, Service Academies being allowed to compete in college sport competitions, is a privilege. First of all, all Cadets are technically on “full scholarship.” Moreover, all Cadets are actually “professionals,” as they get paid a salary while at the Academies, 1/2 the base pay of an O-1, the lowest commissioned pay grade. the Academies are being given a privilege by even being allowed to compete with college amateurs.
I want Army to beat Navy and Air Force while having winning seasons. But I don’t want that if the price is producing Commissioned Officers who cannot be trusted at the other end of a radio to tell the truth about their operational situation; not cheat on a take home test; or who need to show their collective *** during a publicly broadcast sporting event. It’s all part and parcel, and LTG Williams is right. He does own it; He along with the rest of the Military establishment that has allowed this to fester.
Copy of the Commandant’s Letter.
Next up, Part III, where we will discuss reaction to this incident by graduates of all the Service Academies, and a possible way forward. Stay tuned.
Part III will post in a hour.
Mike Ford, a retired Infantry Officer, writes on Military, Foreign Affairs and occasionally dabbles in Political and Economic matters.
