Daily Verse | 2 Peter 1:16
We did not follow cleverly invented stories when we told you about the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty.

Thursday’s Reading: 1 John 1-5

It’s Thursday and as we head into the final days of 2021, there’s something going on in a foundational institution that deeply concerns me. It’s mostly out of sight, unlike the Covid panic, the race hustling of BLM and CRT, and the unbelievable train wreck that is the Biden administration that consumes our attention and 24-hour news cycles.

I’m referring to our military preparedness and its ideological trajectory.

Our military has always been apolitical, staying out of partisan politics and being, ostensibly, under civilian control. The Commander-in-Chief of all our armed forces has been the president, while Congress has the sole power to declare war.

The United States military has long been considered the preeminent fighting force in the history of the world. We have always had the most advanced weapons, a strong cohesion and discipline among our troops, and, for the most part, a sense of patriotism and a belief that it was a noble calling to defend our liberty here and around the globe.

But there have been a number of troubling signs that our military is not only unprepared, but that there are forces at work to intentionally undermine the traditional institution as created. For instance, in July 2020, there was a devastating fire aboard the USS Bonhomme Richard that resulted in a total loss of the ship. A subsequent report found that “ineffective learning, the persistence of underlying weaknesses in shipboard watchstanding standards, hazardous and combustible material stowage, and training were the primary issues contributing to a lack of enduring change and in shipboard fires.”

In 2016, ten U.S. sailors were captured by Iran when they inadvertently strayed into Iranian waters and surrendered to four boats operated by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps — a embarrassing event that (fortunately) resulted in the return of the sailors and no loss of life. But they looked anything but competent sailors. In a ProPublica investigation of the incident, they found that,

The Farsi Island episode is consistent with ProPublica’s findings in its ongoing examination of the Navy’s state of combat readiness. ProPublica’s detailed review of the Navy’s two accidents in the Pacific in 2017, which killed 17 sailors from the 7th Fleet, shows that the most senior uniformed and civilian leaders mishandled years of warnings about degraded ships, undertrained and overworked crews, and the potentially fatal costs of tasking vulnerable sailors with an unceasing number of sometimes ill-conceived missions.

There was Spenser Rapone, the “commie cadet” who posted graduation photos of himself wearing a red Che Guevara t-shirt under his uniform and showing the message, “Communism will win,” hand-written on the underside of his cap. While he was eventually dishonorably discharged, the fact that there was that kind of rot in the ranks is shocking.

More recently, there has been a cluster of evidence that we’re in trouble, most notably the worst humiliation in a generation — our exit from Afghanistan, which saw our forces leave billions of dollars in military hardware for the Taliban, and we abandoned allies and American citizens alike during our exit. Americans were aghast at the raging incompetence of it all.

Then there’s the ineptitude shown in the development of the U.S.S. Gerald R. Ford, which has become the most expensive aircraft carrier in the world because of construction blunders. While it passed its recent shock trials, cost overruns and delays have plagued the ship for years.

Instead of maintaining and raising our standards, the Army recently lowered its fitness standards to accommodate female members, of whom 84% were failing the standards (as compared to 30% of men).

And we reassert our position that having one ACFT standard for men and a lower one for women is not the “equality” that proponents of women in combat units said they wanted. Rather, a lower standard represents “exceptionalism” which confirms the reasons women weren’t allowed to serve in combat units previously: because they lacked the physical strength and endurance needed to endure the rigors of combat. Women accepted into combat units under that lower standard will prove that at the cost of their own and that of their teammates’ lives.

Then there is the disturbing ideological focus of the military’s leaders. Once Resident Brandon was sworn in, Sec. Defense Lloyd Austin ordered a stand-down in which every branch of the military was to take one day to talk about extremism in the ranks. Thirty Republicans sent a letter to Sec. Def. Austin expressing deep concern over his actions. In part, it read:

Under the guise of reviewing “extremism” within the ranks of the Department of Defense, it appears that political actors such as Bishop Garrison, the head of the working group tasked with defining extremist views for the Department of Defense, have been given broad freedom to both catechize and root out servicemembers who will not affirm far-left doctrines. Your order for a “stand-down” to ideologically assess servicemembers appears to have been connected to these efforts.

Then there’s chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark Milli Vanilli who wants to “understand white rage” and admitted that he didn’t think the Afghan government would collapse so quickly. Such woke behavior and incompetence is definitely present in our armed forces. Listen to what this female soldier says:

Part of what got us here, as I recently wrote about, was former president Obama purging the military of any officer who was not reliably a progressive:

The military is supposed to an apolitical civilian institution that is wise in the ways of war. Yet, it is clear that they are either following orders that are destructive to America’s reputation most likely because they’ve been overtaken by ‘woke’ leadership that started under Barack Hussein Obama, who replaced nearly 200 generals, colonels and flag officers in the U.S. military over five years with men and women who supported his socialist views in an unprecedented purge.

We were warned back then that Obama’s purge was a huge mistake. It wasn’t a “mistake.” It was the purposeful degradation of the greatest military the world has ever seen.

Finally, here’s the rather big thing that should force us all to check our assumptions that our military is pro-American and focused like a laser on protecting the American homeland from external threats.

Enter now three retired U.S. Army Generals: Major Generals Paul D. Eaton and Antonio M. Taguba and Brigadier General Steven M. Anderson (“the Three”). In a Washington Post opinion piece, “3 retired generals: The military must prepare now for a 2024 insurrection,” they contend that events in 2020 revealed an incipient military coup and that, to save our nation, the U.S. military must act preemptively—radically and unilaterally. What they write should frighten every American.

The Three assert that those unarmed Americans who, on January 6, did nothing more than quite innocently enter Congress, walk around, and then leave voluntarily, were all insurrectionists. They spout this deadly canard although no one arrested has been charged with 18 U.S.C. § 2381 (Treason), § 2383 (Rebellion or insurrection), § 2384 (Seditious conspiracy), or § 2385 (Advocating overthrow of Government). The Three stick to their risible narrative because only through lies can they scare people enough to accept their unconstitutional and illegal recommendations that, if accepted, will put the final nail in our national coffin.

This is truly frightening. We have three former generals advocating that the military train its sights on American citizens based on a provable lie. But that’s not the worst of it.

Second, the Three utter a sentence I never expected to come out of the mouths of our military leadership: “[T]he military cannot wait for elected officials to act….”

That’s a stunning statement from anyone who understands our military history and our Constitution. The single most basic rule of our military is that it is wholly and completely under civilian control. So, what would the Three have the military do unilaterally?

Among other things, they argue that the military should undertake “intensive intelligence work” at every military base to “remove” those people they define as potential mutineers—i.e., Trump voters. This would be the U.S. military’s first ideological purge, one consistent with the old Soviet Union. Maybe Milley and Austin will install “political officers” in each unit.

The military does nothing without direction from our elected leaders. For them to assert that they “can’t wait” for our elected leaders is tantamount to declaring independence from either political or civilian oversight. That borders on treason.

This is a disturbing development because they’re setting up a trap for anyone who might protest the outcome of an election. If Americans rise up in protest, they “validate” the prediction and a military response; if Americans stand down, the prediction did its job in suppressing any thoughts about protesting.

I used to take pride in our military and knew that we could kick the butt of any enemy who threatened us. Now I’m not so sure. It seems like institutional rot has set in.