The US Military is in a Tailspin. By Josiah Lippincott.
There is not a single American general today who can point to a war that he’s helped win. America’s humiliating retreat from Afghanistan and the disastrous collapse of Iraq under ISIS pressure, to say nothing of our idiotic adventures in Libya and Syria, were stunning indictments of our military leadership class.
The only conflicts America’s generals have won are budget battles. They can’t win wars but they always get paid.
To quote my own Federalist piece from last year, “America’s Generals Lied, Lost Wars, And Looted The People They Claimed To Serve”:
Instead of profiles in courage, America’s military leaders deserve profiles in grifting. Current Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin made $7 million once leaving the service.
Gen. James Mattis is reportedly worth $5 million, including $150,000 annual payouts from Theranos for serving on their board. Theranos was a blood-testing company indicted for fraud. Not a single senator asked Mattis about the connection at his confirmation hearing as secretary of defense.
Gen. David Petraeus, after leaving the CIA in disgrace after revelations of leaking classified information to his mistress and personal biographer Paula Broadwell, went on to a successful career in academia, public speaking, and private equity. His net worth is estimated at $2 million.
The generals lied, America lost, and the people got looted.
Max Boot is getting angry now because General Donahoe, whose social media misbehavior threw me into the spotlight, is under investigation for his petulant ideological temper tantrum. …
Donahoe … oversaw decades of military failure, a COVID response that led to a massive increase in suicides, and the total degeneration of the spiritual foundation of a once proud martial tradition. He expects peons like you and me to salute his humble service.
I don’t think I will.
In General Donahoe’s military, troops that wouldn’t submit to medical experimentation and tyrannical mandates got kicked out while transgender inclusivity briefs are pushed down the throats of those who bent the knee.
In General Donahoe’s military, the Navy finally admitted that sailors on board the USS Nimitz have been drinking water contaminated with jet fuel. Meanwhile, new Army recruits look like this.
In General Donahoe’s military, Air Force cadets at their academy’s diversity training were encouraged not to use gendered words like “mom and dad” and to be “color conscious” not “colorblind.” At Joint Base Langley-Eustis in July, the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Summer Festival featured a drag show, paid for with taxpayer dollars.
In General Donahoe’s military, the Marine Corps isn’t immune either. Commandant David Berger has insisted that consideration of “diversity, equity, and inclusion” will drive Marine Corps recruiting going forward. It is critical that the Marine Corps become less white and less male.
Under the watch of men like General Patrick Donahoe, the Cultural Revolution came for the military. Today, even the names of old American bases are changing. The implication is clear: The America that honored the courage and generalship of Confederate war heroes (while condemning their cause) was racist and evil. The amnesty and peace that characterized the American attitude, both North and South, that followed the Civil War was not a sign of humanity but inhumanity.
Max Boot and his ilk have always despised the old America. What Boot sees as far-right extremism, I see as a longing for normalcy. Ordinary Americans want a military, and a country, that serves their interests. Not Ukraine’s. Not D.C.’s. America’s.
That concept is inconceivable to America’s policy makers, woke generals, and leading media commentariat. To the General Donahoe’s of the world, critics who question the goodness of the system that has showered him in honors and emoluments are comparable to traitors. It makes you a “Putin bot.” …
If it were up to me, Donahoe and the rest of his fellow flag officers would be stripped of their ranks, pensions, and fake awards and pushed into private life. For the first time in their lives, they would be forced to do something other than navigate the bureaucratic maze.
America needs military leaders who actually love the country, who think mutilating the genitals of children is wrong, and who aren’t interested in promoting communist propaganda about racial oppression and colonization. We need a fighting force that can stop the real threats to American life and liberty — like drug dealers carrying fentanyl across the border in quantities that could kill millions at a time.
The US military has great engineers, which build it the best military hardware. But increasingly poor leadership is creating people problems, and no amount of great hardware can compensate for that.
