When it comes to our military, Republicans have always been all about quantity, not quality. Now, after years of ignoring the cultural rot...
When it comes to our military, Republicans have always been all about quantity, not quality. Now, after years of ignoring the cultural rot in our military and counterproductive strategic vision at the Pentagon, they are left groveling for endless new funding for a woke and broke military service.
To this day, we have an entire generation of our best fighters being denied entry into or removed from the military for not getting a shot that some military doctors are testifying caused mass injury among the ranks. Yet Republicans refused to use their leverage on the omnibus bill to repeal the mandates. Instead, they actually squandered their leverage on throwing more money at the existing morally broken military leadership so it can promote more critical race theory, green energy, persecution of Christians, vaccine mandates, and aimless missions depleting and exhausting our soldiers and resources on engagements that run counter to our national interests.
Headed into the fiscal year 2023 budget season, what do you think should be the top priority of Republicans? The border? Defunding Pfizer and Moderna? Actually cutting spending so we don’t turn into Venezuela? Ending wokeness in the military and using the military at our border and building deterrent against China? Nope. Asking for an even larger budget for the same military persecuting the best soldiers.
On Wednesday, 40 Republican members of the House and Senate Armed Services committees sent a letter to the president requesting that the budget proposal he releases next week establish a 5% increase over the inflation-adjusted FY 22 enacted level. Given that the enacted FY 22 level of defense spending is $782 billion, a 5% increase plus inflation would likely raise the level to approximately $880 billion.
Ever since I began covering federal budgets 14 years ago, defense spending was the holy grail for Republicans. Their desire to pointlessly increase spending without first addressing our strategic priorities always allowed the left to grow non-defense spending. They knew conservatives would never shoot the hostage, so they always ensured that spending on HUD, HHS, and the EPA would grow along with the Pentagon. This is how we have grown the leviathan that now controls our lives and bodies.
But what have we gotten in return for all of this? Absent policy reforms, funding the Pentagon today gets you the same wokeness as increasing the budget of the IRS, OSHA, EPA, all of the diversity offices throughout our government. We spent 20 years refereeing Islamic civil wars and now are in the process of refereeing a Slavic civil war. The hill to die on for Republicans in the last budget was even more money for Ukraine’s military than Biden requested; now it’s still about more military spending. But why won’t they use their leverage to actually make the military great again?
Emblematic of what has become of the military, defense officials dropped plans to include the leg tuck in the Army Combat Fitness Test (ACFT) and to apply the standards equally to men and women. They conducted a study and found that about 44% of women failed the test from October 2020 to April 2021, compared to about 7% of men. As such, they plan to develop a two-tiered system with lower standards for women.
This is perfectly sensible for non-combat roles. Men are stronger, and it makes sense to have higher standards. But if we are going to literally place women in all ground combat units in an effort to eradicate all gender differences, then why are we lowering standards and why are we creating a two-tiered system? Either “men are women too” or they are not. Yet wokeness will be pushed by hook or by crook so they can have it both ways. I’m sure Putin is really scared of today’s American military.
We now have a military more concerned about women in combat and combatting toxic masculinity than about winning wars. We now have a military where you can’t carry a gun on your own base, but you must carry a mask and vaccine passport; where the government won’t pay for treatment of vaccine injury, but it will pay for castration operations. Patriots are being purged from the military en masse, morale is low, and suicides are at record highs.
But by far the worst aspect of our military is that officials are now dishonorably discharging some of the best soldiers for not getting an ineffective and dangerous shot that has likely caused untold injury in the service. I get heartbreaking emails every day from soldiers within a year or two of retirement who now face losing all their GI benefits, pension, and in some cases must pay back the cost of their training. Military doctors have been suspended for granting medical exemptions to those with medical conditions that are particularly prone to adverse reactions.
One veteran military doctor who joined the Army long before wokism was conceived told me he was removed from his position for not promoting vaccines to his soldiers/patients. He was replaced with someone who evangelized about toxic masculinity with as much passion as he pimped Pfizer’s clot shot.
Even if they don’t dishonorably discharge the soldier for not patronizing Pfizer, he is tagged as a bad apple simply for filing a religious exemption. So even if he ultimately gets the shots, he won’t be placed on good assignments and will never get promoted. Unlike civilians who can just quit and try to find a non-mandate company to work for, these active-duty soldiers have contractual agreements and are locked into a career of persecution and marginalization. It’s gotten so absurd that the Navy won’t deploy a destroyer because its commanding officer didn’t get this outdated shot.
Why is there zero concern from the GOP members on the Armed Services Committee about the quality of our military and how some of our best warriors are being purged? Why do none of them care about the DMED scandal and the military’s cover-up of health surveillance data? It’s safe to say these soldiers would rather you fight for the core of their existence in the military rather than just another pay raise.
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