It’s one of the oldest lessons of history:
If you want to keep power as the ruler of a nation you need the military on your side.
Almost anyone else can turn against you politically, but if the troops of your country turn against you then you’re out of luck as a leader.
The Biden Administration has definitely studied that lesson well. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin’s order for a stand down to look into “extremism” in our military is not what it appears be.
It’s not actually about finding those whose views are dangerously radical. It’s about exactly what we all expected:
Rooting out Trump supporters.
As Brigadier General Thomas Kolditz put it, the “strong Trump following in the military” deeply worries him, and it’s important that “Trump loyalists” be carefully vetted for potentially treasonous beliefs.
What is ‘Extremism’ According to the Biden Administration?
Extremism is obviously bad. But defining what it means gives enormous power to the one doing the defining.
Right now the Biden Administration and Austin are the ones with that power.
According to them, anything that “espouses extremist or discriminatory doctrine, or is disrespectful and harmful to colleagues” counts as extremism.
We all know which way the wind is blowing. “Harm” is now considered to be anything that hurts someone’s feelings even unintentionally.
Do we really want to burden our brave fighting men and women with the added psychological nonsense of constantly being on their tip-toes about whether they made someone upset or what word they used for a minority or someone they disagree with?
Good-natured ribbing and rude jokes are a basic staple of military life. But the Biden Administration wants to kill morale and military readiness by hounding people based on their political views or using the wrong speech.
It’s absolutely shameful.
Biden’s Defense Secretary ordered a 60 day service-wide stand down to address “extremism” within the US Military.
This is nothing but a political litmus test of our brave men & women.
It is obscene & dangerous to use soldiers who risk their lives for America as political pawns.
— Lauren Boebert (@laurenboebert) February 4, 2021
Will Both Sides Get the Boot?
In addition to neo-Nazis, white supremacist groups and others on the right, left-wing groups like Antifa, Black Lives Matter and straight up communists on the left are also a serious issue.
Militant communists have been discovered in the ranks before trying to undermine and corrupt the military, and BLM and Antifa used military tactics and included veterans using their skills to attack police, federal buildings and right-wing counter-protesters.
Indeed, Michael Reinoehl was a White BLM-supporting military veteran who shot dead Trump supporter Aaron “Jay” Danielson in August, 2020 on the streets of Portland, Oregon. These leftist radicals are a serious threat.
Army Major Abdul Nidal Hasan should have been on the military’s radar for his extremist Islamist views including direct warnings that he hated the United States and considered himself to be an Islamic warrior against the West, but they did nothing. This was mainly because he was a minority and they were afraid to fire him from his job as an army psychiatrist out of political correctness.
He went on to mow down 13 people at Fort Hood, including an unborn baby in 2009.
“As horrific as this tragedy was, if our diversity becomes a casualty, I think that’s worse,” said Chief of Staff General George Casey.
Yes, he actually said that.
In December 2019, Lieutenant Mohammed Saeed Alshamrani from Saudi Arabia was training in Pensacola. He had been planning to harm Americans for many years with plenty of warning signs but nothing was done. He went on a rampage killing three sailors and injuring a dozen more.
So will Biden’s rules apply to these horrific left-wing extremists as well? Don’t hold your breath on that.
It’s clear that the Biden Administration wants to remake the military into a woke machine that’s loyal to them. They want to root out any strong conservatives while filling the ranks with compliant forces who think “diversity” is the most important thing on the planet and who value progressive ideas more than loyalty to the Constitution.
These are very dangerous times.
