Not even a full month into his term as President Joe Biden's Secretary of Defense, retired General Lloyd Austin, ordered a 60-day stand down across the entire Department of Defense, for sole purpose of determining the scope of extremists serving in the military. The impetus for this announcement was the reality that a few of the people who illegally entered the US Capitol building on 6 January 2021 were active serving members of the US military. Additionally, twelve of the soldiers in the National Guard assigned the duty to provide security in Washington DC during the inauguration, were removed from the duty due to concerns over their political ties and statements.
To be clear, the oath of office for all who enter the US military clearly disqualifies anyone from service who would be a Communist, white supremacist, or neo-Nazi. We don't want people who believe in such things serving in our military. The oath requires each person to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States," plus to take the oath "freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion." If someone takes the oath he has to believe in what the Constitution mandates, or else he's guilty of evasion. The Constitution most clearly operates alien to the views expressed by Communists, supremacists, and neo-Nazis, or anyone else who would wish to infringe our Constitutional liberties.
However, there are reasonable concerns over this announcement, especially the timing of it. It would be implausible if at least some of those who belonged to the Antifa groups that engaged in riots across America, were not at least formerly serving members of the US military. That likelihood never resulted in any serious investigation, much less a policy affecting the entire US military. That said, active serving members of the US military who broke the law by storming the Capitol should be broken out of the service.
Virtue signaling within our military is something that must be condemned. A better approach would be to limit the administrative actions to those who's actual conduct signals actions and beliefs contrary to good order and discipline. The Biden administration seems to have already crossed the line against subjecting our military to political virtue signaling. We should ensure it doesn't get any worse, especially becoming a political purge of those who simply don't think the politics of the American left are good for America.
Still, the concern is the details of how this examination is performed, and what actions are taken as a result. It could be abused as a tool of political retribution against conservatives in the military, who all firmly believe in the Constitution, and are people we should be least concerned about violating their oaths of office. Our military is the last government institution that should be victimized by political endeavors. Not only must our military remain above partisan politics, but to create a political litmus test and apply it to service members, would be a terrible blow to our military effectiveness.
History records the terrible outcomes when out of control leaders engage in a political purge of their military. No more egregious an example can be found than what happened in the Soviet Union during the 1930's, when the psychopathic Joseph Stalin ordered the Great Purge, and murdered three of his five four-star generals, 13 of 15 three-star generals, eight of nine admirals, 50 of 57 corps commanders, 154 out of 186 division commanders, and overall an estimated 25-50% of the entire Red Army officer corps. The scope of the effect is best considered by the reality that even today we can only estimate that a quarter to a half of all Soviet military officers were murdered by their own government! The calamity rendered what had been a very capable military force into a hollow force, devoid of effective leadership. A tyrant himself, Adolph Hitler, took this purge as his opening to believe that all his military had to do was, "to kick in the door and the whole rotten structure will come crashing down."
Operation Barbarossa was launched on 22 June 1941. Initially, the Soviet military was so ineffective, that it looked like Hitler might have been correct. As we know, the situation changed entirely when the operation made it to the outskirts of Moscow, but stalled out in early December 1941. What happened after was a series of strategic defeats for the German military. But, the ultimate lesson remains that by purging his military for political reasons, primarily because of psychotic worries over threats to his life and power, Stalin encouraged enemies to consider his country a weak target.
That miscalculation resulted in the slaughter of 5.1 million Axis Forces as well as about 10 million Soviet forces. That's a terrible price to pay for the political folly of playing politics with one's own military!
At minimum, this 60-day stand down order is surprising, given we have units engaged today in hostile action in Afghanistan, and to a lesser extent in Iraq. True, the GWOT has settled down, but we even have seen a recent deployment of US military forces into eastern Syria, in a campaign against ISIS. So, peace has by no means taken hold within the US military.
Normally, stand downs are used in limited efforts, usually focusing upon specific types of forces if there emerges trends of unsafe operations resulting in questionable losses. These actions are used to improve combat effectiveness. One cannot recall before there being a blanket stand down order for the entire US military. It would seem reasonable that we should prosecute those who broke the law at the Capitol building, and any convicted have their military careers destroyed, in addition to their prison sentences served.
If there are extremists serving in the US military, who hold views alien to our Constitution, then it serves us well to end their careers. But, if this action serves merely as a smokescreen to obscure a more sinister purge of political conservatives, then the Biden administration will have embarked upon the most dangerous action in the history of the United States military. Given that Biden in the stroke of his pens in his first hour in office put about 50,000 well paid Americans out of work, then the instant pace of such questionable actions should give everyone good reason to be circumspect, if not outrightly alarmed.
The other irony is that our military has long been seen as a driver of racial equality in America, often leading the efforts to end segregation and actual racism. It seems thin to use isolated actions by a few military veterans to bring down a sweeping policy action designed to investigate and weed out potentially thousands of service members.
Virtue signaling within our military is something that must be condemned. A better approach would be to limit the administrative actions to those who's actual conduct signals actions and beliefs contrary to good order and discipline. The Biden administration seems to have already crossed the line against subjecting our military to political virtue signaling. We should ensure it doesn't get any worse, especially becoming a political purge of those who simply don't think the politics of the American left are good for America.
-- Ken Stallings
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