Archive for the 'Department of Defense' Category

Via WiscoDave.

Pentagon approves two drones made in China for use by U.S. military.

— DEFCONWarningSystem (@DEFCONWSALERTS) June 2, 2021

What more is there to say, really?

Via David Codrea, this from American Thinker.

Americans need to understand that this is not their dads’ military. It’s not even the pre-2008 military. Barack Obama purged from the Pentagon anyone who was not with the new Democrat party. This Pentagon trend worsened under Trump, as people in the modern military resented the fact that he was not starting new wars and was drawing down troops. Trump’s peaceful ways may have saved lives and money, but they lessened opportunities for advancement within the military and shut down post-retirement sinecures in the defense industry.

With Biden’s ascension to the White House, the military has become an openly partisan, pro-Democrat, possibly anti-American institution dedicated entirely to turning itself into a social justice avatar for American society while maintaining endless small wars across the globe for the benefit of military officers. George Washington weeps.

And to the military men and women who read this and disagree, don’t attack me. Prove I’m wrong by becoming more of a fighting machine and less of a mewling college campus.

Yes, Obama purged 197 flag level officers in five years.  But it even started before that.  About as soon as my son’s battalion came back from its Iraq deployment, the senior enlisted officers, staff and field grade officers seemingly couldn’t do enough to purge anyone who had combat experience.

My son was one of the last in his battalion to leave (I think there were some dozen or two remaining combat veterans left).  Of the newer Marines, they tended to complain bitterly when my son trained them like he was trained, knowing that a deployment to Afghanistan was coming up.

This has been going on for a long time.

Where did you go?

A U.S. Marine Corps unit’s Twitter account says it “messed up” in its comments while responding to Fox News host Tucker Carlson as part of a debate over his commentary about social justice initiatives in the U.S. Armed Forces.

The official account for the II Marine Expeditionary Force Information Group used a pejorative on social media in responding to Carlson’s recent statements on how the military should be focused more on adversaries and less on culture issues.

The Marines shared a picture of a female soldier carrying a male one and tagged Carlson, writing that the photo showed “what it looks like in today’s armed forces.”

“Get right before you get left, boomer,” the account said, using a word widely considered a pejorative term.

After intense pushback for using an official military account to slam a private citizen, the Marines unit wrote in tweets: “We are human and we messed up. What was intended as a tweet in support of our female Marines and sisters serving in uniform was clearly not aligned with our standard practices or an appropriate representation of the Marine Corps. We will do better and serve the people.

“We can do better and we will collectively take a knee, review our procedures and get back in the fight. Our focus is to train, fight and win and we have a hard time doing that without your support.”

[ … ]

Military leaders realize “there’s much, much more work to be done to ensure that women’s leadership is recognized and we have more diverse leaders” and that “all women feel safe and respected in our military,” Biden said. “Some of it is relatively straightforward work where we’re making good progress designing body armor that fits women properly; tailoring combat uniforms for women; creating maternity flight suits; updating—updating requirements for their hairstyles.”

After playing the clip, Carlson told viewers: “So we’ve got new hairstyles and maternity flight suits. Pregnant women are going to fight our wars. It’s a mockery of the U.S. Military. While China’s military becomes more masculine as it’s assembled the world’s largest navy, our military needs to become, as Joe Biden says, more feminine, whatever feminine means anymore since men and women no longer exist. The bottom line is, it’s out of control, and the Pentagon is going along with this.”

The segment drew criticism from Pentagon press secretary John Kirby, who told reporters that “the diversity of our military is one of our greatest strengths.”

“We are better and more effective not only when we represent the American people—all the American people—but also, when we have the moral courage to include other perspectives and ideas into our decision-making; perspectives that, as the secretary himself noted Monday, are based on lived experience.

[ … ]

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin “shares the revulsion of so many others to what Mr. Carlson said in his opening statement,” according to the press secretary.

Here is the post and some responses.  The tweet sounds like a high school girl wrote it.

So aside from the notion of diversity being a strength in, say, mathematics or engineering or computer science or whatever, where physics governs processes, which I don’t think can be proven (but this is a difference discussion), let’s pose a challenge problem to the Marines.

Prove that diversity is a strength in the US Marine Corps?  Prove it.  Demonstrate categorically that sameness, the one intended end of all of the training my own son went through to ensure common goals, common tactics, techniques and procedures, and common devotion to duty and orders, shouldn’t have really been the goal after all.

Prove categorically that the US Marine Corps, who won multiple world wars, who has served honorably in countless other engagements, and who is the most feared strike and expeditionary force on earth, wasn’t really as good as they could be and would have been better with more diversity.

Oh, I see, you can’t.  You’re just aping the actions and parroting the words of the controllers and current administration.  If you’re not, and you really believe that diversity is a strength, you aren’t fit to lead because you can’t prove what you’re saying.

If you’re just aping the actions of your superiors, then you’re liars.

It isn’t necessary to rehearse the experience of the Soviet Union in Afghanistan where they placed women in combat roles and found a disproportionate number of lower extremity injuries, or the experience of Marine Corps infantry officer’s course at Quantico where every woman thus far has had several hip injuries or pelvic fractures.

We all know the truth regardless of the focus group wording you parrot.  Repeat after me: There is no way that a woman can do the same physical things a man does.  God designed it that way.

How far the Marine Corps has fallen.  Shameful, loathsome and contemptible.  I think your future adversaries will think the same thing.

SOFWERX and USSOCOM PEO-SOF Warrior are hosting a Virtual Industry Day to discuss current and future Lightweight Machine Gun-Medium needs for the SOF Operator. Learn more, and request to attend, at https://t.co/260WyblsXy. #SOFWERX #LMGM #MachineGun #OperationalNeeds pic.twitter.com/hA615rYSnx

— SOFWERX (@SOFWERX) January 20, 2021

Of course I don’t know the future, but here’s a prediction. Feel free to remind me of this post if I turn out to be wrong (I hope I’m wrong).

Any future winner of machine gun contracts with SOCOM will be foreign, not U.S. manufacturing.

One thing the ban on machine guns fabricated after 1968 has done is stop development in open bolt weapon systems in the U.S.

With FN the manufacturer was at least connected to American intellectual abilities with John Moses Browning.  Now with the worship of Sig, H&K and others, I suspect the die is cast.

It’s nothing but a joke at this point.

Women in the U.S. Army can soon wear nail polish, lipstick and earrings as well as their hair in more natural hairstyles thanks to what the Army calls “major revisions” to its regulations.

In addition to relaxed grooming standards, women in the Army who are breastfeeding or pumping will also have the option to wear an undershirt.

Not to mention what the concept of women in the military, or even worse, combat MOSs, is doing to capabilities, the idea of hair, necklaces or rings on people is absurd in this context.

Every man who has spent time in an industrial setting around rotating and moving equipment knows better.  Hair or anything hanging on your body can get caught and pull you in, decapitating you.  Lanyards to hold IDs and other equipment around your neck has to have a “break-away” strap.

My son told me about one guy in the Marines who ignored that standard, jumped off the back of a truck, and got his ring caught on something, pulling his finger off.

Except that this isn’t really a joke.  It’s real.  The destruction of the U.S. military is nearly complete.

What a gaggle of clowns.

What a sad state of affairs.  Diversity in the military will never be readiness for anything but failure.

God has rules for war and for military service (I won’t rehearse those now, but you can refer to R. J. Rushdoony, “Institutes of Biblical Law”), but they aren’t being followed here.

Thus this is alignment with wickedness.  Of course, destruction of U.S. military capabilities may be their intent.

Was anybody other than me aghast at the terrible state of the NG troops sent to D.C. recently?  Those boys and girls had better hope they never face combat.

I am truly shocked that no prior .mil figure has pointed out that, through their kompromat on Grandpa Badtouch Biden and others in the succession chain, the CCP will be the de facto CINC of all US forces as of sunset on 21JAN2021.

Without a shot fired.

Liberty or Death, indeed.

— ❌President-Elect Concerned American (@WRSABlog) January 2, 2021

He makes a great point.  I know I still have a number of military readers.  I’ve recommended before in terms that I cannot make stronger.

If you are in the military, active duty, get out.

Via WRSA, this information from NC Renegade.  Thomas Jonathan “Stonewall” Jackson’s statue has been removed.

Shameful.  I will note that his pastor was Robert Lewis Dabney, whose “Systematic Theology” still sits on my bookshelf.

I will also note that the U.S. is renaming military installations, and Fort A.P. Hill is on the list.

Honestly, I have to say that it is beyond me why any patriot would seek to enter the U.S. military today.

From the annals of I hate America, God and everything good and decent, comes this from the USMC.

The Marine Corps is considering a plan in which it could close its two existing boot camp locations and funnel all recruits to a new base where men and women would train together.

Marine entry-level training is a long way off from being able to meet a congressional mandate to make its East and West coast training bases both able to support gender-integrated training in the coming years, the Corps’ top general said on Thursday.

That is leading the service to study the option of opening a third training base in a new location to which all new recruits would ship, rather than spending cash on construction projects at aging training bases.

“Nothing, the way we’re organized right now, lends itself to integrated recruit training,” Commandant Gen. David Berger said on Thursday. “If that’s our start point — and it is — we have to get to a place on both coasts, or at third location or whatever we end up with, that … there are male and female recruits around.”

Both the Marine Corps’ recruit training depots have storied pasts — particularly Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island in South Carolina, which was first used by Marines in the 1890s. Hundreds of thousands of Marines have stood on the famous yellow footprints on each base at the start of their careers before earning the coveted eagle, globe and anchor and title of Marine.

But with a new law bearing down on the service to make both locations support coed training — within five years at Parris Island and eight at San Diego — the Marine Corps is exploring different options, Maj. Eric Flanagan, Berger’s spokesman told Military.com.

“The question becomes, ‘Are we better off just using [military construction] dollars to create a new third site, or put that money into our existing sites?'” he said. “No decisions have been made. We’re not investing any money anywhere else. It’s just an option we’re talking about.”

The Marine Corps hasn’t yet identified a state where the new boot camp location might be located, Flanagan said. In assessing the possible change though, he said they’re considering a lot more than just the need for coed squad bays and other facility changes to support gender-integrated boot camp.

Maybe put it alongside Portland or Seattle.  It would go well there.

A once storied, dignified institution, now degraded and shamed.  It’s all going according to plan.

Via David Codrea, this piece at Defense One is breathtaking in its presumptuousness and stupidity.

Dear General Milley:

As chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, you are well aware of your duties in ordinary times: to serve as principal military advisor to the president of the United States, and to transmit the lawful orders of the president and Secretary of Defense to combatant commanders. In ordinary times, these duties are entirely consistent with your oath to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic…”

We do not live in ordinary times. The president of the United States is actively subverting our electoral system, threatening to remain in office in defiance of our Constitution. In a few months’ time, you may have to choose between defying a lawless president or betraying your Constitutional oath. We write to assist you in thinking clearly about that choice. If Donald Trump refuses to leave office at the expiration of his constitutional term, the United States military must remove him by force, and you must give that order.

Due to a dangerous confluence of circumstances, the once-unthinkable scenario of authoritarian rule in the United States is now a very real possibility. First, as Mr. Trump faces near certain electoral defeat, he is vigorously undermining public confidence in our elections. Second, Mr. Trump’s defeat would result in his facing not merely political ignominy, but also criminal charges. Third, Mr. Trump is assembling a private army capable of thwarting not only the will of the electorate but also the capacities of ordinary law enforcement. When these forces collide on January 20, 2021, the U.S. military will be the only institution capable of upholding our Constitutional order.

There can be little doubt that Mr. Trump is facing electoral defeat. More than 160,000 Americans have died from COVID 19, and that toll is likely to rise to 300,000 by November. One in ten U.S. workers is unemployed, and the U.S. economy in the last quarter suffered the greatest contraction in its history. Nearly 70 percent of Americans believe the country is on the wrong track. The Economist estimates that Mr. Trump’s chances of losing the election stand at 91 percent.

Faced with these grim prospects, Mr. Trump has engaged in a systemic disinformation campaign to undermine public confidence in our elections. He has falsely claimed that mail-in voting is  “inaccurate and fraudulent.” He is actively sabotaging the U.S. Postal Service in an effort to delay and discredit mail-in votes. He has suggested delaying the 2020 election, despite lacking the authority to do so.

The stakes of the 2020 election are especially high for Mr. Trump; in defeat, he will likely face criminal prosecution. The Manhattan District Attorney is investigating the Trump Organization for possible bank and insurance fraud related to the overvaluation of financial assets. New York’s Attorney General is conducting similar investigations, having successfully subpoenaed Trump’s financial records from Deutsche Bank. Mr. Trump allegedly pressured the U.S. ambassador to Great Britain to pressure the British Government to move the British Open golf tournament to Trump Turnberry Resort in Scotland. This incident is but one of many examples of self-dealing that may lead to federal criminal charges against the president.

Given this dizzying array of threats not merely to his political prospects, but also his liberty and wealth, Mr. Trump is following the playbook of dictators throughout history: he is building a private army answerable only to him. When Caesar faced the prospect of a trial in Rome, he did not return to face his day in court. He unleashed an army personally loyal to him alone on the Roman government. No student of history, Mr. Trump nevertheless appears to be following Caesar’s example. The president’s use of militarized Homeland Security agents against domestic political demonstrations constitutes the creation of a paramilitary force unaccountable to the public. The members of this private army, often lacking police insignia or other identification, exist not to enforce the law but to intimidate the president’s political opponents.

These powerful crosscurrents—Mr. Trump’s electoral defeat, his assault on the integrity of our elections, his impending criminal prosecution, and his creation of a private army—will collide on January 20. Rather than accept the peaceful transfer of power that has been the hallmark of American democracy since its inception. Mr. Trump may refuse to leave office. He would likely offer as a fig leaf of legitimacy the shopworn lies about election fraud. Mr. Trump’s acolytes in right-wing media will certainly rush to repeat and amplify these lies, manufacturing sufficient evidence to provide a pretext of plausibility. America’s greatest Constitutional crisis since the Civil War will come about by a president who simply refuses to leave office.

[ … ]

At this moment of Constitutional crisis, only two options remain. Under the first, U.S. military forces escort the former president from the White House grounds. Trump’s little green men, so intimidating to lightly armed federal law enforcement agents, step aside and fade away, realizing they would not constitute a good morning’s work for a brigade of the 82nd Airborne. Under the second, the U.S. military remains inert while the Constitution dies. The succession of government is determined by extralegal violence between Trump’s private army and street protesters; Black Lives Matter Plaza becomes Tahrir Square.

As the senior military officer of the United States, the choice between these two options lies with you. In the Constitutional crisis described above, your duty is to give unambiguous orders directing U.S. military forces to support the Constitutional transfer of power. Should you remain silent, you will be complicit in a coup d’état. You were rightly criticized for your prior active complicity in the president’s use of force against peaceful protesters in Lafayette Square. Your passive complicity in an extralegal seizure of political power would be far worse.

Well now, consider yourself lectured by your self-righteous betters.  Isn’t this lovely?

Okay, so let’s get a few things out of the way.  First of all, I don’t usually like to lift prose out like this from other sources, at least not to this degree.  Sending traffic to the source is usually considered the respectful thing to do.

In this case I did it because I have no respect for either of the two authors or the publication.  I lifted enough prose for you to get the gist of this awful preening without sending traffic their way.  Second, I note that both authors were well-respected at the leftist website Small Wars Journal, in fact, in some cases heralded as heroes.

Third, they run in certain circles, from the Center for a New American Security (which gave Obama some of his folks), to Andrew Exum and others of their ilk.  I have no doubt they are pandering for a position in a new administration they are sure will be, come hell or high water.

With that said, consider what they’ve said and how logically problematic it is.  On the one hand, they swore an oath to the constitution of the U.S., but on the other hand take this deep dive into American politics to the point that they are advocating military intervention in the presidency.

On the one hand, they blame Covid on Trump, but on the other hand their own bureaucratic tools they find so charming, like Anthony Fauci, are the ones responsible for this mess for the very well-known reason of gain of function research on American tax dollars from Fauci’s own section at NIH (NIAID), dollars sent to the virology lab in Wuhan.

On the one hand, they blame Trump for the deaths because apparently he should have locked down America even further, and on the other hand, blame him for the loss of jobs that the lockdown entailed.

But the cognitive dissonance means nothing to them, apparently.  The rest of it is just drama, emotion and screeching, as if written by teenage girls in a High School civics class, suitable only for a D- grade in Freshman High School.  The worst part, of course, is that they want to deploy American forces against a president on the suspicion that he might have a standing army himself.

Good Lord.  What have these boys been smoking?  Their politics and utter hatred for Trump gets in the way of clear thinking.  They could not answer, for example, for Obama’s program Fast and Furious.  Remember that?  Where the ATF forced FFLs to illegally sell to traffickers to transport weapons across the Southern border in the hopes that they would be the catalyst for increased gun control in America?  And Holder and Obama both knew it.  And we’re not finished yet.  After that explosive episode of stupidity, they actually had the gall to prosecute that FFL for crimes, thing they forced the FFL to do.

They could not answer, for example, for Obama’s having weaponized the IRS against his political opponents, or intentionally leaving good men to perish in Benghazi, the lying that undergirded Obamacare, spying on journalists (e.g., James Rosen), Hillary’s secret server, the Solyndra scandal, Uranium One, or any other other massive problems of the Obama administration – because you see, they agreed with him politically, and they don’t agree with Trump.

This is what happens when presidents like Obama force officers out of the military and replace them with loyalists.  Perfumed princes indeed.

For me this has nothing to do with Trump.  As readers know, I’m not his biggest fan.  They wall isn’t built, immigration hasn’t slowed, bump stocks are illegal by the stroke of a president’s pen, red flag laws got much needed wind from him, and I could go on and on.

The problem this all points to is the use of former military rank to press politics.  This is a disgraceful, shameful, dishonorable, contemptible display of lack of scruples or values.  My son, who served honorably in OIF in hard combat in Fallujah earning his CAR, is a much better man by orders of magnitude.

Oh, and one more thing.  David Codrea asks, “Anybody see a “Comments” section over there?”  No, there isn’t.  Comments are open on my web site.  As I’ve said many times before, if you have a web site with no possibility of comments or feedback, or at least a way to reach out to the authors via email, the authors are cowards.