Obama ‘weakening military in unprecedented ways’

Obama ‘weakening military in unprecedented ways’

wnd.com  · by F. Michael Maloof

WASHINGTON – The U.S. military, which has seen generals and other high-level officers relieved of duty at an unprecedented rate during the Obama administration, is in trouble largely because of the radical social experimentation being forced upon it, according to the Center for Military Readiness.

CMR’s president, Elaine Donnelly, said in an interview with WND that officers have gotten the Obama administration’s message of political correctness – “and most have been virtually silent ever since.”

Under Obama, she said, budgets for the military have been slashed, SEAL Team Six members exposed as the ones who killed Osama bin Laden, open homosexuality introduced and service members pressed into service to hold an umbrella over the president during the rain.

During the Reagan administration, Donnelly was appointed by Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger to the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services. And in 1992, Pres. George H. W. Bush likewise appointed her to the Presidential Commission on the Assignment of Women in the Armed Forces.

Donnelly says Obama has done “great damage” to the military by taking away resources and imposing “heavy burdens of social experimentation.”

“But most flag and general officers are following orders, keeping their heads down and, in my opinion, letting down the troops,” she said.

Although the president is “weakening our military in unprecedented ways,” she reiterated, “the brass has remained largely silent since the spring of 2010.”

And she believes the Obama administration is taking advantage of this silence among military leaders.

“Due to dissembling and deception from the military’s uniformed and civilian leaders, President Obama is seizing the opportunity to radically change and weaken the culture of the military,” Donnelly told WND. “The president’s objective is ‘gender diversity’ in the combat arms, and the Joint Chiefs, so far, have persuaded Congress that they need not intervene.”

“Liberal activists,” she said, are seeking to remove all military opposition “to their most radical objectives.”

In this connection, she said the Military Leadership Diversity Commission has recommended in its “DoD-endorsed report” that officers’ promotions be contingent on support for “gender diversity metrics,” which she says is another name for quotas.

“This is not a secret – the problem is there, hidden in plain sight,” Donnelly said.

Part of the problem, she points out, is that the armed forces defend individual rights, but the military itself is governed by different rules under the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

“Under the UCMJ,” she said, “members of the military are not free to publicly disparage the commander-in-chief, Congress and other officials. This is as it should be, but the (Obama) administration is taking advantage of the military’s culture of obedience,” she said.

“Because everyone must follow orders, the military is [no longer] a conservative institution. It is on the cutting edge of social experimentation.”

WND has been reporting on the removal of large numbers of commanding officers and generals since Obama took office, including nine such cases this year alone. Several retired generals have accused the Obama administration of a “purge” and have linked the removals to political and social agendas.

Gen. Carter Ham was one of three generals who later retired following the Sept. 11, 2012, terrorist attack on the U.S. consulate and CIA special mission facility in Benghazi, Libya. He had criticized the lack of timely reinforcements to protect these facilities. Following the terrorist attack on Benghazi, Ham said he had wanted to send reinforcements to stop the attack, which killed U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans, two of whom were former SEALs.

While others contend Ham was given a stand-down order but defied it, he said he didn’t get the order. He was relieved of his command and retired.

Two other senior officers were immediately relieved of their commands along with Ham.

One was Rear Adm. Charles Gaouette, who commanded the Carrier Strike Group in the area at the time. After Gaouette contended aircraft could have been sent to Libya in time to help the Americans under fire, he was removed from his post for alleged profanity and making “racially insensitive comments.”

Another was Maj. Gen. Ralph Baker, commander of the Combined Joint Task Force Horn of Africa at Camp Lemonier in Djibouti, Africa. Baker contended attack helicopters could have reached the consulate in time on the night of the attack.

Donnelly leveled some criticism at Ham, noting he was an adviser to the committee that investigated the jihadist attack at Fort Hood, which produced a report calling the attack “workplace violence.”

Ham also served as co-chair of the Comprehensive Review Working Group, or CRWG, which, contents Donnelly, rather than a study was more of a vehicle “to promote repeal of the 1993 [‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’] law.”

She added that Ham was “largely absent” during a process controlled by Jeh Johnson, who has been general counsel of the Department of Defense since 2009. Last month Obama nominated Johnson, a civil and criminal trial lawyer prior to government service, to become the next secretary of homeland security. The Senate will begin consideration the nomination this week.

Donnelly had uncovered the DOD Inspector General report that revealed Johnson had discussed the results of a survey among military personnel about LGBT – before the survey was conducted.

That survey, which critics say Johnson evidently manipulated, showed military personnel had no objection to the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”

“The military has no mechanism to find out why people leave the military,” Donnelly said. “I think they really do not want to know.

“There is no question about social issues on the exit survey form,” she added. “This allows the administration to claim all is going well. When Jeh Johnson goes before the Senate for confirmation, he will no doubt make such claims.”

Yet Donnelly said problems under LGBT law will only increase as time passes. Sexual assaults have been on the rise, she noted, principally male-on-male assaults.

She pointed out that the administration had dropped any legal defense of the Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA, within weeks after a lame-duck Congress voted to repeal the 1993 law.

In characterizing the direction of the administration as pushing its social experimentation on the Defense Department, Donnelly noted that the DOD has extended benefits to same-sex couples.

“Now, the ‘Ts’ in LGBT are pushing for recognition and rights, too,” she said. “Flag and general officers have been almost completely silent on all of this. I wish there were signs of resistance, but the administration is using the military’s culture of obedience to push an extremely liberal agenda that former Joint Chiefs Chairman Mike Mullen called ‘Diversity as a strategic imperative.’”

Even the Defense Department’s chief of personnel and readiness, she said, has called “diversity and inclusion” critical to “mission success.”

Rather than a “purge,” as some generals have called it, Donnelly says, “I see capitulation at the top levels of military leadership. It’s up to Congress, and civilians who vote for Congress, to start exercising responsible oversight, and to insist on a restoration of high standards and sound priorities in the military. It is the only one we have.”

A number of former military, including former Florida Congressman Allen West, are alarmed over an exit of top-level military officers. West now is calling for congressional oversight hearings into what he calls an “alarming trend” of dismissals and firings of high-ranking military officers by the Obama administration, firings that in a number of cases appear to be political.

West, who as congressman served on the House Armed Services Committee, said he recently had been in contact with Committee Chairman Rep. Howard “Buck” McKeon – calling for hearings “to determine exactly why” so many officers, especially senior officers, are being given the boot.

“McKeon needs to look at this problem,” West told WND. “There needs to be transparency. It is important to get the truth.”

Others have even stronger feelings.

In a recent interview with WND, Retired Army Maj. Gen. Paul E. Vallely, who was the deputy commanding general of the Pacific Command, similarly accused Obama’s close adviser, Valerie Jarrett, of orchestrating the imposition of “political correctness” throughout the military, affecting everyone from top generals to the ranks of the enlisted.

Valerie Jarrett

In pinning the blame on Jarrett, reportedly Obama’s closest and most influential adviser, Vallely suggested her far-left, politically correct influence is forcing senior officers to watch everything military personnel say and do.

Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, says in a story by The Blaze, that Jarrett influences nearly every policy issue at the White House.

“She seems to have her tentacles into every issue and every topic,” Chaffetz says. “Her name ultimately always comes up.”

The Washington Post has written about Jarrett as the president’s “mysterious” adviser.

And author Ed Klein, former editor-in-chief of the New York Times magazine, said in a Washington Times report that Jarrett was the secret “architect” of the Obama strategy to shut down the government and blame it on congressional Republicans.

London’s Daily Mail newspaper notes that Jarrett’s insider nickname is “Night Stalker” because of her exclusive, late-night access to the presidential family’s private quarters.

According to Vallely, Obama is “intentionally weakening and gutting our military, Pentagon and reducing us as a superpower, and anyone in the ranks who disagrees or speaks out is being purged.”

Vallely served in the Vietnam War and retired in 1993 as deputy Commanding General, Pacific Command. Today, he is chairman of the Military Committee for the Center for Security Policy and is co-author of the book “Endgame: The Blueprint for Victory in the War on Terror.”

In addition to Vallely, a number of prominent retired generals – from Lt. Gen. William G. Boykin, a founder of the Army’s elite Delta Force, to Medal of Honor recipient Maj. Gen. Patrick Henry Brady – have also gone on the record with WND on this issue.

They’ve described Obama’s actions as nothing less than an all-out attack on America’s armed forces.

Brady, recipient of the U.S. military’s highest decoration, the Medal of Honor, said Obama’s agenda is decimating the morale of the U.S. ranks to the point members no longer feel prepared to fight or have the desire to win.

“There is no doubt he [Obama] is intent on emasculating the military and will fire anyone who disagrees with him” over such issues as “homosexuals, women in foxholes, the Obama sequester,” Brady told WND.

“They are purging everyone, and if you want to keep your job, just keep your mouth shut,” another military source told WND.

Not only are military service members being demoralized and the ranks’ overall readiness being reduced by the Obama administration’s purge of key leaders, colonels – those lined up in rank to replace outgoing generals – are quietly taking their careers in other directions.

Boykin, who was a founding member of Delta Force and later deputy undersecretary of defense for intelligence under President George W. Bush, says it is worrying that four-star generals are being retired at the rate that has occurred under Obama.

“Over the past three years, it is unprecedented for the number of four-star generals to be relieved of duty, and not necessarily relieved for cause,” Boykin said.

“I believe there is a purging of the military,” he said. “The problem is worse than we have ever seen.”

The future of the military is becoming more and more of concern, added Boykin, since colonels who would become generals are also being relieved of duty if they show that they’re not going to support Obama’s agenda, which critics have described as socialist.

“I talk to a lot of folks who don’t support where Obama is taking the military, but in the military they can’t say anything,” Boykin said.

As a consequence, he said, the lower grades have decided to leave, having been given the signal that there is no future in the military for them.

Brady, who was a legendary “Dust Off” air ambulance pilot in Vietnam and detailed his experiences in his book, “Dead Men Flying: Victory in Viet Nam,”told WND, “The problem is military people will seldom, while on duty, go on the record over such issues, and many will not ever, no matter how true. I hear from many off the record who are upset with the current military leadership and some are leaving and have left in the past.”

Brady referred to additional problems in today’s military including “girly-men leadership [and] medals for not shooting and operating a computer. This president will never fight if there is any reason to avoid it and with a helpless military he can just point to our weakness and shrug his shoulders.”

Likewise, retired Navy Capt. Joseph John tells WND that the “bigger picture” is that “the U.S. Armed Forces have been under relentless attack by the occupant of the Oval Office for five years.”

“I believe there are more than 137 officers who have been forced out or given bad evaluation reports so they will never make Flag (officer), because of their failure to comply to certain views,” said John.

“The truly sad story is that many of the brightest graduates of the three major service academies witnessing what the social experiment on diversity … is doing to the U.S. military, are leaving the service after five years,” he said. “We are being left with an officer corps that can be made to be more compliant, that is, exactly what Obama needs to effect his long range goals for the U.S. military.”

wnd.com  · by F. Michael Maloof