By Victor Davis Hanson March 17, 2021 American Greatness
Leftist administrations see the military foremost as a tool for accelerating their own progressive domestic changes.
The U.S. military has now turned its wrath inward on Fox News host Tucker Carlson.
The new secretary of defense relayed his “revulsion” for Carlson’s questioning the role of women in combat—a position that had been the military’s centuries-long orthodoxy until about seven years ago.
Pentagon spokesman John Kirby even compared Carlson to the Communist Chinese military: “What we absolutely won’t do is take personnel advice from a talk show host, or the Chinese military.”
The now-cocky Department of Defense website further boasted, “Press Secretary Smites Fox Host.”
So what was the biblically “smitten” Carlson’s crime?
He objected to the military’s fixation on race and gender in high-profile appointments—and questioned whether standards were relaxed to permit women in combat units.
Carlson objected that the Capitol is currently domestically militarized. More troops are on guard against purported American “insurrectionists” than are currently serving in war zones in Afghanistan.
He noted far too many defense secretaries—he singled out the current secretary, retired General Lloyd Austin—revolve in and out from corporate defense contractor boards and billets.
His subtext is that too many of our retired top brass virtue signal their wokeness, while otherwise seeking to make a great deal of corporate money from their prior and often future government service and contacts.
Aside from the fact that the military usually does not use its top officials to react to journalists, the Pentagon should try to refute Carlson rather than comparing him to the hostile Communist Chinese.
The Pentagon might instead seek to reassure the public that no physical standards for combat troops have been lowered to accommodate front-line soldiers of any sex.
Kirby also could attempt to reassure the public that defense secretaries and top-ranking Pentagon officials have not recently served on defense contractor boards before or after their tenures. He might object that defense budgets are not soaring in part due to administrative bloat and social welfare costs.
The Pentagon might also explain the ubiquitous barbed wire and troop presence in Washington—the greatest militarization of the nation’s capital since Confederate general Jubal Early marched on Washington in July 1864.
No one arrested in the January 6 violent Capitol assault was found to have possessed or used a firearm. No ringleaders were discovered planning a coup. Instead, the dangerous riot was more likely a one-time assault than an ongoing “armed insurrection.”
Last summer during the nationwide Antifa and Black Lives Matter civil unrest, more than 280 retired top-ranking officers and security officials signed a letter blasting President Trump’s consideration of sending in federal troops to restore calm. They claimed the mere idea “risks sullying the reputation of our men and women in uniform in the eyes of their fellow Americans and of the world.”
OK—yet none of those signees voiced objections when the Pentagon recently oversaw 30,000 National Guard troops within the borders of our capital.