Biden admin sacrificing military readiness for 'woke virtue signaling,' GOP report claims
WASHINGTON (TND) — A report published Monday by congressional Republicans charged the Biden administration with pushing politics in the military, warning a “sustained assault” of “woke virtue signaling” has been weakening America’s military readiness.
The report from Florida Republican Senator Marco Rubio and Texas Republican Representative Chip Roy, titled “WOKE WARFIGHTERS: How Political Ideology is Weakening America’s Military,” detailed several high-ranking military and Department of Defense (DOD) officials and their actions, as well as programs being implemented across the nation’s military apparatus.
The first example given was the “stand-down order” from Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. It was one of the secretary’s first major actions following his Senate confirmation, during which Austin declared he would “rid our ranks of racists and extremists,” according to the report.
Austin’s order directed all service members and civilian DOD employees to conduct a “one-day ‘stand-down’ to discuss extremism in the ranks with their personnel.”
According to the report, more than 5,359,000 personnel hours went into this effort, and the Biden administration’s Countering Extremist Activity Working Group (CEAWG) ultimately found “cases of prohibited extremist activity among service members were rare.”
The report also detailed partisanship allegedly at play within the ranks of the nation’s prestigious military academies. In one instance, an admiral at the U.S. Naval Academy reportedly instructed midshipmen to read controversial author Ibram X. Kendi’s “How to be an Antiracist.”
“The only remedy to racist discrimination is antiracist discrimination. The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination,” Kendi writes in the book.
The report from Sen. Rubio and Rep. Roy also touched on one of several issues that have come out of the U.S. Air Force Academy (USAFA) recently.
In an op-ed published by The Washington Post, one associate professor for political science at USAFA praised critical race theory and openly admitted to teaching it to students. The professor argued the academic framework helps cadets “identify the structural racism and inequality that has been endemic in American society.”
Rubio and Roy also blasted the Biden administration's 2022 National Security Strategy, which they argue was more focused on "diversity and inclusion" than military readiness. According to their report, the strategy’s first topic listed is “promoting diversity and inclusion.”
“The military’s focus should be on serving the nation and using the individuals’ skills, talents, and uniqueness as tools to achieve the higher goal of maintaining the most lethal fighting force in the history of the world,” the report concludes. “As the famous 3rd Infantry Division Song written during World War II puts it, “on all the posters that I read / it says ‘the Army builds men,’/ so they’re tearing me down / to build me over again!”
