During a recent hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin admitted during questioning by Sen. Tom Cotton that he does not believe the U.S. military is "fundamentally racist."
A retired Army captain, in a scathing social media post, said that Austin should have made the admission before launching into an all-out effort to root out what he referred to as "domestic extremists" in the ranks.
Beginning his line of questioning June 10, Cotton asked Austin whether he believed the U.S. military “is a fundamentally racist organization;” whether troops should be treated differently based on their skin color or gender; and whether selections for leadership roles should be based on sex and gender rather than operational and leadership acumen.
"Austin answered no to all, though Cotton cut off most of his attempts to explain why the questions required more than one-word answers," MilitaryTimes reported.
Capt. Lindsey Rowland wrote in a LinkedIn post:"Austin should have stated prior to this whole hype & witch-hunt over extremism that he did not believe the military to be a fundamentally racist organization, as he stated yesterday during this hearing.
"This would have been an important place to start for our newly minted leader, a bit of confidence in those you are about to lead. Or like they say....wait and observe when you are new and then make the necessary adjustments, after you are certain there are even ones to be made.
"Instead, he told us we were racist and he was here to fix it. Now, that you did the dirty work for Democratic politicians, it’s a little too late to say.....just kidding, it’s really NOT a thing. It was just Preventative Maintenance. The damage is done.
"We have other issues that we know are a thing....like sexual assault and suicide. But we had a mass stand-down over an issue that SECDEF doesn’t even think is REAL.
"Instead, he made us question everything we stand for in military culture, brandished a wave of resentment and bashed white Soldiers military-wide and caused discourse within our ranks, where limited amounts had existed before or we talked about it and 'dealt' with it one on one.. in an institution that historically handles diversity better than its civilian counterparts, he made a mockery of us. Do better than be Democratic pawn."
Last month, Republican Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas and Rep. Dan Crenshaw of Texas launched a whistleblower site to gather complaints from troops about “anti-American indoctrination seeping into parts of our military.”
Cotton was an Army infantry captain while Crenshaw was a Navy SEAL lieutenant commander.
Crenshaw tweeted on May 28: "Enough is enough. We won’t let our military fall to woke ideology. We have just launched a whistleblower webpage where you can submit your story. Your complaint will be legally protected, and go to my office and @SenTomCotton."
During the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, Cotton spoke of a special operations troop who was told “the special operations community is racist”; a soldier who said a general officer referred to “the entire U.S. as racist”; an airman said his or her unit was forced to conduct a “privilege walk,” where troops separated themselves by race and gender to talk about their experiences with privilege; and soldiers “forced to watch videos about systemic racism and “documentaries that rewrite America’s history as a fundamentally racist and evil nation.”
Cotton also cited a response to his website claiming that a freshly recruited Space Force guardian filed separation paperwork saying that joining the armed services amounted to “indoctrination.”
Austin said at the hearing: “I would also say that diversity, equity and inclusion is important to this military now and it will be important in the future. We are going to make sure that our military looks like America and that our leadership looks like what’s in the ranks of the military. And I appreciate your support on that.”
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