I Hope He/She Can Fight - They Still Do That In The Military Don't They?
Last year the U.S. military fled Afghanistan. We suffered a catastrophic defeat. After decades of fighting, thousands of dead, and billions of dollars in expenditures we were defeated by an Islamic insurgency armed with cast-off weapons and equipment. All of the vaunted efforts to build a self-sufficient Afghan Army proved fruitless. All of our predictions regarding the staying power of the Afghan government proved wildly inaccurate.
One would think that at the Pentagon we would be deep into some intense soul searching. One would imagine quite a few generals would by this point have lost their jobs. One would expect that we would be singularly focused on figuring out what went wrong and making damn sure it never happens again.
One would be wrong.
The only person who has lost their job is one Marine Lieutenant-Colonel who had the courage, to tell the truth about the debacle. And, as for reform focused on improving performance in combat, that has to wait. The Pentagon’s focus is on much weightier matters – what pronouns to use when addressing servicemembers.
News agencies last week reported that the U.S. Pacific Air Forces, those elements of the Air Force that are right now on the frontlines in a looming confrontation with Communist China, had ordered senior leaders and commanders to stop using gender pronouns in written formats, saying the shift to more neutral language will help improve the fighting force’s "lethality."
"In accordance with the Diverse PACAF priority, ‘We must embrace, promote and unleash the potential of diversity and inclusion," states a May email sent to senior leaders and commanders at the Andersen Air Force Base in Guam, according to a partial copy of the order obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.
Leaders at the base were instructed, "Do not use pronouns, age, race, etc." when writing performance reviews or other materials, such as recommendations for awards. "Competition against near-peer adversaries requires a united focus from the command, the joint team, and our international partners. Welcoming and employing varied perspectives from a foundation of mutual respect will improve our interoperability, efficiency, creativity, and lethality."
Those instructions were not just sent to Guam. They were sent to the entire United States military worldwide. You might have thought that the Pentagon would be spending its time figuring out how to win the hot war that could break out any minute with the Chinese and which we are in grave danger of losing. You would be wrong.
Pronouns. Pronouns are the key to the future.
For DOD, unauthorized pronouns and terms now include: "He/She did," "Best male/female," "Youngest/Oldest," and "Sergeant Murray." The list of authorized terms includes: "This sergeant," "This NCO [Non-commissioned officer]," and "This member."
DOD assures us that "Diversity and inclusion are force multipliers and warfighting imperatives that enable our competitive advantage against near-peer adversaries." It appears nothing terrifies the ChiComs like a well-formatted fitness report written in accordance with the dictates of the genderless, totalitarian state.
This new madness is, of course, part and parcel of an ongoing effort within the military to wage war against all elements of traditional culture and to compel servicemembers to accept deeply problematic pseudo-scientific theories about gender fluidity, gender roles, and gender dysphoria. The Navy put out a training video for sailors not long ago that was focused on pronouns and the serious errors you would be making if you referred to Joe, who is a guy but claims he is now a girl, as “he.”
Army training materials include scenarios on how to react if you’re in the men’s shower in the barracks and you run into Jane who now says she’s Joe but just happens to continue to look a lot like Jane and have all Jane’s original equipment. Answer? It’s your problem if you have a problem. In effect, Jane/Joe can shower wherever she/he wants.
All of the training materials being pushed by DOD are based on the full acceptance of principles that are still very much in dispute and do not fit with the views of the overall American population. In all the materials provided to servicemen for example, gender is identified as a social construct and it is simply assigned at birth. You may have thought there were some pretty good reasons for concluding you were either male or female. Again, you were wrong. It’s just something doctors do, and they’re wrong all the time.
Dakota Wood, a Marine Corps veteran who specializes in defense issues at the Heritage Foundation has stated the obvious in regard to all the underlying ideology involved with the DOD’s new woke gender fluidity training materials. Speaking about Army training materials in particular he had this to say.
"A telling phrase in the presentation—'assigned (male or female) at birth'—reveals that whoever developed the presentation material, and the policy being implemented, accepts the argument that gender is an artificial construct rather than a biological reality. This is a highly controversial argument promoted by the progressive left and rejected by the conservative right."
"There are a great many people in the military, arguably the vast majority, who do not agree with this manufactured construct, Forcing soldiers "to accept the premise—that one can choose their gender and therefore change how they are to be treated—creates frictions within organizations that are dependent on unity and cohesion to be successful in combat."
All of this would probably be amusing were it not so serious. We continue to claim we have the most powerful military on the planet. On what evidence do we base that claim? The job of the men and women in the U.S. military is to kill people and break things. We hope never to have to call on them. When we do, though, we pray they are very, very good at those jobs.
Nothing that is being done at DOD in regard to diversity and inclusion right now is enhancing lethality or improving our chances of coming out on top when Chinese hypersonic cruise missiles start impacting on Guam or the Iranians sink a U.S. destroyer in the Persian Gulf. When that happens we won’t care about who used what pronoun in what report or making sure Jim can find a female uniform that fits him.
All we will want to know is - can they fight? They still do that at the Pentagon right?
Send the its to fight first. That will eliminate part of the problem.
Absurd morons. I hate to sound like I have an issue with race (which I don't) but Austin, a black man, has been promoted to this high office and yet he will be remembered for gender neutral pronouns. Not a thing to be proud of. Colin Powell also was a huge disappointment, stabbing in the back those who promoted him to align with Oblamo simply because he's a black man. Really makes you wonder who really is the racist.