Western Militaries Speak Out
Western militaries tend to be apolitical. While the soldiers and officers may have political opinions, they tend to hold them back and focus on their job of protecting the nation’s interests. Commanders are told to focus on the task at hand and not the political beliefs of their subordinates.
Not anymore. In the past few weeks, officers, and soldiers of two major NATO nations have spoken out about the political trends in their nations. And, undoubtedly, there are several other Western nations who have retired officers that have serious concerns about the direction of their nations.
The first was an open letter by 20 retired French generals that warned of a civilian insurrection – fueled by claims of French President Macron’s concessions to fundamentalist Islam. Polls taken since then showed that the French public agrees with the generals.
The next letter was published a week ago by the French publication Valeurs Actuelles by an anonymous group of soldiers serving in the army. They noted that they have fought fundamentalist Islam in Afghanistan and the Central African Republic, only to see Macron caving into radicals at home.
The letter endorsed the previous letter and criticized the president for disrespecting the officers. However, the letter did note that the military will maintain order should civil war break out.
This is a dramatic course for a military that has stayed out of politics for 60 years – since the Algerian Civil War.
Now the US military has taken a similar turn – not only protesting national politics, but the politicization of the US military.
Just over a week ago, an open letter by from 124 retired generals and admirals complained about a political “hard left” turn in national politics and forced politicization of the US military.
The group called Flag Officers 4 America accused the Biden Administration of “Using the US military as political pawns…forcing politically correct policies like the divisive critical race theory into the military.”
“Under a Democratic Congress and the Current Administration, our Country has taken a hard left turn toward Socialism and a Marxist form of tyrannical government that must be countered.”
The retired officers also questioned Biden’s “mental and physical condition” as Commander in chief. “The mental and physical condition of the Commander in Chief cannot be ignored. He must be able to quickly make accurate national security decisions involving life and limb anywhere, day or night.”
The letter also questioned the validity of the election. It stated, “Without fair and honest elections that accurately reflect the ‘will of the people’ our Constitutional Republic is lost…Election integrity demands insuring there is one legal vote cast and counted per citizen…Today, many are calling such commonsense controls ‘racist’ to avoid fair and honest elections.
Amongst those signing was Lt. General Boykin, who was Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence during the George W. Bush administration and Vice Admiral Poindexter, who was Deputy National Security Advisor under President Reagan.
Although critics denounced the retired flag officers criticizing the president, these same critics approved of retired flag officers denouncing Trump – for instance, in 2017, 55 retired flag officers saying Trump was unfit to be president.
The criticism that the US military has become politicized was highlighted this week when Lt. Colonel Matthew Lohmeier of the US Space Command was relieved of his command of the 11th Space Warning Squadron. He was removed for writing the book Irresistible Revolution: Marxism’s Goal of the Conquest & the Unmaking of the American Military, that claimed that the US military was promoting Marxist ideologies. He noted that the Secretary of Defense said that extremist ideologies must be rooted out of the military. Lohmeier maintained that Marxism is an extreme ideology.
Lohmeier maintained that the spread of Marxism in the military was not a new trend, but something that occurred over many years. In 2017 it was revealed that a West Point cadet, now a commissioned officer in the Army was an avowed Communist. He showed pictures taken during his commissioning with him wearing a t-shirt with the picture of Communist Revolutionary Che Guevara. In the inside of his cap, it said, “Communism will win.”
The officer, Spensor Rapone, was discharged with a less than honorable discharge. However, others asked how a communist could make it through a 4-year course without anyone of his fellow cadets or members of the faculty noticing. Further investigation uncovered the fact that several members of the facility were Marxists and many of the cadets, who would become the leaders of the US Army, also had Marxist beliefs.
There are several instances that the military academies are encouraging principles of Marxism like systemic racism that is used to divide and create the dialectic that communists use to create revolution. In June 2020, recent graduates of West Point (and now commissioned officers in the US Army) decried West Point’s many failures specifically in regard to systemic racism. They demanded that the military academy “normalize anti-racism” and “racial inclusion.” That would have institutionalized a witch hunt against anyone of a different skin color or political ideology.
The political desires in this West Point document mirrored those of the Port Huron Statement that led to the formation of the Socialist Student for a Democratic Society (SDS) in the 1960s. The president of SDS, Carl Oglesby later publicly proclaimed that the organization’s intention was to destroy capitalism and “trying to launch” a communist civil war.
This radicalism is not limited to West Point. The US Air Force Academy football team came out with a statement that it wasn’t enough to be not racist. “It’s time to be anti-racist.” In other words, any politics that were not “anti-racist” enough were to be condemned. The team also endorsed the Black Lives Matter organization, which has been involved in numerous protests in recent years.
At the US Naval Academy, a midshipman was expelled this year for expressing pro-police and anti-riot views – an unsurprising stand since both of his parents were police officers. His discharge was delayed until Biden was in office so the midshipman couldn’t be pardoned by Trump.
Some conservative analysts claims that this Marxist ideology has hit more than the military academies. Soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines are leaving the military in large numbers because they oppose the new political ideology being thrust on them. Even veterans, who have been responsible for encouraging young people to join the military, are telling potential recruits to avoid the current politicized military. The result is that enlistment and reenlistment rates are down, and the US military finds itself unable to meet its manpower needs.
They believe also that the result is that the world’s most powerful military is undergoing a transformation that will weaken it. Only third world nations cull military members that support the opposition candidate. And the result is a substandard military that is only useful for suppressing domestic opposition.
In Lt. Colonel Matthew Lohmeier’s book Irresistible Revolution, he notes Americans are becoming radicalized and shifting to either the extreme left or right. In many cases, it is respected flag officers that are causing the extremism. General Stanley McChrystal, who headed operations in Afghanistan, compared Trump voters with al Qaeda in Iraq.
These are not words that will smooth the political waters or encourage national unity, since more than 75 million American voted for Trump.
So, what is in the future? In their letter, the French soldiers note that the military will maintain order should civil war break out. However, the American military, as it is currently being politicized, will not do the same. They are more likely to pick their side based on political considerations, not the Constitution which every soldier swears an oath to support and defend.
