Let me start with what happened to one of our best military men.
Lt. Col. Matthew Dooley was an instructor at the Joint Forces Staff College at the National Defense University. The course he taught, Perspectives on Islam and Islamic Radicalism, was a very popular elective, mostly because of Dooley’s teaching style. He was provocative and encouraged high-energy debate in his class. A West Point graduate and a highly decorated combat veteran, he brought his hard-earned, firsthand knowledge into his classroom. He received glowing reviews from his students and exemplary evaluations from school administrators.
Then, in September 2011, coinciding with the tenth anniversary of the worst terrorist attack ever to befall our country, Wired magazine published an unflattering and incendiary article about the treatment of Islam in antiterrorism courses taught by the FBI at Quantico. The fallout from the article prompted fifty-seven Islamic organizations to send a letter of outrage to the Department of Defense. The DoD ordered a review of the screening process of all antiterrorism instructors under its control, including Dooley. That April, Wired published a follow-up story that told of the suspension of Dooley’s class.
It didn’t stop there. Dooley was publicly criticized by the highest-ranking military officer in the U.S. Armed Forces, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey, who described the course material Dooley had developed as “totally objectionable.” After Dempsey’s criticism, Dooley received a career-ending Officer Evaluation Report.4
What had Dooley done to deserve all this? As I see it, he prepared our officers and civilian defense workers to confront the most dangerous aspects of radical Islamic jihad. His sin was that he tried to keep us safe.
Dooley’s dismissal is one of many similar cases. They indicate that the military is engaging in what I find to be the dangerously subversive tactic of leveling serious charges at dozens of top military commanders. The targets of what I see as a wholesale purge are experienced, patriotic, high-ranking officers. They are being forced to resign or retire, or they are having their careers red-flagged.
Since 2009, more than two hundred U.S. military officers at the rank of colonel or higher have been removed from their commands. That’s a rate of nearly one a week.5
One of those superior officers is Gen. James Mattis, the former head of the United States Central Command (CENTCOM). In January 2013, Mattis was dismissed for being too much of a hawk, especially when it came to the administration’s lenient policy toward Iran. Unlike others in the administration, Mattis understood how dangerous a nuclear-armed Iran would be to our allies and to U.S. interests in the Middle East, and he wasn’t afraid to speak out about it.6
Mattis—who once famously said, “There are some assholes in the world who just need to be shot”7—was known among his peers as someone who could defend the military in its ongoing dialogue with government functionaries. Both soldiers and civilians respected him, and he wasn’t about to kowtow to anyone. He was exactly the type of commander our president both shrinks from and does all he can to remove.
The general received a note from one of his aides telling him he was being replaced as the head of Central Command. No one from the Pentagon or the White House was gracious enough to inform him about this.8
Two of our top nuclear commanders, Maj. Gen. Michael Carey and Vice Adm. Tim Giardina, left the armed forces within days of each other—both because of personal misconduct, according to reports and e-mails leaked to the press. The official report on Carey’s dismissal says that while on temporary assignment in Moscow, Carey went on a vodka-drinking binge one night; he “needed assistance standing” at one point, and he had tried to get up onstage with a Beatles cover band in a Mexican restaurant… in Moscow!9
At the time, he was commander of the Twentieth Air Force, responsible for all 450 of the Air Force’s Minuteman 3 intercontinental ballistic missiles located in five U.S. states. Prior to that, General Carey served in both the Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom operations. He is also the recipient of no fewer than thirteen major military awards and decorations.
Carey is an American hero, and yet he was “relieved of duty” for drinking vodka in Russia?
Was it not possible for the Air Force to provide an officer with Carey’s credentials rehabilitation for the alleged alcohol problems instead of firing him?
Charges against Vice Admiral Giardina were no less fantastic. Giardina is graduate of the United States Naval Academy, a three-star admiral who is now the former deputy commander and chief of staff of the Pacific Fleet. You’d think that if you were going to relieve someone of this stature of his command and reassign him to a desk job, you’d come up with serious charges related to the performance of his duty. But, in a move that had to be approved by the president himself, Giardina was demoted for playing poker with counterfeit $100 chips in the Horseshoe Casino in Council Bluffs, Iowa.10
In other words, both of these commanders, who have outstanding military records and who have risen to the tops of their commands, were dismissed on charges that in my opinion would likely have gotten an enlisted man no more than a slap on the wrist.
One commentator described it this way:
The move is exceedingly rare and perhaps unprecedented in the history of US Strategic Command, which is responsible for all US nuclear warfighting forces, including nuclear-armed submarines, bombers and land-based missiles.11
It is no secret that our nuclear capability is rivaled only by Russia; actually, Russia is a pretty clear second in the nuclear arms race. Our nukes make us a superpower. We have the ability to win any war at any time. Period. It would stand to reason, then, that if the aim is to emasculate our military, one of the first targets would be our nuclear weapons capabilities.
Are you beginning to see a pattern here?
In January 2014, the Air Force suspended 93 of the 180 or so nuclear launch officers who are stationed at the Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana. Malmstrom houses one-third of our ICBM force. The officers were suspended for allegedly cheating on their proficiency exams. News stories described the suspensions as the largest cheating scandal ever in the U.S. nuclear force. An investigation of allegations of illegal drug use led to the discovery of the possible cheating.
Those same stories, however, told of the low morale among the officers in Malmstrom. This particular command isn’t the most exciting in our armed forces. Yet we’re being told that nearly half of the officers there would risk their rank and military career to pass the proficiency test that certifies them for duty at Malmstrom. So we’re supposed to believe that they hate being at Malmstrom but they’d cheat on a test to stay there?
Don’t get me wrong: I don’t condone cheating. But it seems to me that in this instance, the cheating may have more to do with the military culture at the base than with the character of the men accused.
After an investigation was initiated, the scandal grew to include widespread drug use among the officers. Before it was finished, nine mid-level nuclear commanders had been fired, and dozens of junior officers were disciplined. Air Force officials described the punishment as unprecedented in the history of our intercontinental missile program.
Rather than attempt to identify and correct the conditions that brought about the alleged cheating and drug use, our military chose to take punitive action. By the time our military operatives in the Air Force are through at Malmstrom, there’ll be no one left manning the gates of hell.
The neutering of our missile defense didn’t stop there.
The proposed military budget cuts $128 million from the Tomahawk missile program for fiscal year 2015, and money to support the Tomahawk program is eliminated altogether for fiscal year 2016. In other words, the world’s most advanced cruise missile is being removed from our arsenal. The budget for another effective weapon, the Hellfire missile, has been eliminated entirely for 2015. We won’t need the missile base at Malmstrom at all once the administration gets finished eliminating our most effective military weapons.12
&
nbsp; The fact that these cuts of critical weapons came as a shock to legislators and military experts shows you that they don’t understand that this administration is out to neuter our military and our capability of defending ourselves against attack.
I’m only getting started telling you about what I see as the incalculable damage this administration is doing to our military.
Firing generals in wartime is a very rare occurrence, but that hasn’t prevented this administration from conducting a wholesale dismissal of our military commanders. The number of officers relieved of their command is extraordinary. During the eight years of the Bush administration, only once did the position of commander of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan change. Under the current administration, there have already been five.13
In 2009, Gen. David McKiernan, the Afghanistan commander of the ISAF, resigned. One source explained the reason for McKiernan’s resignation this way: “He [McKiernan] had demanded competency from an incompetent Democrat [Obama].”
Another source explained that he was “fired” because he was too “old school.”
In other words, he was a patriot who might well have stood in the way of the ongoing dismantling of the U.S. military.14
The officer who replaced McKiernan as ISAF commander didn’t last long in the job. Gen. Stanley McChrystal was not old school. He was young and had fresh ideas about how to conduct the war against a terrorist enemy. McChrystal’s mistake was making his contemptuous opinion of Barack Obama known in a Rolling Stone magazine article, “The Runaway General.”
McChrystal made the mistake of telling what he saw as the truth about Obama.
He explained that in their first face-to-face meeting the president didn’t even know who McChrystal was, let alone anything about the general’s war record.15 In the article, McChrystal also correctly described the administration’s chief national security advisor, James Jones, as “a clown.”16
It’s understandable that McChrystal had to be dismissed, but his dismissal raises a much deeper concern about the administration’s relationships with the country’s top military officers.
As the news about the president’s inability, even his unwillingness, to deal fairly with military commanders began to reach the public, the White House felt the need to respond. White House chief of staff Denis McDonough told the Washington Post that the president appreciated candid military advice “above all else.” In his public statement, McDonough explained that the president maintains “close, and in some instances warm, relationships with his military chiefs.” One general recently returned to the States after serving in Afghanistan had a different view, saying that the White House would rather the military be seen and not heard.17
The Benghazi Murders
Perhaps the most obvious example of how what I see as the decimation of our military is making us a pawn to the world’s leftist movement is the murders in Benghazi. I would be remiss if I didn’t explain how that night fits into what’s happening with our military.
Do you remember the general whom Obama appointed to replace McChrystal?
It was David Petraeus.
Petraeus lasted nearly two years before he resigned. By the time he left government service, Petraeus had graduated to the position of head of the CIA.
The alleged reason he resigned?
He had been involved in an extramarital affair.
The administration had known about Petraeus’s dalliance with the woman who wrote his biography since he was vetted to assume the position of CIA director. The administration had known about his affair for months before he resigned.
Two of America’s most experienced military commanders also lost their jobs in the wake of the Benghazi murders. Gen. Carter Ham and Rear Adm. Charles M. Gaouette were relieved of duty because they tried to intervene and prevent the loss of four Americans’ lives.
The first eyewitness to the Benghazi attack, a security guard who worked at the compound helping to protect American personnel, has made it clear that the State Department had known for a long time that an attack on the consulate in Libya was inevitable, yet few steps were taken to fortify the compound or to otherwise secure it.18
Here’s what former assistant secretary of defense Frank Gaffney believes happened on the night of September 11, 2012, based on the available evidence: The Obama administration appears to have been involved in a gunrunning operation that was being managed by Ambassador Christopher Stevens out of the Benghazi consulate. Stevens is alleged to have been coordinating the delivery of military weapons, including as many as twenty thousand Stinger missiles, to rebel fighters involved in the overthrow of Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi. After Gadhafi was ousted, Stevens was said to be further coordinating a massive transfer of weapons to rebels in several Middle Eastern areas, including Syria. Many, if not most, of the rebels were affiliated with al Qaeda.19
The Obama administration appears to have been supporting terrorism through providing weapons to the very Islamists the United States is supposedly fighting against in the war on terror. If this is true, the administration certainly feared that Stevens would make details of the gunrunning public.
Was that the reason why, when the attack on the Benghazi compound began, the decision was made not to send help?
Contrary to the Obama administration’s official story, Gen. Carter Ham, then the commanding officer of the U.S. Africa Command, was receiving live communications from various intelligence assets that provided real-time details of what was happening on the ground. In addition, there were dozens of CIA operatives on the ground in Benghazi who could have been used to rescue those in danger.20
Ham began organizing a Special Forces team to intervene in Benghazi immediately after he received news of the assault on the Benghazi ambassador’s compound.
Even though he received the order to stand down—likely from Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, who may have been receiving his orders from Valerie Jarrett21—Ham went ahead with his rapid response plan. In order to stop him, one source says that the administration had the commanding general apprehended. Ham was informed that he was relieved of his command, which stopped his attempt to save American lives.22
In making preparations to intervene, Ham had been communicating with Rear Admiral Gaouette, commander of Carrier Strike Group Three. Gaouette, who like Ham had received the desperate requests for help from Stevens and his team, was also preparing the assets under his command to intervene and save the lives of those under attack in Benghazi.23
I think that Gaouette was relieved of his command because he wouldn’t stand down and watch Americans die, as he may have been ordered to do.
Ham, the general in charge of military assets in North Africa and one of the men who could have saved the four lives that were lost in the Benghazi massacre, told a Republican congressman that he had not received any requests for military intervention in Benghazi.24
After an official investigation, Gaouette, too, was disciplined, ostensibly because he had been accused of using profanity in a public setting and making at least two racially insensitive comments, officials familiar with the investigation said.25
No mention was made of Benghazi.
Is it possible that Obama may have recognized that these two decorated military officers were patriots who put duty to their country first? Might he have thought that their refusal to deny help to Americans in Benghazi would have denied the administration the ability to cover up the fact that it was supplying weapons to “rebels” who were often fighting on the side of al Qaeda? Might the president have been thinking that patriots like Gaouette and Ham would stand in the way of his power grab if it became necessary?
There were other casualties on the night of the Benghazi attack.
David Ubben, a diplomatic security agent, was in Benghazi on the night of the terrorist assault. Ubben acted heroically on that night.
Early in the evening he went back into the burning Benghazi consulate several times in an effort to res
cue Sean Smith, one of the four killed. When he finally found him, Smith was already dead from smoke inhalation. Smith had also reentered the consulate several more times in an effort to locate Ambassador Stevens, but he was unsuccessful.
As the attack progressed, Ubben joined Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty on the roof of the CIA annex as they tried to defend the building against dozens of terrorists who were attacking it.
The mortar that killed Woods and Doherty also shattered Ubben’s leg.
Fox News reported the incident this way:
David Ubben waited for twenty hours after he was hit on that rooftop with Tyrone Woods and Glenn Doherty. His leg was shredded. We know that he had been recovering for ten months afterward at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. He was defending the U.S. consulate, and yet no medical assets were sent to the scene to help him. How could this be?26
What wasn’t reported at the time was what the commander in chief of the United States Armed Forces was doing.
First, the president was getting a good night’s sleep as the attack raged on.
When he woke up on the morning of September 12, 2012, he flew to Las Vegas to make a campaign appearance—although the attack was still not resolved.27
In the wake of the Benghazi murders, Rep. Frank Wolf accused the administration of operating a gunrunning operation that sent weapons captured in Libya to Syrian rebels. In the wake of these accusations, the military has been ordered to conduct polygraph tests as often as once a month on dozens of people who have knowledge of what happened on the night of the Benghazi murders. The polygraph tests are almost certainly done to determine if those people have told others what really happened. It’s very likely that this is the administration’s way of intimidating anyone who’s tempted to speak out against the decisions made at the top of the administration.28
A year and a half later, the House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations released a report that said, “White House officials failed to comprehend or ignored the dramatically deteriorating security situation in Libya.” The White House statements to the contrary were exaggerations. Despite warnings from embassy and other personnel close to the situation, Hillary Clinton’s State Department was recommending that security personnel be reduced leading up to the Benghazi murders.
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