Fresh off his tense exchange with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Tuesday, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) reiterated his stance against the expansion of so-called “wokeism” within the U.S. military under the supervision of the Biden administration.
During an appearance on Mobile, AL radio FM Talk 106.5, Gaetz said if the Biden administration was asking for $773 billion in his budget proposal for military spending, a focus needed to be placed on achieving military goals over being a “social justice change agent.”
“It did get a little tense yesterday, but we’ve got tough questions we’ve got to ask this Defense Department,” he said. “I mean, they want us to send them $773 billion of taxpayer funds, and so long as that’s going to kill our enemies, break their stuff and keep the country safe, I’m all for it. What I’m not for is continuing to sacrifice our capabilities on the altar of wokeism. And it seems like we’re doing less and less of what matters on hypersonics, on capabilities. And we’re doing mandatory pronoun training, and we’re doing socialism lectures at the National Defense University and even defending Critical Race Theory at West Point, of all places. And I’m trying to do my best here in the Congress to try to orient the policy at the Department of Defense more around the actual defense of our country, not as a social justice change agent.”
The Florida Republican lawmaker pointed to the “blown calls” under President Joe Biden, including those regarding Ukraine and Afghanistan.
“I call them the blown calls,” he continued. “You look at Ukraine. General Milley told us that Ukraine would not last longer than 36 days, that Russia would overrun the capital in a period of six to 36 days. And that advice and counsel shaped how a lot of members of Congress were thinking about this conflict. Of course, it had to shape how the White House and the President were thinking about it — if they do much thinking at all over there. And then you’ve got the Taliban, which General Milley himself told us would not be capable of overrunning the Ghani government for months, that it was possible the Taliban would take the country but that it would be months at the earliest. Could be years. but the reality was that miscalculation, that blown call, resulted in the loss of life of 13 uniformed Americans and servicemembers — something we all deeply mourn and deeply regret, frankly, because that was a needless loss of life and it happened because of bad advice and bad strategy.”
“So you think, ‘OK, what do you have to do to get better at that? No one is perfect. No one calls everything directly on point,'” Gaetz added. “And you think of these almost-like Department of Defense-sponsored think tanks like the National Defense University. And that’s why I was so angry. They’re shifting away from strategic military learning. They’re shifting away from technical capabilities and analysis. And they’re moving toward this embrace of what they call egalitarian socialism.”
Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor
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