When military leadership loses the respect of the troops….
What happens when military personnel get tired of being treated like doormats?
Article by Thomas Lifson in The American Thinker
When military leadership loses the respect of the troops….
We are in a serious crisis, one that the corporate media are loath to even hint at. The reason is obvious: responsibility lies in the hands of President Biden and his leadership team. Professor Glenn Reynolds, aka, the Instapundit, is unafraid to face the reality, and writes about in the New York Post:
Our military’s civilian leadership is corrupt and incompetent. The brass commands respect neither among the citizenry nor the forces it commands. Mid-level officers are in a rage — a dangerous phenomenon that in many other nations triggers insurrections and coups. (snip)
Meanwhile, the officers who actually do things are furious. A series of encrypted messages leaked to the media shows officers on the ground in Kabul blasting their orders, complaining that they were being forced to leave Americans behind. “We are f–king abandoning American citizens,” wrote a colonel with the 82d Airborne detachment there. Regular troops were reportedly apoplectic that they weren’t allowed to go rescue US citizens, as British and French forces did.
As this debacle unfolds, the field- and company-grade officers — captains through colonels — are complaining about a double standard in military management: If they screw up even a little, their careers are over. But when the generals screw up, there are no consequences, even when lives or billions of dollars are wasted; then they retire to fat contractor paychecks.
Marine Lt. Col. Stuart Scheller resigned his commission after Kabul to demand accountability from his superiors. He couldn’t stay, he said, because he had lost trust and confidence in them. His words have been echoed, publicly and in private, by many others of similar rank. (I received an e-mail from a serving general making the same points.)
This is against the background of endless loose talk by our high political leaders about “coups,” “insurrections” and “sedition.” The laughable Capitol “riot” certainly didn’t rise to that level, but in a show of insecurity, the Capitol was ringed by 25,000 troops, several times as many as were sent to rescue Americans from Kabul. Banana republic stuff.
Professor Reynolds points out the reasons a military coup is unlikely.
With so much of our government, and even our domestic military force, divided up among the states, a coup is much harder to pull off. And with our institutions, weakened as they are, still comparatively strong, we aren’t likely to see a “Seven Days in May” scenario in the near future.
I’d add the sworn oath to the Constitution that all military members take, even if their high command is less trustworthy.
But what worries me as a crisis is the weakened military response capability when the top brass have lost the confidence of the troops. The same disarray and incompetence that alienates the ranks is highly visible to China, Iran, North Korea, and assorted bad guys around the world. What if an adept crisis response is needed and the brass are incapable of responding coherently? What if they give suicidal orders that make no sense?
Our military and diplomatic weakness only 8 months into the Biden administration is highly provocative. We can expect responses from those who see opportunity. An incapable military and political leadership not respected by the troops is a recipe for disaster.
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