Nothing says “return to normalcy” like calling all your opponents seditionists and conducting loyalty evaluations in the military
Questioning the military’s loyalty: Who in uniform qualifies as ‘extremist’?
The U.S. National Guard – and by extension, the military generally – may be dangerous based on race, gender, and the possibility members didn’t vote for Joe Biden for president.
So said U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen, D-TN, on Jan. 18, in an interview with CNN.
Cohen’s “analysis” was consistent with the congressman’s history of controversial statements and attention-seeking acts. In this latest case, Cohen questioned the loyalty of many of some 600,000 U.S. Army National Guard and Air Guard members nationally, nearly 12,000 of whom are in Tennessee.
Regardless of how someone may wish to slice, dice, or parse Cohen’s comments, he said what he said. The broader issue is that his comments are reflective of thinking in the Biden defense department that has led to a one-day ordered “stand-down” during the next 60 days for units to begin to address extremism in a way the military can’t yet even describe.
To protect the inauguration of President Joe Biden, about 26,000 National Guard troops were in Washington D.C. on or about Jan. 20, Inauguration Day. In advance of the event, Cohen on CNN expressed his concerns about the dangers posed by the race, gender, and politics of many Guard members.
Cohen said, “The National Guard is 90 some-odd percent male, and only about 20 percent of white males voted for Biden. You’ve got to figure that in the Guard, which is predominantly more conservative … they’re probably not more than 25 percent of the people there protecting us that voted for Biden. The other 75 percent are in the large class of folks that might want to do something.”
When CNN host Jim Sciutto asked Cohen if he could substantiate his statement, Cohen said, “Actually not, Jim. But you draw a circle of people who work for Trump and not for Biden as far as people who would be within the zone of folks who you would be suspect of. The suspect group is large.”
As many in the media often wrote off Trump, Cohen “baselessly” and “without evidence,” questioned the honor, integrity, and loyalty of every white and male member of the National Guard and the U.S. military as a whole.
George Korda hosting his “State Your Case’ radio talk show. (Jack Lail / News Sentinel)
Next thing you know, the Army will be accused of being infected with card-carrying communists. (Everyone should know what that means if they have a knowledge of history and recognize the name “McCarthy.” If not, by all means, look it up.)
After being criticized for his comments, Cohen, as politicians so often do, walked it back by issuing a statement the next day praising the Guard and law enforcement. Where was he the day before?
The catalyst for all this is the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol Hill riot in Washington D.C. The Pentagon has said, without giving numbers, that active-duty service members and veterans – not presently in the military – were among those who illegally entered the Capitol. If so, they should be identified and, if on active duty, dealt with according to the Uniform Code of Military Justice, and if a veteran, by applicable laws.
If Cohen had said the same thing questioning the loyalty of any minority group, not only would he still be apologizing, but by now he’d have been hanged, drawn and quartered, figuratively speaking, for such statements. If President Donald Trump’s secretary of defense had announced after taking office a program to deal with perceived military extremism, the screaming would have been so loud we’d still be hearing the echoes.
In real-life, Lloyd J. Austin, the Biden administration’s secretary of defense, issued the “stand-down” order to the American military. Describing the reasons for the stand-down, the Defense.gov website said, “There is much that needs to be hammered out including the details of the training that will go along with the stand down and what the secretary and all in the military want to accomplish … There are questions that need to be answered, like what constitutes extremist activity? What is permissible in looking for extremists in the ranks?”
The hammer hitting the nails are the latter two questions: What constitutes such activity, and how far can military authorities go to root it out? In the secretary of defense’s Feb. 5, 2021, memorandum announcing the “stand-down,” he wrote, “We will not tolerate actions that go against the fundamental principles of the oath we share, including actions associated with extremist or dissident ideologies.”
What constitutes an extremist or dissident ideology, and who decides? One person’s extremist ideology is anything associated with former President Donald Trump. Another’s extremist ideology is anything connected to Black Lives Matter. Is one now an “extremist” if they believe transgender males shouldn’t compete against females? If they have a Confederate flag license plate, what is the objective determinant for what constitutes being a member of an extremist group or dissident ideology?
What about a pro-Hamas or anti-Jewish tweet from a Muslim military member, or, for that matter, someone who just doesn’t like Jews? What Black organizations will potentially qualify as extremist, or is the hunt focused on whites?
I served nearly six years on U.S. Army active duty. I met in the service plenty of dissidents who didn’t like government policy, were intensely opposed to the political ideologies of fellow service members, and who viewed race issues in ways with which others didn’t agree. However, we had one thing in common: We’d taken an oath to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States and to obey the orders of the officers appointed over us. Black or white. Male or female. U.S.-born or naturalized.
It’s the same oath today’s military members take.
Cohen’s words, and the “stand-down” order, are taking the U.S. military down a new road concerning who can be trusted, and what constitutes correct thinking. And it’s being done either with no evidence other than the type of prejudice expressed by Cohen, or the defense department’s order that in effect says we’re-not-sure-what-we’re-after-but-we’re-going-to-do-something-anyway.
Someone should have thought this through before opening his mouth, or putting the stand-down order in the acceleration lane.