Rep. <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/ive-been-shot-at-combat-veteran-blows-up-msnbc-guests-claim-that-florida-is-a-terrorist-state" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Mike Waltz</a> (R-FL) unloaded Thursday on outgoing Joint Chiefs Chairman <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/incidents-happen-gen-milley-wont-consider-russia-dropping-u-s-drone-an-act-of-war" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Mark Milley</a>, panning a &#8220;puff piece&#8221; published by The Atlantic and adding, &#8220;His retirement couldn&#8217;t come soon enough.&#8221;
Waltz, a retired Colonel in the Army National Guard and veteran Green Beret, aired his grievances with Milley — who is set to retire at the end of the month — in a lengthy and detailed thread posted to X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.
&#8220;Just read the Atlantic puff piece on Mark Milley&#8217;s exit interview polishing his legacy with the DC media while criticizing elected officials in uniform. His retirement couldn&#8217;t come soon enough,&#8221; Waltz said.
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Just read the Atlantic puff piece on Mark Milley&#39;s exit interview polishing his legacy with the DC media while criticizing elected officials in uniform. 
His retirement couldn&#39;t come soon enough.
&mdash; Rep. Mike Waltz (@michaelgwaltz) <a href="https://twitter.com/michaelgwaltz/status/1704976921824473266?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 21, 2023</a></blockquote>
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The decorated combat veteran began by listing several ways he believed the U.S. military had strayed from its core values and mission under Milley&#8217;s leadership, saying, &#8220;Under Milley, our military has become politicized and trust in the military is in free fall. His &#8216;<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/read-less-about-white-rage-more-about-not-losing-wars-hillbilly-elegy-author-rips-top-u-s-general" target="_blank" rel="noopener">White Rage</a>&#8216; outburst — in uniform — was an enormous disservice to our troops as he defended CRT indoctrination, a Marxist theory, before Congress.&#8221;
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We have overwhelming evidence of indoctrination taking place within our ranks and at our military academies. 
Insane DEI programs are being forced on our troops that is infecting the merit based system.
&mdash; Rep. Mike Waltz (@michaelgwaltz) <a href="https://twitter.com/michaelgwaltz/status/1704977377342726146?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 21, 2023</a></blockquote>
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&#8220;We have overwhelming evidence of indoctrination taking place within our ranks and at our military academies. Insane DEI programs are being forced on our troops that is infecting the merit based system,&#8221; Waltz continued.
He concluded with the ways he believed Milley — in coordination with President Joe Biden and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin — had allowed for a number of failures in national security.
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&#8220;He’s also stood alongside Joe Biden and Lloyd Austin as our national security has become weaker: Worst military debacle since <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/biden-administration-this-is-not-saigon-cnn-its-worse-than-saigon" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Saigon</a>; <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/pentagon-frantically-worked-to-finalize-climate-plan-during-botched-afghanistan-withdrawal-emails-show" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Afghanistan withdrawal</a>; Worst military <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/more-pronouns-less-recruits-u-s-military-facing-unprecedented-recruiting-crisis-under-biden" target="_blank" rel="noopener">recruitment crisis</a> since Vietnam; Chinese <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/new-information-revealed-about-chinese-spy-balloon-that-crossed-u-s-report" target="_blank" rel="noopener">spy balloon</a> drifting across America; Failure to deter <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/bill-maher-torches-biden-why-did-putin-not-invade-ukraine-when-trump-was-in-office" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Russian invasion</a> of Ukraine.&#8221;
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&mdash; Rep. Mike Waltz (@michaelgwaltz) <a href="https://twitter.com/michaelgwaltz/status/1704980532155580476?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 21, 2023</a></blockquote>
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Key Speakers At Republican Jewish Coalition Annual Leadership Meeting

Congressman And Green Beret Explodes On Mark Milley: ‘His Retirement Couldn’t Come Soon Enough’

Congressman And Green Beret Explodes On Mark Milley: 'His Retirement Couldn't Come Soon Enough'

Afghanistan

Mark Milley

Military

Politics

Woke Culture

General Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, insisted that he was not sure what the word “woke” means.
Milley spoke on Sunday with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria, who <a href="https://transcripts.cnn.com/show/fzgps/date/2023-09-17/segment/01" target="_blank" rel="noopener">stated</a>, “You talk about how the military is not woke. How the military officers should be reading Karl Marx,” then asked, “Is the U.S. military too woke?”
“No, not at all,” Milley initially responded, then continued, “You know, I&#8217;m not even sure what that word truly means.”
“But I would tell you that the military I see is a military that is exceptionally strong, it&#8217;s powerful, it&#8217;s ready,” Milley declared. “In fact, our readiness rate is — the way we measure readiness is better now than they&#8217;ve been in years.”
“This military is a lot of things, but woke it is not,” Milley claimed. “So, I take exception to that. I think that people say those things for reasons that are their own reasons. But it&#8217;s not true. It&#8217;s not accurate. And it is not to say, by the way, that there is — there is not some things out there that are — could be fit into that category. But I don&#8217;t think it certainly is — it is not a broad-brush description of the U.S. military as it exists today.”
In June 2021, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/highest-ranking-u-s-military-official-defends-teaching-crt" target="_blank" rel="noopener">testifying</a> before the House Armed Services Committee on President Biden’s 2022 budget request, Milley defended the reading of Critical Race Theory (CRT) texts by the United States military, asserting, “I&#8217;ve read Mao Tse-Tung; I&#8217;ve read Karl Marx; I&#8217;ve read Lenin. That doesn&#8217;t make me a communist.” Milley claimed he “personally” found it “offensive that we are accusing the United States military, our general officers, our commissioned, non-commissioned officers, of being &#8216;woke&#8217; because we&#8217;re studying some theories that are out there.”
Regarding “white rage,” Milley said, “But I do think it&#8217;s important actually for those of us in uniform to be open-minded and be widely read and the United States Military Academy is a university and it is important that we train and we understand, and I want to understand white rage and I&#8217;m white.”
The New York Post <a href="https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/09/United-States-Air-Force-Academy-42.jpg" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a> in September 2022 that Air Force cadets had been instructed not to use gender-specific terms like “Mom” or “Dad” and <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/bidens-military-forget-mom-dad-use-woke-substitutes-instead-air-force-cadets-told" target="_blank" rel="noopener">replace</a> such terms with words such as “parent” or “caregiver.” That instruction was featured at the Air Force Academy in Colorado as part of cadets’ “Diversity and inclusion (D&amp;I) training.” “Our leaders have deemed D&amp;I a warfighting imperative,” the cadets were told.
In July 2021, Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) started by saying to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, “Mr. Secretary, I have received, along with Congressman Crenshaw, several hundred whistleblower complaints about Pentagon extremist and diversity training. I just want to share a small selection of what your troops are saying.”
He followed by citing reports of a military history training session being replaced with mandatory training on police brutality, white privilege, and systemic racism; instructions to a member of Special Operations that “The U.S. Special Operations community is racist”; a general officer telling an Army officer that “the entire U.S. Army is racist”; a midshipman at the Naval Academy attesting that classmates were calling America a “fundamentally racist place” and were not challenged by school administrators; an airman saying their unit was forced into a racist exercise called a “privilege walk”; a Space Force officer saying an African-American servicemember said after the training that she would never have joined the military had she known that it was such a hotbed of racism; and a white airman who said he didn’t sign up to be indoctrinated, then filed separation paperwork. 
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Gen. Mark Milley

Joint Chiefs Of Staff Chairman Milley Protests: I’m Not Sure What Woke Means

Wokeness

Gen. <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/mark-milley">Mark Milley</a>, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said he did not receive any &#8220;illegal&#8221; orders after the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/2020-election">2020 election</a>.
Martha Raddatz, anchor of ABC&#8217;s &#8220;This Week,&#8221; noted that <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2021/07/15/joint-chiefs-staff-planned-stop-trump-coup-over-election-claims/7975643002/">reports</a> &#8220;abounded&#8221; saying that Milley worried former President <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/donald-trump">Donald Trump</a> might try to use the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/military">military</a> to stay in power.
&#8220;Were you concerned at any time that you might receive an illegal order after Election Day?&#8221; she asked the general <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYFr5JgVvhc">in an interview that aired on Sunday</a>.
&#8220;I never did receive an illegal order,&#8221; Milley responded. Pressed again if he was at least concerned about it, the top military official added, &#8220;No, you know, I argued the case at various times for alternative courses of action. Never received an illegal order.&#8221;
Reports about Milley and other military officials fearing that Trump might attempt a coup date back more than two years.
At the time, Trump fired back with a statement that said, &#8220;If I was going to do a coup, one of the last people I would want to do it with is General Mark Milley.&#8221; <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/07/15/mark-milley-feared-coup-after-trump-lost-to-biden-book.html">He also said</a>, &#8220;I&#8217;m not into coups!&#8221;
Trump is now <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/latest-2024-presidential-polling-trump-rises-above-biden-again">running a 2024 campaign</a> seeking another term in the White House, possibly leading to a 2020 rematch against President <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/joe-biden">Joe Biden</a>. Trump is doing so while facing indictments in four criminal cases, including two focused on alleged efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
The former president has denied any wrongdoing, pleaded not guilty to the charges he faces, and claims that politically motivated prosecutors are conducting a “witch hunt” against him.
Milley, who is set to retire in the coming weeks as his <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/joint-chiefs-nominee-knocks-tubervilles-hold-on-military-promotions">term as chairman</a> of the Joint Chiefs of Staff comes to an end, also said in his interview with ABC that he is not concerned about the prospect of another January 6.
&#8220;No, I&#8217;m not nervous about it,&#8221; Milley said, adding later, &#8220;I don&#8217;t get nervous about a lot of things. I&#8217;ve seen a lot of combat. So I&#8217;m beyond that actually.&#8221;
Pressed on his level of confidence, Milley added, &#8220;I am confident that the United States and the democracy in this country will prevail and the rule of law will prevail. I&#8217;m absolutely confident of that. And these institutions are built to be strong, resilient, and to adapt to the times, and I&#8217;m 100 percent confident we&#8217;ll be fine.&#8221;

General Mark Milley

Milley Says He Never Received ‘Illegal’ Order From Trump After 2020 Election

Milley Says He Never Received 'Illegal' Order From Trump After 2020 Election

2020 Election

Donald Trump

U.S.

A number of Gold Star family members laid into President Joe Biden and members of his administration, calling them out over the disastrous exit from Afghanistan that took the lives of their loved ones.
At an event in Escondido, California — hosted by Mayor Dane White and Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) — relatives of the thirteen service members killed by the suicide bomber at the Kabul airport on August 26, 2021, joined together to speak publicly about their experiences.
Issa introduced the event, billed as the Afghanistan Gold Star Families Public Forum, saying that while they had officially allotted five minutes for each family member who wanted to speak, no one was going to enforce time limits as long as the families had something to share.
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RIGHT NOW: I am in Escondido where Mayor <a href="https://twitter.com/Dwhite1904?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@Dwhite1904</a> is hosting <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/C48?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#C48</a>’s <a href="https://twitter.com/repdarrellissa?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@repdarrellissa</a> for an Afghanistan Gold Star Families Public Forum, where family members of those killed during Biden’s chaotic withdrawal are speaking jointly for the first time
(1/xx) <a href="https://t.co/jbRpV73IPG">pic.twitter.com/jbRpV73IPG</a>
&mdash; Matthew Foldi (@MatthewFoldi) <a href="https://twitter.com/MatthewFoldi/status/1688597811062087680?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 7, 2023</a></blockquote>
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Issa also made it clear that the ultimate goal was to make sure that such a tragedy never happened again: &#8220;Did they have to die? Could we have done something different? &#8230; I only apologize that we didn’t do it sooner.&#8221;
Then the family members began to speak, and they had little if anything positive to say about Biden and the military leaders who had been a part of the decision-making process during the troop drawdown and withdrawal — and most were absolutely furious that the administration had then insisted the withdrawal had been a &#8220;success.&#8221;
SSG Taylor Hoover&#8217;s mother was among those who spoke, and she said that the blame for her son&#8217;s death rested on Biden, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Mark Milley, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and others. &#8220;Incompetent, cowards, evil,&#8221; she said.
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Taylor’s concern was immediately apparent when he got to Afghanistan, Kelly says. He warned her of:
“Chaos, lack of communication, no leadership.” “Command cares nothing for us.”
“What kind of disrespect, what kind of hatred for our military, what kind of mess” would have made…
&mdash; Matthew Foldi (@MatthewFoldi) <a href="https://twitter.com/MatthewFoldi/status/1688604531519795206?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 7, 2023</a></blockquote>
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Hoover&#8217;s father spoke as well, saying that the Biden administration &#8220;did not uphold their end of that contract.&#8221;
&#8220;This didn’t need to happen in the manner that it did,&#8221; he added, saying that leadership had &#8220;made a conscious decision that made a chaotic and frantic withdrawal from Afghanistan.&#8221;
He went on to call out those leaders, saying that it was &#8220;nothing short of disgusting and ignorant&#8221; that they had turned around and claimed that the withdrawal had been a success. &#8220;I’m calling out Secretary Blinken, Secretary Austin, General Milley &#8230; and ultimately, the president, and do what our son did: and be a grown ass man &#8230; You all need to resign immediately. Our sons and daughters have more integrity in their little toes than all of them combined.&#8221;
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“I’m calling out Secretary Blinken, Secretary Austin, General Milley,” Whited (who did not give the call to take out the bomber), and “ultimately, the president, and do what our son did: and be a grown ass man.”
“You all need to resign immediately. Our sons and daughters have…
&mdash; Matthew Foldi (@MatthewFoldi) <a href="https://twitter.com/MatthewFoldi/status/1688609003725799424?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 7, 2023</a></blockquote>
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Nicole Gee&#8217;s mother said she knew no forum would ever bring her daughter back, but her goal in speaking was to make sure that the service members who came afterward would be treated with the respect earned by the 13 who lost their lives that day in Kabul.
&#8220;When our leaders, include the secretary of defense and our commander in chief, called this a ‘success,’… it’s like a knife in the heart,&#8221; she said. &#8220;These deaths were preventable. My daughter could be with us today. To call it a success is the ultimate disrespect. There were 13 avoidable deaths &#8230; This was not a success. What we’re asking for it to stop the insanity and make it better for the next group.&#8221;
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“These deaths were preventable. My daughter could be with us today.”
“To call it a success is the ultimate disrespect.”
“There were 13 avoidable deaths,” not to mention the wounded. 
“This was not a success.”
“What we’re asking for it to stop the insanity and make it better…
&mdash; Matthew Foldi (@MatthewFoldi) <a href="https://twitter.com/MatthewFoldi/status/1688610971160625152?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 7, 2023</a></blockquote>
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Dylan Merola&#8217;s mother called Biden &#8220;heartless,&#8221; saying that he had claimed to know how she felt but never once mentioned her son&#8217;s name. &#8220;If they had closed the gate, my son would be alive today,&#8221; she added.
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“How could a worldwide event” just vanish from coverage, she asks
“Everything, even the way my son died, was being covered up.”
A colonel told her she wouldn’t want to see the drone footage. “I had already seen my son’s lifeless body,” who is he to say that?
(18/xx)
&mdash; Matthew Foldi (@MatthewFoldi) <a href="https://twitter.com/MatthewFoldi/status/1688615068999757828?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 7, 2023</a></blockquote>
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&#8220;The commander in chief failed in the oath he took … he failed everybody,&#8221; Humberto Sanchez&#8217;s <a href="https://twitter.com/MatthewFoldi/status/1688617438957699072" target="_blank" rel="noopener">mother said</a>. &#8220;I want the answers, I want the truth &#8230; I want to know this type of failure will not repeat itself again &#8230; I will fight til my last breath to get the truth.&#8221;
Hunter Lopez&#8217;s mother said that she believed there was more to the story — and objected to the notion that it was time to &#8220;turn the page.&#8221;
&#8220;If fault was to be found in someone wearing fatigues and not a suit, they would have been on trial a long time ago,&#8221; she said, adding, &#8220;We do not want a partial truth or truth told in a book release…as Americans, we want this truth. As Gold Star families, we deserve this truth. We deserved it two years ago, and we deserve it today.&#8221;
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“We do not want a partial truth or truth told in a book release…as Americans, we want this truth. As Gold Star families, we deserve this truth. We deserved it two years ago, and we deserve it today.”
(26/xx)
&mdash; Matthew Foldi (@MatthewFoldi) <a href="https://twitter.com/MatthewFoldi/status/1688619804490608643?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 7, 2023</a></blockquote>
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Rep. Issa has promised to get to the bottom of the issue, saying, &#8220;The Biden Administration lied to every one of these Gold Star families. That’s why we brought them forward. These are the words the White House doesn’t want you to hear.&#8221;
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The Biden Administration lied to every one of these Gold Star families.
That’s why we brought them forward. These are the words the White House doesn’t want you to hear.
&mdash; Rep. Darrell Issa (@repdarrellissa) <a href="https://twitter.com/repdarrellissa/status/1688656144817180673?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 7, 2023</a></blockquote>
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Dignifed Transfer Held For 13 Service Members Killed At Kabul Airport

‘The Ultimate Disrespect’: Gold Star Families Trash Biden Admin Over Afghanistan Withdrawal

Gold Star Families Trash Biden Admin Over Afghanistan Withdrawal

Gold Star

Joe Biden

Taliban

Nellis Air Force Base in Las Vegas canceled an all-ages drag show scheduled for Thursday after officials pointed to a Pentagon policy prohibiting using federal funds to host drag shows on U.S. military property.
Air Force officials initially approved the event to kick off Pride Month until Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and the Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, Gen. Mark Milley, ordered the base to cancel or relocate the show off-site.
&#8220;Per DoD Joint Ethics Regulation (JER), certain criteria must be met for persons or organizations acting in non-Federal capacity to use DoD facilities and equipment,&#8221; spokeswoman Sabrina Singh told <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/pentagon-leaders-cancel-drag-show-nevada-nellis-air-force-base-rcna87142" target="_blank" rel="noopener">NBC</a>. &#8220;As Secretary Austin has said, the DOD will not host drag events at U.S. military installations or facilities.&#8221;
&#8220;Hosting these types of events in federally funded facilities is not a suitable use of DOD resources,&#8221; she added. &#8220;Our Service members are diverse and are allowed to have personal outlets.&#8221;
The show was reportedly billed as &#8220;family-friendly&#8221; with no minimum age requirement. They have been hosting drag performances at the base since its historic &#8220;Drag-u-Nellis&#8221; show in June 2021, according to the <a href="https://nypost.com/2023/05/31/pentagon-orders-nevada-air-force-base-to-cancel-drag-show/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">New York Post</a>.
Organizers described the event as &#8220;an opportunity for attendees to learn more about the history and significance of drag performance art within the LGBT+ community.&#8221;
Austin, who has previously said the military supports Pride Month and the &#8220;LGBTQ+&#8221; citizens that fought to defend the U.S. since its foundation, told a House Armed Services Committee in March that &#8220;drag shows are not something the Defense Department supports or funds.&#8221;
During the same hearing, Milley said he would look into such events on military bases to &#8220;find out what actually is going on there&#8221; while claiming he doesn&#8217;t condone such shows.
&#8220;I&#8217;d like to take a look at those because I don&#8217;t agree with those,&#8221; he said, according to <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/31/politics/pentagon-cancels-drag-show-nellis-air-force-base-pride/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">CNN</a>. &#8220;I think those things shouldn&#8217;t be happening.&#8221;
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In a <a href="https://gaetz.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/gaetz.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/cmg-may23-drag-show-letter.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">letter</a> to both Department of Defense officials, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) said that the U.S. military had approved six other drag show events occurring on different bases in Montana, Virginia, and overseas at the Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany.
&#8220;I find it completely unacceptable that DoD is using taxpayer dollars to fund DEI programs that are divisive in nature,&#8221; Gaetz wrote. &#8220;DoD resources should be used for mission-essential operations, not diverted toward initiatives that create cultural fissures within our service ranks.&#8221;
Gaetz asked U.S. officials to clarify if any punitive action has or will be taken against individuals who facilitated drag events with taxpayer dollars by June 12.

Coronavirus Pandemic Causes Climate Of Anxiety And Changing Routines In America

Defense Dept Demands Air Force Base Cancel ‘Family Friendly’ Drag Show, Citing Policy Violation Using Federal Funds

Defense Dept Demands Air Force Base Cancel 'Family Friendly' Drag Show, Citing Policy Violation Using Federal Funds

LGBTQ

Lloyd Austin

Pride Month

U.S. Air Force

U.S. Military

The U.S. military launched airstrikes against Iranian-backed terrorists in Syria on Thursday night after a U.S. contractor was killed and five U.S. service members and an additional U.S. contractor were injured in an attack by a suicide drone.
U.S. intelligence <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/u-s-contractor-killed-service-members-wounded-in-drone-strike" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> that the attack was carried out by a &#8220;one-way unmanned aerial vehicle&#8221; that &#8220;struck a maintenance facility on a Coalition base near Hasakah in northeast Syria at approximately 1:38 p.m. local time.&#8221;
The Pentagon said that the precision airstrikes were launched to &#8220;limit the risk of escalation and minimize casualties.&#8221;
&#8220;This evening, we responded to an attack on our forces that killed an American contractor and wounded our troops and another American contractor by striking facilities used by groups affiliated with Iran&#8217;s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps,&#8221; U.S. Central Command later added. &#8220;We will always take all necessary measures to defend our people and will always respond at a time and place of our choosing.&#8221;
&#8220;We are postured for scalable options in the face of any additional Iranian attacks,&#8221; the statement continued. &#8220;The thoughts and prayers of U.S. Central Command are with the Family of our contractor killed and with our wounded servicemembers and contractor.&#8221;
The statement said that U.S. forces remained stationed in Syria &#8220;to ensure the enduring defeat of ISIS, which benefits the security and stability of not only Syria, but the entire region.&#8221;
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Below is a statement from the CENTCOM Commander on the precision strikes in response to American casualties in Syria. <a href="https://t.co/MIJeQh1VtD">pic.twitter.com/MIJeQh1VtD</a>
&mdash; U.S. Central Command (@CENTCOM) <a href="https://twitter.com/CENTCOM/status/1639109347069272065?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 24, 2023</a></blockquote>
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&nbsp;
The incident in Syria comes as U.S. and foreign officials have grown increasingly concerned over the state of Iran’s nuclear program. General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told lawmakers during a Thursday hearing on Capitol Hill that Iran is “several more months” away from producing an “actual nuclear weapon.”
The scenario has alarmed Israeli officials who in recent months have been increasingly outspoken about the threat of a nuclear Iran and Israel’s determination to act and stop such an outcome. Israeli officials have reportedly warned officials in the U.S. and Europe that Israel will strike Iran if it enriches uranium past a 60% threshold. Uranium is weapons-grade after it is enriched up to 90%.
<a class="c-link" href="https://onelink.to/dwapp" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-stringify-link="https://onelink.to/dwapp" data-sk="tooltip_parent" aria-describedby="sk-tooltip-1695">CLICK HERE TO GET THE DAILYWIRE+ APP</a>
At the same time, Iran has been bolstered by Russia and China. Russia is reportedly considering supplying Iran with S-400 missile systems, an anti-air missile system that Israel fears could protect Iran’s nuclear facilities from an airstrike. China has helped Iran build diplomatic ties in the region, serving as the middleman for a recent agreement between Iran and Saudi Arabia.
Tim Pearce contributed to this report.

Fourth Of July Military Flyover

U.S. Military Launches Airstrikes After Iranian-Backed Terrorists Attack U.S. Forces In Syria

Iran

Syria

Terrorism

World

General Mark Milley said Wednesday that he was not prepared to consider Russia&#8217;s downing of an American drone to be an act of war. &#8220;Incidents happen,&#8221; he said.
Milley, who has served as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff since 2019, gave a briefing at the Pentagon on Wednesday to update the press and the public on <a href="https://dailywire.com/news/russian-fighter-jet-collides-with-u-s-military-reaper-drone-over-black-sea/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">what had happened</a> and how the Defense Department planned to proceed.
WATCH:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
GEN. MILLEY: &quot;As far as an act of war goes, I&#39;m not gonna&#8230;go there. Incidents happen.&quot; <a href="https://t.co/exBXmrDf8f">pic.twitter.com/exBXmrDf8f</a>
&mdash; Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) <a href="https://twitter.com/DailyCaller/status/1636075247194587137?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 15, 2023</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
&#8220;As far as an act of war goes, I&#8217;m not gonna — I&#8217;m not gonna go there. Incidents happen,&#8221; Milley said. &#8220;And clearly we do not seek armed conflict with Russia and I believe at this point we should investigate this incident and move on from there. But we will continue to exercise our rights in international airspace.&#8221;
Milley also addressed the possibility of retrieval, noting that the drone had gone down in water that was thousands of feet deep and would thus likely prove difficult to recover.
WATCH:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
MILLEY: &quot;It probably sank to some significant depths. So, any recovery operation from a techno standpoint would be very difficult.&quot; <a href="https://t.co/YRWDVP6VP9">pic.twitter.com/YRWDVP6VP9</a>
&mdash; Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) <a href="https://twitter.com/DailyCaller/status/1636077714036727809?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 15, 2023</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
&#8220;This is probably about four or five thousand feet of water and it probably, don&#8217;t know for certain yet, it will be days before we have actual facts on the impact and what debris is there,&#8221; Milley explained. &#8220;It probably sank to some significant depths. So, any recovery operation from a techno standpoint would be very difficult.&#8221;
Milley went on to say that if it became apparent that recovery was possible — or that it was a good idea – Defense Department leadership would address that in the coming days.
Russian authorities have already expressed an interest in <a href="https://dailywire.com/news/russia-aims-to-recover-downed-u-s-drone/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">recovering the drone</a>. &#8220;I don’t know if we can recover them or not, but we will certainly have to do that, and we will deal with it,&#8221; Nikolai Patrushev, secretary of Russia’s Security Council, said on Wednesday. &#8220;I certainly hope for success.&#8221;
The United States military said that one of two Russian planes had clipped the propeller of the drone, after which it went down in international waters. State Department spokesman Ned Price called the incident a &#8220;brazen violation of international law.&#8221;

Defense Secretary Austin And General Milley Hold A Press Conference At The Pentagon

‘Incidents Happen’: Gen. Milley Won’t Consider Russia Dropping U.S. Drone An ‘Act Of War’

Gen. Milley Won't Consider Russia Dropping U.S. Drone An 'Act Of War'

Drones

Global Politics

Russia

The <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/biden-administration" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Biden administration</a> knew about the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/china" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Chinese</a> spy balloon sailing over the U.S. earlier than when it became widely known but kept quiet so as to not disrupt Secretary of State <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/antony-blinken" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Antony Blinken</a>’s trip to China, according to a Friday report. 
Bloomberg News <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-02-04/from-china-to-big-sky-the-balloon-that-unnerved-the-white-house?leadSource=uverify%20wall#xj4y7vzkg" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a> that U.S. officials were “well aware” that the balloon had crossed into American airspace on January 28 and that it was over Idaho on Tuesday, but decided to not inform the public to not upend Blinken’s diplomatic trip to China. 
White House officials who spoke with Bloomberg told the outlet that they knew the balloon was over Montana on Wednesday, and that Secretary of Defense <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/lloyd-austin" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Lloyd Austin</a> and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/mark-milley" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Mark Milley</a> told President Joe Biden that shooting down the balloon could pose a threat to civilians. 
The report added that the White House wanted to be careful because relations with China could be a big issue in the 2024 elections and that it was “baffled” by China’s claim to not know what was going on with the balloon. 
Bloomberg noted that the Biden administration only decided to inform the public after the Billings Gazette published a picture of the balloon, which “forced Biden’s hand.” 
In the end, Biden’s efforts to conceal information about the balloon to save Blinken’s China trip failed. On Friday, Blinken said his team <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/secretary-of-state-blinken-will-postpone-china-trip-over-spy-balloon-incident">concluded</a> “conditions were not conducive” for him to continue with a planned visit to China this weekend.
The secretary also said he conveyed it was an “irresponsible act and that the PRC’s decision to take this action on the eve of my planned visit is detrimental to the substantive discussions we were prepared to have.”
In addition, Blinken said he told his counterpart that the United States “remains committed to diplomatic engagement with China” and that he plans to visit Beijing in the future “when conditions allow.”
The balloon was <a href="https://www.cbs17.com/news/north-carolina-news/watch-chinese-spy-balloon-flies-over-nc-saturday-morning-according-to-reports/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">spotted</a> over North Carolina on Saturday morning as it appears to head toward the Atlantic Ocean. The balloon is believed to have sailed over parts of Tennessee last night before heading over Asheville and Charlotte, North Carolina, this morning.
Ben Zeisloft contributed to this report.

Berlin Hosts 2nd Libya Conference

Biden Admin Tried To Conceal Chinese Spy Balloon To Not Disrupt Blinken Trip: Report

Antony Blinken

Biden Admin

China

Foreign Policy

Gen. <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/mark-milley" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Mark Milley</a>, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, traveled to the edge of the ongoing conflict in <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/ukraine" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Ukraine</a> to meet with President <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/volodymyr-zelensky" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Volodymyr Zelensky</a>’s top military official on Tuesday. 
Milley spoke with Gen. Valery Zaluzhny for two hours, a military spokesman <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/01/17/milley-zaluzhny-poland-ukraine-russia/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">told</a> The Washington Post. The meeting between the countries’ top military officers comes after the Biden administration reportedly made a “substantive” <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/u-s-sending-zelensky-more-offensive-weapons-create-an-iron-fist-to-penetrate-russian-linear-defenses" target="_blank" rel="noopener">change</a> in its aid to Ukraine, sending more offensive weapons to Zelensky, who is seeking to capitalize on Russia’s apparent setbacks in recent months.
“It’s important that two very important military officials look at each other in the eye when they talk about very important topics. It makes a difference,” U.S. military spokesman David Butler said, according to the Post. 
Milley reportedly left a U.S. base in Poland that American troops use to funnel aid to Ukraine and traveled close to the Ukrainian border for the meeting. The officials kept the meeting a secret until it had concluded, citing safety concerns, and no photography was allowed at the meeting. The rendezvous marked the first time Milley and Zaluzhny met in person.
On Monday, Milley <a href="https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-politics-0f6a62a112d71e68712e567d1467edf7" target="_blank" rel="noopener">visited</a> the new joint military training program in Germany, where U.S. troops are instructing Ukrainian forces and preparing them for more offensive warfare against Russia. The expanded training of Ukrainian forces began on Sunday, and Milley <a href="https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-politics-germany-7ae8c22dfd9379e77f172bd2b3ab5fb7" target="_blank" rel="noopener">hopes</a> it will result in 500 Ukrainian soldiers hitting the battlefield in the next five to eight weeks. 
“This is not a run of the mill rotation,” Milley said Monday as he overlooked the training, the Associated Press <a href="https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-politics-0f6a62a112d71e68712e567d1467edf7" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a>. “This is one of those moments in time where if you want to make a difference, this is it.”
The military leaders of the U.S. and Ukraine met as Russia announced that it will increase its military to 1.5 million people and create new structures along its border with Finland. Russia’s move is a response to a “proxy war” the country believes the U.S. and its allies are waging in Ukraine, according to Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, Bloomberg <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-01-17/russia-to-boost-troops-in-west-with-army-expansion-shoigu-says" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a>. 
Along with expanded training for Ukrainian forces, the Biden administration announced earlier this month that Zelensky’s forces will receive 50 Bradley Fighting Vehicles along with long-range rocket systems. The administration’s announcement came less than one month after Zelensky visited the White House and begged Congress for more aid.
National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said the weapons and vehicles included in the latest aid package will help the Ukrainians shift to warfare in the open farmlands of the Donbas region, the eastern section of Ukraine annexed by Russian President Vladimir Putin last September, Bloomberg reported.

Top U.S., Ukrainian Generals Meet Near War Zone After White House Boosts Support For Zelensky

Top U.S., Ukrainian Generals Meet In Person Near War Zone After White House Boosts Support For Zelensky

Conflicts

Ukraine

Ukraine-Russia War

Volodymyr Zelensky

Military leaders’ embrace of woke diversity and transgender policies and ideology is corroding the effectiveness of the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/u-s-military">U.S. military</a>, according to a new report by GOP lawmakers.
Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida and Rep. Chip Roy of Texas, both Republicans, put out a report on the impact of DEI and LGBT initiatives on the U.S. military on Monday. The 18-page <a href="https://www.rubio.senate.gov/public/_cache/files/ee1d7a86-6d0c-4f08-bd15-24e5b28e54b7/3756824FA9C21B819BB97AAB16221530.woke-warfighters-report-3.pdf">report</a> takes shots at some of the top leaders in the U.S. military, such as Gen. Mark Milley, and says that poor leadership is distorting the military’s purpose.
“The United States military is the greatest fighting force in the world. It is also one of the most humble and sacrificial the world has ever known,” the report begins. “Unfortunately, President Joe Biden and his administration are weakening America’s warfighters through a sustained assault fueled by woke virtue signaling.”
“Our military’s singular purpose is to ‘provide for the common defense’ of our nation. It cannot be turned into a left-wing social experiment. It cannot be used as a cudgel against America itself. And it cannot be paralyzed by fear of offending the sensibilities of Ivy League faculty lounges or progressive pundits,” the report’s summary says.
The Department of Defense (DOD) stood by its policies in answer to the report.
“Diversity, inclusion, and equality at its core is about leveraging the strengths of all our people, advancing opportunity, addressing potential barriers or discrepancies, and – fundamentally – ensuring people are treated with dignity and respect. We always talk about weapons systems, yet every one of us will agree that our greatest weapons system are our people.  So that’s why our policies to better leverage our people and increase unit cohesion are important here,” a spokesman with the DOD told The Daily Wire in a statement.
The report singles out several top military officials for criticism: Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Milley, who is Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The report also notes the partisan pasts of two top Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) staffers: Bishop Garrison, senior advisor to the U.S. Secretary of Defense on Human Capital and DEI issues, and Kelisa Wing, the DEI head of the Department of Defense Education Activity.
Weeks into President Joe Biden’s term, Austin issued a one-day stand-down order to all service members and civilian employees. The purpose of the stand-down order was to “discuss extremism in the ranks with their personnel.” A follow-up report by the Senate Armed Services committee assessed that, because of the dearth of extremism among U.S. service members, further investment on countering extremism in the military would be an “inappropriate use of taxpayer funds.”
Milley <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/highest-ranking-u-s-military-official-defends-teaching-crt">supports</a> “teaching [Critical Race Theory] at U.S. Service Academies” and testified in front of Congress that he is interested in understanding “white rage,” according to the report.
“The Biden Administration is choosing to focus on and fund the study of racial extremism even when … it is a virtual non-issue in the military,” the report says.
DEI has become a top priority for the Biden administration across departments, not just in the Pentagon. The Department of Homeland Security has <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/08/politics/white-supremacy-dhs-draft-assessment/index.html">identified</a> white supremacy as one of the preeminent threats to the United States. In September, the Department of Energy <a href="https://www.energy.gov/articles/doe-releases-first-ever-plan-advance-diversity-equity-inclusion-and-accessibility">released</a> its first-ever “Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility (DEIA) Strategic Plan to underscore the Department’s commitment to creating a workplace that celebrates Americans of all backgrounds.”
The commitment to DEI has bled into the U.S. Special Forces. The United States Special Operations Command’s 2021 Diversity and Inclusion Strategic Plan states that “diversity and inclusion are operational imperatives.”
“The only goal of our Special Forces should be effectiveness. Every other consideration must be subordinate to and in service of that end,” the report says. “[F]orcing our military to engage in DEI trainings encourages supporting and advancing people on criteria other than competence and ability to carry out a mission.”
According to Rubio and Roy, the military has lowered its standards for health and fitness to allow transgender people and those diagnosed with gender dysphoria into the ranks of the military. The process began under former President Barack Obama, was reversed under former President Donald Trump, and reinstated under Biden.
“People cannot even enlist with Invisalign or braces until they are removed. And yet, today’s woke military is now proudly promoting and celebrating sex reassignment procedures, which can have months-long recovery periods, with complete recovery taking &#8216;up to one year&#8217; for some procedures,” the report says.
The highest levels of the U.S. military lack accountability for mistakes, the report says. One glaring example of this is the disastrous U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, in which 13 U.S. service members were killed and hundreds of Afghans in a terror attack on Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport. A retaliatory strike against a target believed to be a terrorist accidently killed 10 civilians, including seven children.
“The only service member who received a reprimand from the Afghanistan debacle was a lieutenant colonel who criticized the way the withdrawal was executed. What this officer did was concerning. Despite a gag order, while in uniform he used government property to harshly criticize superiors while there were still boots on the ground in Kabul. This is certainly improper behavior,” the report states.
“Nevertheless, the hypocrisy is glaring. It is outrageous that the woke Biden Administration held him to account while leaders whose decisions resulted in the deaths of service members and billions of dollars’ worth of equipment falling into enemies’ hands went unpunished,” it concludes.

Woke Leadership Is Gutting U.S. Military Through DEI, Trans Policies, GOP Report Says

Chip Roy

Department of Defense

Marco Rubio

Washington D.C.

&#8220;[It was] a war begun for no wise purpose, carried on with a strange mixture of rashness and timidity, brought to a close after suffering and disaster, without much glory attached either to the government which directed, or the great body of troops which waged it. Not one benefit, political or military, has been acquired with this war. Our eventual evacuation of the country resembled the retreat of an army defeated.&#8221; – British army chaplain contemplating the British retreat from Afghanistan, 1843
Those same haunting words could very well have been written by a Russian tank commander as his column pulled out of Afghanistan in 1989. And, sadly, they could have been written by one of our own Marines in August of 2021, contemplating the unnecessary loss of 13 more comrades at the 59th minute of the 11th hour of our nation’s longest war.
As the old cliché goes, history may not always repeat itself, but it does rhyme. And if the fiasco of President Biden’s shameful Afghanistan withdrawal one year ago this week didn’t exactly resemble the experiences of Queen Victoria or Leonid Brezhnev, it certainly may have found a similarity with Gerald Ford watching helplessly as the last U.S. helicopter lifted off the rooftop of the Saigon embassy in 1975.
One must draw upon these  historical analogies when reflecting upon this nation’s humiliating final chapter to one of our most costly misadventures. The operation in Afghanistan squandered so many lives and so much capital with almost nothing to show for it in our nation’s history.
For decades to come, historians will conduct round table post-mortems on the ill-conceived Afghanistan operation. They will question what  our nation achieved in return for its estimated <a href="https://www.militarytimes.com/veterans/2021/08/18/cost-of-caring-for-iraq-afghanistan-vets-could-top-25-trillion-report/">$2.5 trillion investment</a> and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-preparing-to-withdraw-thousands-of-troops-from-afghanistan-in-initial-deal-with-taliban/2019/08/01/01e97126-b3ac-11e9-8f6c-7828e68cb15f_story.html">2,400 service personnel</a> killed, with many more wounded and incapacitated for the rest of their lives. Was <a href="https://apnews.com/article/middle-east-business-afghanistan-43d8f53b35e80ec18c130cd683e1a38f">40,000 civilians</a> dead worth the cost of that brief taste of Western liberalism?
But, even if the U.S. operation in Afghanistan did have to end, must it have ended with such ignominy? How did what had been planned to be a phased, organized withdrawal turn into a stampede for exits of such haste and confusion that warehouses full of U.S. military hardware were <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/27/politics/afghan-weapons-left-behind/index.html">left behind</a>? Our Afghan departure degenerated into an embarrassing scene of chaos at the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/breaking-u-s-suspends-flights-at-kabul-airport-after-afghans-swarm-runway-cling-to-departing-planes">Karzai International Airport</a>, complete with the shocking imagery of desperate civilians clinging to the sides of U.S. transport planes during take-off, only to fall to their deaths. Not to mention anywhere from <a href="https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2021/oct/22/biden-admin-now-says-300-americans-remain-afghanis/">100 to more than 300</a> U.S. personnel and thousands of loyal Afghan civilians left behind to suffer cruel retribution at the hands of the victorious Taliban.
Another obvious question to ask is why were there so many imperiled U.S. civilian personnel and friendly Afghanis still in Kabul at all when the Taliban rolled in — many riding in fighting vehicles taxpayers paid for?
On April 14, 2021, President Biden <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/biden-blasted-by-terrorism-foreign-policy-experts-over-afghanistan-decision-such-an-avoidable-shame">announced</a> that the last U.S. troops were scheduled to be gone by September 11, 2021. This date was chosen solely for its symbolic — and political — significance rather than any military calculation. This allotted a mere 150 days to organize the withdrawal. So, as the date approached, in spite of the deteriorating situation, the White House stood fast to its timetable. And worse, a <a href="https://www.foreign.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Risch%20Afghanistan%20Report%202022.pdf">report</a> from the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations states: “…the [National Security Council] did not conduct its first senior meeting to discuss the withdrawal until August 14 at 3:30pm, just hours before Kabul fell, when evacuations became life or death for Americans, Afghans, and U.S. military personnel.”
The Biden team’s stubborn adherence to a schedule dictated by symbolism took no account of the change in circumstances on the ground — especially when they contradicted the assumptions under which said schedule was envisioned. What changed was the speed with which the Taliban took over the country on its relentless drive to Kabul.
According to <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2021/08/15/biden-white-house-afghanistan-drawdown-505018">Brian Klaas</a>, a political analyst at University College London: “The White House was clearly blindsided and unprepared for the speed of Afghanistan’s collapse. Even Biden allies will not try to claim this as a job well done or say this is what they had planned. After all, nobody would have planned for a last-minute evacuation that was just thrown together out of necessity.”
In the case of Afghanistan, the administration underestimated the enemy’s strengths while overestimating its own. This error was compounded by the administration’s misguided confidence in the indigenous Afghan National Security Force. Biden <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2021/07/08/remarks-by-president-biden-on-the-drawdown-of-u-s-forces-in-afghanistan/">assured</a> the American people on July 8 that the U.S. and its partners in Afghanistan had &#8220;trained and equipped nearly 300,000 current serving members of the military&#8221; – a critical element to his justification for why the U.S. could withdraw.
Biden went further, predicting that, “the likelihood there&#8217;s going to be the Taliban overrunning everything and owning the whole country is highly unlikely.” Yet, despite billions in training and equipment over 20 years, this Afghan army — touted so confidently by a befuddled commander-in-chief — proved to be a mirage. Just 38 days later, the Taliban <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/taliban-takes-over-more-major-afghan-cities-controls-majority-of-nation-seizes-u-s-military-weapons">triumphantly entered</a> Kabul, having easily swept aside the Afghani defenders.
General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, <a href="https://www.defense.gov/News/Transcripts/Transcript/Article/2738086/secretary-of-defense-austin-and-chairman-of-the-joint-chiefs-of-staff-gen-mille/">admitted</a>: “I did not — nor did anyone else — see a collapse of an army that size.” But anyone with a history book could have certainly seen this, given the level of corruption in the Afghan army and political leadership — as well as the speed and ferocity with which Afghan guerillas have always moved against weakened opponents. Ask the spirits of Elphinstone’s slaughtered army of 1842. (Perhaps Gen. Milley should have been reading more Jules Stewart and George MacDonald Frasier and less Ibram X. Kendi.) 
What should have been a grim harbinger of where things were headed to the White House, State Department, and Pentagon that fateful summer of 2021 was the fact that, as we pulled troops out, the Taliban rapidly moved in, swallowing huge swaths of territory while occupying one provincial capital after another. At that point, the troop pull-out should have been halted, and perhaps U.S. deployment to Kabul Province even increased, albeit temporarily, so that order in and around the beleaguered capital could be maintained while evacuations continued.
Once it became clear the Taliban had every intention of racing to Kabul, our immediate policy should have shifted to a holding action in which at least our most valuable asset, Bagram Air Base, could be secured. Instead, it was decided to <a href="https://apnews.com/article/bagram-afghanistan-airfield-us-troops-f3614828364f567593251aaaa167e623">abandon</a> that most important outpost for the past 20 years  and instead use the Karzai International (a single runway civilian airport located in Kabul) for evacuations. As Gen. Milley <a href="https://www.defense.gov/News/Transcripts/Transcript/Article/2738086/secretary-of-defense-austin-and-chairman-of-the-joint-chiefs-of-staff-gen-mille/">conceded</a>, due to insufficient troop strength, one had to go: “If we were to keep both Bagram and the embassy going, that would be a significant number of military forces that would have exceeded what we had or stayed the same or exceeded what we had. So we had to collapse one or the other, and a decision was made.”
But, if this is the case, then Gen. Milley et. al. chose poorly. “If you want to conduct an evacuation, you don’t do it from an airport that’s literally almost in the heart of the city,” <a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/08/why-did-the-united-states-abandon-bagram-airfield/">said</a> Bill Roggio, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. “A military planner would know that as soon as things started going south in Kabul, and the Taliban was on the march, that [Karzai International Airport] would be flooded.” And once flooded, the opportunities for infiltration and terrorism were rife. And 13 distracted Marines, who were too busy acting as traffic cops, paid the ultimate price for this incompetence when a suicide bomber <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/13th-u-s-service-member-dies-in-afghanistan-now-deadliest-day-of-conflict-since-2011">inevitably struck</a>.
Not only did we hastily abandon Bagram Air Base, our most valuable military base in the region, to the Taliban, we left them a smorgasbord: $7 billion worth of military hardware, helicopters, fighting vehicles, night vision goggles, heavy and small arms, millions of rounds of ammo, as well as who knows what else. Your tax dollars at work.
One wonders why we did not issue warnings to the Taliban that clouds of A-10s and B-52s awaited them should they emerge outside the gates of Kabul before we decided it was time to go. (One cannot imagine the Trump administration not doing all it could to keep Bagram open and Kabul out of Taliban hands until an orderly exit, rather than chaotic mob scene, could be completed.) But, as with so much of this humiliation, these questions remain unanswered.
So where did the events in the “graveyard of empires” one year ago leave our nation’s standing in the world? In a word: weak. 
The events that unfolded in Afghanistan showed us that something is wrong in our military and the civilian leadership overseeing it — not with the caliber of our fighting men and women, or the quality and lethality of our hardware. Something is rotten at the top.
A political disease has seemed to have eaten away at the primary function of any armed forces: to efficiently apply deadly violence to protect and advance our national interests. Perhaps if the top brass cared more for the science of waging war and less for gender fluidity, or if they refocused on giving real support to the brave fighters in the field whose lives are in their hands rather than imposing <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/republican-introduces-bill-to-ban-critical-race-theory-from-being-taught-in-military-service-academies">woke textbooks</a> upon them, and perhaps if they had had the cajones to march into the Oval Office and say, “Mr. President, or whoever is running the circus, this plan is unrealistic,” things might have been different.
But this is the world the Biden White House made. Not in the plan to withdraw, which was long overdue, but rather in its botched execution.
U.S. allies and enemies watched and took notes — the former with foreboding and the latter with glee. Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for East Asia Heino Klinck <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/biden-faces-crisis-confidence-afghanistan">said</a> in August 2021: &#8220;The current chaos is being viewed and portrayed as a tragic mix of American incompetence, negligence and weakness and that certainly furthers Beijing&#8217;s narrative of U.S. decline.&#8221;
Klinck then added presciently: &#8220;And we see in the propaganda coming out of Beijing and coming out of Moscow, that our adversaries are gloating and conveying that America cannot be trusted. So, this has to worry our friends and partners, particularly in Taiwan as well as in the Ukraine.&#8221; Six months later, an emboldened Putin invaded Ukraine. And China’s rhetoric and military posturing, stemming from its seven-decade hunger to absorb Taiwan, has dramatically escalated.
Finally, where did  this leave Afghanistan itself? Perhaps Mark Steyn <a href="https://www.ocregister.com/2012/03/02/mark-steyn-americas-longest-war-will-leave-no-trace/">said</a> it best a decade ago: “Six weeks after the last NATO soldier leaves Afghanistan, it will be as if we were never there. …We came, we saw, we left no trace. America’s longest war will leave nothing behind.”
Not everyone is so blind to the lessons of history as those in and around the White House, whether they be the fathers of Liz Cheney or Hunter Biden. As with so many ill-conceived missions imposed upon our troops over the post-World War II years, our fighting men and women deserve a better legacy to account for the cost of their lives and limbs than what the Biden administration forced them and the nation to endure.
Something has to change before confidence in our military, and thus its capacity to still attract some of America’s finest to its hallowed ranks, is eroded beyond restoration. What happened in Afghanistan was a wake-up call. Whether we learn from it or not will matter for a resurgent U.S. military and foreign policy down the road. Or, as the Russians and British before us, future historians will merely shake their heads and marvel at the tragic stupidity of it all.
Brad Schaeffer is a commodities trader, columnist, and <a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com/authors/Brad-Schaeffer/146901071">author</a> of the World War II novel Of Another Time And Place as well as the best-selling novel dealing with PTSD and Autism The Extraordinary. 
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

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U.S. Army General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, wrote a histrionic resignation letter to then-President Donald Trump after federal officials cleared rioters out of Lafayette Square back in the summer of 2020.
Then-Attorney General William Barr <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/ag-barr-protesters-in-d-c-were-not-peaceful-hundreds-of-officers-injured-media-promoting-big-lies">dismissed</a> claims by the mainstream media that those in Lafayette Park were &#8220;peaceful protesters.&#8221; Barr noted that the rioters repeatedly assaulted police by throwing bricks and flammable liquids at the officers.
&#8220;There were fires set in not only St. John’s Church, but a historic building at Lafayette was burned down,&#8221; Barr said. &#8220;They broke into the Treasury Department … and they were injuring police.”
Barr further noted that what the media was missing about the incident was that &#8220;this was not an operation to respond to that particular crowd, it was an operation to move the perimeter one block.&#8221;
A year later, a federal judge in Washington, D.C., <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/trump-wins-federal-judge-tosses-most-of-blms-claims-against-president-bill-barr-us-officials-over-lafayette-park-incident">dismissed</a> a number of claims leveled at Trump, Barr, and other U.S. government officials over what Black Lives Matter and the American Civil Liberties Union claimed was an unnecessary show of force in Lafayette Square.
A <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/08/15/inside-the-war-between-trump-and-his-generals">report</a> in the New Yorker this week included the self-aggrandizing resignation that Milley, a controversial military figure who has <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/gen-mark-milley-compared-trump-supporters-to-nazis-these-are-the-same-people-we-fought-in-world-war-ii">demonized</a> Trump supporters, wrote in wake of the event.
Milley&#8217;s resignation letter, which he never submitted, reportedly stated:
<blockquote>I regret to inform you that I intend to resign as your Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Thank you for the honor of appointing me as senior ranking officer. The events of the last couple weeks have caused me to do deep soul-searching, and I can no longer faithfully support and execute your orders as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. It is my belief that you were doing great and irreparable harm to my country. I believe that you have made a concerted effort over time to politicize the United States military. I thought that I could change that. I’ve come to the realization that I cannot, and I need to step aside and let someone else try to do that.
Second, you are using the military to create fear in the minds of the people—and we are trying to protect the American people. I cannot stand idly by and participate in that attack, verbally or otherwise, on the American people. The American people trust their military and they trust us to protect them against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and our military will do just that. We will not turn our back on the American people.
Third, I swore an oath to the Constitution of the United States and embodied within that Constitution is the idea that says that all men and women are created equal. All men and women are created equal, no matter who you are, whether you are white or Black, Asian, Indian, no matter the color of your skin, no matter if you’re gay, straight or something in between. It doesn’t matter if you’re Catholic, Protestant, Muslim, Jew, or choose not to believe. None of that matters. It doesn’t matter what country you came from, what your last name is—what matters is we’re Americans. We’re all Americans. That under these colors of red, white, and blue—the colors that my parents fought for in World War II—means something around the world. It’s obvious to me that you don’t think of those colors the same way I do. It’s obvious to me that you don’t hold those values dear and the cause that I serve.
And lastly it is my deeply held belief that you’re ruining the international order, and causing significant damage to our country overseas, that was fought for so hard by the Greatest Generation that they instituted in 1945. Between 1914 and 1945, 150 million people were slaughtered in the conduct of war. They were slaughtered because of tyrannies and dictatorships. That generation, like every generation, has fought against that, has fought against fascism, has fought against Nazism, has fought against extremism. It’s now obvious to me that you don’t understand that world order. You don’t understand what the war was all about. In fact, you subscribe to many of the principles that we fought against. And I cannot be a party to that. It is with deep regret that I hereby submit my letter of resignation.</blockquote>
RELATED: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/nearly-90-retired-generals-admirals-demand-milley-austin-resign-focused-on-wokeness-vs-winning-wars">Nearly 90 Retired Generals, Admirals Demand Milley, Austin Resign: Focused On ‘Wokeness’ Vs. Winning Wars</a>

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