Erosion of Military Discipline and Merit

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He was calling out the Trump regime for firing Some of our top generals and top admirals for political reasons, frankly, for racist and misogynistic reasons as well. He was calling out Pete Hegsith. And of course, he did use some diplomatic language in how he did it. But he brought this forward in a july fourth message Where if you read between the lines or actually read the lines, he compares Donald Trump to the Kings of Yester Year under the rule when the United States was ruled by Britain and there was a monarchy and he describes how the American experiment was pushing back against monarchs and kings who would put their military as civilian police. Let me show you. I mean, this is some powerful stuff. Here's how the Wall Street Journal characterized it. Former top general warns the military is being politicized. And for those who know CQra J You know, they know that for him to get to this level, he is sounding the red alarm folks. CQ Brown who was fired as Trump's top general by Hegsith early on, questioned Donald Trump's handling of the armed forces. and it goes on to talk about how he published this essay Friday also with two co authors, where he cautioned that sending the military into American cities for politically contentious missions like under the guise of fighting crime risk compromising its traditionally aolitical role and diverting it from combat missions And then he went and wrote this op ed in Foreign Affairs magazine following an appearance at the Aspen Institute where he basically said, Donald Trump's behaving like a tyrant. I'll get to that in a moment. C.Q Brown told the Aspen Institute, What's starting to happen right now, it's not about Merit. If it was about merit then CQ Brown Jr. wouldn't have been fired. He was appointed by Donald Trump in twenty twenty as the Air Force Chief of staff. And then he was appointed by former President Biden, basically unanimously. everyvery Senate memor wanted, you know him to be on there. And then Donald Trump fired him because Pete Higsith didnidn't want a black leadater of the chairman as the chairman of the Joint chiefs of. Let's just call it what it is and not mince our words, folks Let's talk about what he wrote for Foreign pololicy magazine. Here it is the military and the Republic. America's armed Forces can and cannot do for democracy I thought this was one of the most power parts where he says the ideal was better than reality two hundred and fifty years ago, and so it is today. The military must protect the respect that it has earned from American society by scrupplulously following all lawful orders and by demonstrating every day that it is nonpartisan In so doing, service members honor the oath they swear, not to a particular party or political leader, but to the constitution itself. What is at stake, ultimately is the moral fabric from which the military draws its deepest strength, As Lieutenant General How Moore observed in his nineteen ninety two book, We were Soldiers once and Young American soldiers in battle don't fight for what some president says on TV. They don't fight for mom or apple pie, the American flag. They fight for one another. This is the same mutual obligation that at its core, defines citizenship itself The country's liberty depends on a mutual commitment to one another, regardless of color Creed, party or military service. get to that in a moment, but I wanted to just show you how he starts off this op ed or this essay in Foreign Affairs magazine, he goes, celebrations of America's founding and reflections on its ideals often overlooked the central role of civil military relations. This is a mistake in the Declaration of indndependence. a chief complaint was that King George III effected to render the military independent of and superior to the civil power. George Washington himself worried about this abuse of power and went to great pains to avoid it in his own career. Throughout the Revolutionary War, he constantly deferred to the Continental Congress despite its calaminous delays and erratic instructions because he recognized that his authority over the Continental Army flowed from the people's representatives, given his immense personal popularity, he was often encouraged to adddress this or that political dysfunction But he knew that the Republic would suffer in the long run if the military were to become an instrument of the commander's will rather than of the political leaders, the people's political leaders Hello. Then he goes on to say, in the face of genuine national disaster, the public will readily embrace the military's help during the Great Depression, for instance, Herbert Hoover directed the military to set up relief camps, and President Franklin Roosevelt ordered it to establish the Civilian Conservation Corps, which put unemployed men to work to develop public land When presidents use the armed forces for more politically contentious missions such as addressing crime in cities, the work of the military becomes more fraught, resorting to a military solution rather than fixing the underlying incapacity or dysfunction in civil institutions diverts the military from focusing on its primary combat mission. And as Washington knew, it is not the military's job to save the Republic from political impasse. Indeed, if you ask too much of the military, you risk the entire enterprise. You risk the entire damn enterprise Could he be any clearer folks? Well, he can be. He says the lesson is critical today. He's like, okay If I haven't been that clear, let me just spell it out for you before I conclude here. The lesson is critical today. Throughout this year of remembrance, the military has played an outside ceremonial role. asking the uniformed military to serve in an honor guard, lead a parade, or conduct stirring flyovers makes sense. The military excels at ceremony and provides a unifying symbol And these acts help citizens look with pride in the Republic's capacity for strength and resilience. They may even inspire some to join the ranks of all volunteer forces. But they should not be seen as a military monopoly on patriotism. Instead, patriotism means recognizing the promise of America's founding, the progress of its past, and the potential of a shared future. Patriots should also find inspiration to serve in government or to deepen their involvement in local communities The military can help by honoring the important national service that civilians do out of uniform. Now he previously spoke at Harvard at the Institute of Politics there. And here he is speaking out about the Trump war crimes in Monab. Let's play this clip. Most of you'all know the United States made a horrible mistake and hit an Iranian Girls school during the first wave of attacks They killed about one hundred and seventy five people. Most of them were U young women who were under the age of thirteen. And The initial explanation that came out was mixed. The president said, the Iranians did it. The Office of the Secretary of Deense Public Affairs said the advanced AI model did it The military, to their credit said we made a mistake And there have been different explanations for that too U So it leads to the question, Chairman is When there's a targeting process like that or later down the road, if there is a more autonomous type weapon and you're trying to figure out Who should be accountable in a situation like that, which has always been super important to the US military U How have you thought about that s It's a really hard question It is, but I still think there's a commander or someone that signs off on Yeah You know, whether it's a analyst that signs off this is a good try, you know, in this example that you just talked about the school know, when things get re characterized or you have bad intel or late until. I mean, the same thing happened with the D Allied Force where we struck a building that we thought We didn't know was a Chinese embassy. Yeah. Right. Yeah. In Yugoslavia Yugoslavia. you can make those kinds of mistakes based on the data you have The big picture here is I'd say the commander is ultimately responsible But it may be somebody down to the lower level that should be checking anything. That's why you want to have a human a loop that can cross check it against. It this doesn't even look right. This this makes sense. based on our experience, which is why I think it's still important that we We understand some of the basic you know fundamentals. So we don't just kick back and let AI do it all and go It was AI's fault. And then then, you know, is it the person to asked the prompt Is a developer of the AI? is it, you know, you could go down a You know, several different lawsuits to figure out who would ultimately be responsible. The issue is we got to figure out how in a conflict, how do you continue to keep moving forward and making sure we're being effective, but also doing things in line with the law of armed conflict Thank you Here he talked about how the United States rushed to war with Iran and it had disastrous results play this clip. finding the right capability for a war fighter both on the offensive and defensive end O casity numbers matched, you know, equivalent of World War twoo of Vietnam which is not something we had we've had to deal with mostly throughout my career And so we can't walk in with a bunch of hubrs of This won't happen to us Well we just saw it happen with thirteen service members that have been killed three hundred and fifty or so that have been injured and not to mention the number of aircraft that have been lost, which, you know That's not something we haven't lost a lot of aircraft, particularly like an AWAax sitting on a ramp. And those are the kinds of things that should shock us a bit. into reality that Um A war and going into a conflict is not something that we you know, just take lightly You gott to take it seriously because you're putting men and women's lives at risk Now I'll just tell you personally You know with every loss and impacts me. Be I know someone's going to show up in a dress uniform to knock on somebody's door to tell them You know, your son, your daughter, your husband or wife is no longer with us And that just disrupts a family and that That was heavily on me Thank you, Chairman. And finally, here he was talking on this panel about The erosion of our promotion boards in the military and he's responding to a question about how Pete Hegsetith is allowing Apache helicopters to do flyovers with Kid Rock and how after there's discipline, then Hegsith says, I'm overturning the discipline right there I'm overturning the discipline This goes back to the essay that he wrote in Foreign Policy Magazine where he says doing shit like doing stuff like that erodes the very confidence of our military. It makes us weaker It doesn't make us look stronger. You think the rest of the world looks at that crap and goes, Oh, look how tough they are. No, they think we're clown shows. That's what he's saying. That's what General CQ Brown is saying. Here, play this clip There were certain things that would never have even crossed our minds Over the past couple of days, I've seen They makeaking nervous for the institution. U this sounds funny, but An army helicopter doing an overflight of Kid Rck That's slate. super unprofessional The Secretary of defeense deciding there's going to be no accountability for that when the uniformed military says that they'll be held accountable. is Crazy The Secretary of Defense pulling members off a one star promotion list for reasons that are almost certainly to do with their identity is crazy. That had never that's not something that would have happened before Um So again, chairman, you know, you're too professional to comment on news because that's not your role. But can just talk about if you're the chairman and you're thinking about civilian Political appointee leadership, what role do they have to build that trust in the institution Well part of these, you know, you think about the role of a military member at the senior level, particularly as a chairman, you're providing advice And part of that is being able to provide the advice of how you would handle those types of situations. And I'll just tell you just like you, I'm concerned I don't have all the facts on some of these, but having had to deal with situations of unauthorized flybikes as a commander, having set on promotion boards reviewed results from Bomotion boards I know they're fair B based on merit And u If what I'm hearing is reported is true, it is very concerning because it does Ster road, get order and discipline and ensuring that people that are all giving a fair opportunity No one wants to be advantceded or disadvantaged based on their background. They just want to have opportunity. And once you've gone through a promotion board and having S on promotion boards, as they said For my experience They've been fair