OSSIFIED AMERICANA PART 4 VICTOR DAVIS HANSON
https://victorhanson.com/ossified-americana-part-four/
The FBI
How, then, do we alter the FBI to save it from itself?
1. Choice One: Move the entire headquarters to Kansas City or Laramie or Oklahoma City. There would be far less incestuous media/political/bureaucratic marriages, lobbying, and consulting, and far less opportunity for cocktail-hour networking, plotting, profiting, and cajoling. And, of course, a different sort of FBI agent would prefer to live far from DC.
2. Choice Two: Farm out the agency’s divisions among the cabinencies. The Departments of the Treasury, Homeland Security, Justice, and Interior could inherit various orphaned FBI sects from counterterrorism to counterfeiting to drugs. A division head would not have the power of a Comey or Wray and be a bit humbler and more reasonable under congressional testimony.
3. Choice Three: Reform the FBI. Put a 5-year limit on the Directorship. Create a permanent oversight committee in Congress. Require special permission to conduct swat-style arrest raids. Advise all FBI personnel that lying to Congress or to federal investigators results in automatic dismissal and loss of pensions, with criminal proceedings to follow.
The Pentagon
The U.S. military’s last draw in a major war was some 70 years ago in South Korea. We won the First Gulf War of 1991, but lost the brief peace by insanely allowing Saddam Hussein, in defeat and humiliation, to slaughter the Kurds and Shias. A decade of no-fly-zones and Iraq 2.0 followed.
The Iraq War (2003-2010) was finally won in 2008. But then Obama yanked out U.S. troops, ISIS absorbed much of the country, and Trump really did have to “bomb the sh*t out of ISIS” to restore the country to whatever it is now.
Our Clinton/Rice/Power Libyan bombing misadventure ruined that country.
An enclave in Kabul and at Bagram might have allowed us to operate strategically from Afghanistan. But Biden fled in shame, turned over $50 billion or more in U.S. military equipment, a new embassy, and a huge, remodeled air base to the terrorist Taliban.
Currently we allot $842 billion to the Pentagon. Yet it is short on artillery shells, hand-held anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles, Patriot batteries, and in general planes, ships, and personnel. With all that cash, how can it be lacking 16,000 Army recruits with lesser shortfalls in other branches?
What has happened to our armed forces? Note well the following in random order:
1. The current Chairman of the Joint Chiefs called up his communist Chinese counterpart to reassure him that should President Donald Trump give him a dangerous order, he would first notify the Chinese. Gen. Milley in addition violated his advisory role and the chain-of-command by ordering theater commanders in all matters of nuclear weapons to contact him first rather than the Secretary of Defense who reports directly to the President.
2. Both Gen. Milley and Secretary Austin testified that they were rooting out white supremacists and investigating something called “white rage” along with “white privilege.”
Neither general defined his terms or brought in data supporting such sweeping charges. The only detectable privilege that non-commissioned white males seem to enjoy in the U.S. military is their characteristic disproportionate rate of death in combat zones in Iraq and Afghanistan, where they were killed at twice their numbers in the general population. But then to cite such a macabre statistic draws the ire of the Pentagon, a bureaucracy known for keeping tabs on every aspect of race and gender—except death in battle.
3. I will not name names. But anyone in 10 minutes can google the recent Secretaries of Defense, the retired members of the Joint Chiefs, the retired heads of the Air Force, Army, Marines, and Navy and then identify what particular defense contractor or lobbing firm they currently work for, which has multimillion- (or multibillion-) dollar contracts with the Pentagon. On the one hand the generals and admirals have expertise in the weaponry we need; on the other they advocate for the weaponry we must buy on the basis of who is now paying their gargantuan salaries.
4. There used to be something called the Uniform Code of Military Justice that prohibited active and retired senior officers from disparaging or using “contemptuous words” against officials of any branch of the U.S. government or any state government, especially the President of the United States.
Does it still exist? If so, why did a number of four-star retired generals variously label their president a “liar,” a “Mussolini,” Nazi-like, or suggest he leave office not during scheduled elections but “the sooner the better”? Some retired officers of lesser rank called for a veritable coup to remove the president. None were sanctioned or cited, much less brought up on charges.
So how can we reform the calcified and bloated Pentagon?
1. Reiterate that the Joint Chiefs are advisors. Any of them who interfere in the chain of command or consult with our enemies will be brought up on court-martial charges.
2. Retiring generals should be prohibited from serving as either military contractor lobbyists or to serve on the boards of military contractors for five years upon retirement.
3. Any retired high-ranking officer violating article 88 of the UCMJ will be subject to court-martial and if convicted have his pension revoked.
4. Race and gender will not be criteria for promotion. Only proven excellence in the conduct of military operations will be the basis of adjudicating tenure and promotion.
5. The U.S. military must maintain a depot of weaponry sufficient to fight two wars simultaneously for one year. No weapons will be sold or given away abroad unless our stocks of military supplies and weapons are maintained at these levels.
6. Recruitment will not emphasize differences in race, gender, or sexual orientation but instead emphasize unity and battlefield excellence, ensuring sex, race, and sexual preference are incidental not essential to military personas.
7. Retired military officers, and CIA and FBI personnel who appear as paid analysts on opinion news programs shall surrender their security clearances.
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