Yesterday, as I left you, I said:
“In the next war, our technology and superior logistics won’t always enable us to do a ‘20 Days to Baghdad.’ It will be a brutal fight; superior technology and logistics will only carry us so far. It will take American troops led by a well trained Officer Corps that has the right mettle: physical, mental and moral, to lead them successfully, to make the tough decisions, to be the selfless leaders…and bring them back home alive. What is the answer? Stay Tuned.”
Here we are. What is the answer? Well, it’s sorta like this. Did you ever have to make some minor repairs on your house? You open up a wall to put in a new electrical switch, only to find out that your wiring is that old cat gut garbage and for some reason, that particular circuit (20 Amp) is also pushing your air conditioner, hot water heater, AND your electric stove. By the time you stop digging, it’s been necessary to completely rewire your house, refill the A/C with Freon and, for some apparently unrelated reason, install a new septic tank.
The Rapone and Vindman affairs remind me of the above adventure in homeownership. We see a Twitter picture of a West Point Cadet at his graduation, modeling a Che Guevara T-shirt and a “communism will win” sign. Upon further digging, we find letters and statements from former faculty members that declare “If the Academy didn’t have low standards, they wouldn’t have any standards at all.” One such member recalled a confrontation with Rapone that resulted in the faculty member being chastised.
Still and all, this should be an easy fix right? Get the Academy Superintendent and the Commandant on board, focusing on training warriors, warriors being worthy of that Presidential Commission (there’s that word again). Instead, we discover another issue. The issue of a very senior leader, the Supe, as reported by my good friend and colleague Captain Stu Cvrk, U.S. Navy (Ret) and Annapolis graduate, is busily having Cadets go through diversity training, including “gender norms.” Yeah, that will get our future warrior leaders up to par.
The Army isn’t the only “easy” home repair gone awry. Remember the case of Navy CPO Gallagher, whose Court Martial was so tainted by prosecutorial misconduct, that all but one of the charges had to be dropped and the President as Commander in Chief, was forced to pardon Gallagher? That should have been the end of it. At that point, the Navy leadership should have figured out that they had a problem. Instead, they opened up yet another piece of wall by stating that they would administratively take Gallagher’s Trident (SEAL qualification badge) effectively poking their Commander in Chief right in the eye. The President responded with a characteristic tweet telling them…
“The Navy will NOT be taking away Warfighter and Navy Seal Eddie Gallagher’s Trident Pin. This case was handled very badly from the beginning. Get back to business!”
Rot. Up and down the chain. What is the answer? I got partly there during a segment of the David Webb Show.** A caller named “John,” brought up the boiling frog analogy, pointing out that this state of affairs didn’t get to this spot overnight. It took decades. John opined that sometimes the shifts to the left were fairly rapid, as under Clinton (homosexuals in the military) and Obama (women in close combat formations and Special Operations Forces). Others were more glacial…but steady, as leftists used lawfare to delay or disrupt, sometimes even to reverse conservative gains.
Back to the home repair analogy. We keep digging and digging, finding one issue after another—issues that have obviously taken decades to fester and rot. We could bulldoze the entire house down and start over. We did that back in 1776. I’d really prefer not to do that. I’m really too old to put on a ballistic vest & brain bucket and pick up a rifle. But, we don’t need to go that far.
The foundation of our house is fairly strong. Our Constitution, with one or two aberrant amendments, is a fairly solid foundation. What we need to do is build on that foundation by thinking tactically and strategically. Fortunately, we have a President who does that. His tactical decisions, the Executive Orders and Regulations have unleashed industry and powered a booming economic recovery. But those are subject to being overturned with the stroke of a pen should some leftist again occupy 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Interestingly, when it’s an American President attempting to revoke a leftist predecessor’s EO’s, somehow, some courts find that “unconstitutional.” More on that later.
Tactically, our President can do the same in our Armed Forces. He can start (and has) sending Flag Officers of doubtful integrity home to Fort Living Room. He can replace them with officers he personally selects, per his Article II, Section 3 mandate to “… Commission all the Officers of the United States.” That means not only civilian cabinet appointees, but also military officers.
President Trump can also selectively thin the personnel slots as he has in the National Security Council, making it leaner, more responsible and with far fewer statists. However, like Executive Orders and regulations, these promotions/appointments and dismissals can also be undone by the stroke of a pen. That’s why we need some strategic measures. Measures that will if not prevent, then ameliorate the effects of a future leftist occupying the Oval Office.
Strategic Measure Number One…and the singularly most important thing this POTUS can do — and continue doing with our support in November — is to keep moving the courts to the right. As I’ve indicated elsewhere, a friendly, nationwide Federal Court system, is the single most important battlefield enabler we Conservatives can put in place. A court system that understands that, although there might be three genders (in language studies), there are only two sexes, male and female. That court system we emplace will also understand that carbon dioxide is plant food, not a “pollutant” as declared by one SCOTUS opinion.
Here’s what else taking back control of our court system will help. It will help us promote the moral high ground. It will help us promote the protection of helpless babies in the womb. It will not demand the ludicrous and dangerous concept of “sexual equality” on the battlefield. It will enable conservative presidents to make the much-needed changes in our military that eliminate “gender fluid classes” and instead focus on Lethality, Combat Effectiveness, Sustainability, Cost Effectiveness, Readiness, Deterrence and a host of other metrics by which we evaluate our ability to kill people and break things on behalf of National Command Authority objectives…and bring our troops home alive and with no parts missing.
Strategic Measure Number Two…Here’s where we need to get busy. Knock on wood, President Trump will beat the fat fundament of whatever man, woman, or other that the leftists put up. What we need to be thinking about now, is 2024–not only for POTUS but also the down-ballot…all the way down to the statehouses. This is where we as citizens, make the real strategic impact. Which brings us to…
Strategic Measure Number Three. We need to take back the statehouses we have lost. Virginia should be a wake-up call. Each and every day, the newly empowered leftists there, come up with yet another unconstitutional outrage. Listen carefully; statehouses and governorships, control the National Guard. County elections, choose Sheriffs. States’ National Guard and local Sheriffs, who are responsible to their constituents, are the final defense against Federal overreach. They provide a pillar of authority that ordinary citizens can rally around if needed. Repeat—The. Final. Defense.
By necessity (digital ink is extremely expensive) this piece does no true justice to all the things we need to do going forward. I would ask that Red State readers offer some additional solutions in the comments. No matter what, the President — Donald J. Trump or his successor — cannot do it all. We need to help.
** The David Webb Show is on Sirius XM, Channel 125, M-F 0900-1200 EST
Mike Ford, a retired Infantry Officer, writes on Military, Foreign Affairs and occasionally dabbles in Political and Economic matters.Â
Read more by Mike Ford
“In the next war, our technology and superior logistics won’t always enable us to do a ‘20 Days to Baghdad.’ It will be a brutal fight; superior technology and logistics will only carry us so far. It will take American troops led by a well trained Officer Corps that has the right mettle: physical, mental and moral, to lead them successfully, to make the tough decisions, to be the selfless leaders…and bring them back home alive. What is the answer? Stay Tuned.”
Here we are. What is the answer? Well, it’s sorta like this. Did you ever have to make some minor repairs on your house? You open up a wall to put in a new electrical switch, only to find out that your wiring is that old cat gut garbage and for some reason, that particular circuit (20 Amp) is also pushing your air conditioner, hot water heater, AND your electric stove. By the time you stop digging, it’s been necessary to completely rewire your house, refill the A/C with Freon and, for some apparently unrelated reason, install a new septic tank.
The Rapone and Vindman affairs remind me of the above adventure in homeownership. We see a Twitter picture of a West Point Cadet at his graduation, modeling a Che Guevara T-shirt and a “communism will win” sign. Upon further digging, we find letters and statements from former faculty members that declare “If the Academy didn’t have low standards, they wouldn’t have any standards at all.” One such member recalled a confrontation with Rapone that resulted in the faculty member being chastised.
Still and all, this should be an easy fix right? Get the Academy Superintendent and the Commandant on board, focusing on training warriors, warriors being worthy of that Presidential Commission (there’s that word again). Instead, we discover another issue. The issue of a very senior leader, the Supe, as reported by my good friend and colleague Captain Stu Cvrk, U.S. Navy (Ret) and Annapolis graduate, is busily having Cadets go through diversity training, including “gender norms.” Yeah, that will get our future warrior leaders up to par.
The Army isn’t the only “easy” home repair gone awry. Remember the case of Navy CPO Gallagher, whose Court Martial was so tainted by prosecutorial misconduct, that all but one of the charges had to be dropped and the President as Commander in Chief, was forced to pardon Gallagher? That should have been the end of it. At that point, the Navy leadership should have figured out that they had a problem. Instead, they opened up yet another piece of wall by stating that they would administratively take Gallagher’s Trident (SEAL qualification badge) effectively poking their Commander in Chief right in the eye. The President responded with a characteristic tweet telling them…
“The Navy will NOT be taking away Warfighter and Navy Seal Eddie Gallagher’s Trident Pin. This case was handled very badly from the beginning. Get back to business!”
Rot. Up and down the chain. What is the answer? I got partly there during a segment of the David Webb Show.** A caller named “John,” brought up the boiling frog analogy, pointing out that this state of affairs didn’t get to this spot overnight. It took decades. John opined that sometimes the shifts to the left were fairly rapid, as under Clinton (homosexuals in the military) and Obama (women in close combat formations and Special Operations Forces). Others were more glacial…but steady, as leftists used lawfare to delay or disrupt, sometimes even to reverse conservative gains.
Back to the home repair analogy. We keep digging and digging, finding one issue after another—issues that have obviously taken decades to fester and rot. We could bulldoze the entire house down and start over. We did that back in 1776. I’d really prefer not to do that. I’m really too old to put on a ballistic vest & brain bucket and pick up a rifle. But, we don’t need to go that far.
The foundation of our house is fairly strong. Our Constitution, with one or two aberrant amendments, is a fairly solid foundation. What we need to do is build on that foundation by thinking tactically and strategically. Fortunately, we have a President who does that. His tactical decisions, the Executive Orders and Regulations have unleashed industry and powered a booming economic recovery. But those are subject to being overturned with the stroke of a pen should some leftist again occupy 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Interestingly, when it’s an American President attempting to revoke a leftist predecessor’s EO’s, somehow, some courts find that “unconstitutional.” More on that later.
Tactically, our President can do the same in our Armed Forces. He can start (and has) sending Flag Officers of doubtful integrity home to Fort Living Room. He can replace them with officers he personally selects, per his Article II, Section 3 mandate to “… Commission all the Officers of the United States.” That means not only civilian cabinet appointees, but also military officers.
President Trump can also selectively thin the personnel slots as he has in the National Security Council, making it leaner, more responsible and with far fewer statists. However, like Executive Orders and regulations, these promotions/appointments and dismissals can also be undone by the stroke of a pen. That’s why we need some strategic measures. Measures that will if not prevent, then ameliorate the effects of a future leftist occupying the Oval Office.
Strategic Measure Number One…and the singularly most important thing this POTUS can do — and continue doing with our support in November — is to keep moving the courts to the right. As I’ve indicated elsewhere, a friendly, nationwide Federal Court system, is the single most important battlefield enabler we Conservatives can put in place. A court system that understands that, although there might be three genders (in language studies), there are only two sexes, male and female. That court system we emplace will also understand that carbon dioxide is plant food, not a “pollutant” as declared by one SCOTUS opinion.
Here’s what else taking back control of our court system will help. It will help us promote the moral high ground. It will help us promote the protection of helpless babies in the womb. It will not demand the ludicrous and dangerous concept of “sexual equality” on the battlefield. It will enable conservative presidents to make the much-needed changes in our military that eliminate “gender fluid classes” and instead focus on Lethality, Combat Effectiveness, Sustainability, Cost Effectiveness, Readiness, Deterrence and a host of other metrics by which we evaluate our ability to kill people and break things on behalf of National Command Authority objectives…and bring our troops home alive and with no parts missing.
Strategic Measure Number Two…Here’s where we need to get busy. Knock on wood, President Trump will beat the fat fundament of whatever man, woman, or other that the leftists put up. What we need to be thinking about now, is 2024–not only for POTUS but also the down-ballot…all the way down to the statehouses. This is where we as citizens, make the real strategic impact. Which brings us to…
Strategic Measure Number Three. We need to take back the statehouses we have lost. Virginia should be a wake-up call. Each and every day, the newly empowered leftists there, come up with yet another unconstitutional outrage. Listen carefully; statehouses and governorships, control the National Guard. County elections, choose Sheriffs. States’ National Guard and local Sheriffs, who are responsible to their constituents, are the final defense against Federal overreach. They provide a pillar of authority that ordinary citizens can rally around if needed. Repeat—The. Final. Defense.
By necessity (digital ink is extremely expensive) this piece does no true justice to all the things we need to do going forward. I would ask that Red State readers offer some additional solutions in the comments. No matter what, the President — Donald J. Trump or his successor — cannot do it all. We need to help.
** The David Webb Show is on Sirius XM, Channel 125, M-F 0900-1200 EST
Mike Ford, a retired Infantry Officer, writes on Military, Foreign Affairs and occasionally dabbles in Political and Economic matters.Â
Read more by Mike Ford
