There’s An Easy Solution If The Pentagon Is Really Worried About ‘National Security’: Stop Subsidizing Abortion
If Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville doesn’t halt his protest of the Pentagon’s abortion policy, the United States could literally become engulfed in World War III. Sounds a bit melodramatic, doesn’t it? Not according to Secretaries Carlos Del Toro (Navy), Frank Kendall (Air Force), and Christine Wormuth (Army), who all but said as much in their new Washington Post opinion column.
Published on Monday, the 800-plus word screed is an obvious attempt by President Biden’s Defense Department to pressure Tuberville into abandoning his protest of the Pentagon’s use of taxpayer money to cover service members’ travel expenses and paid time off to get abortions. Contrary to the narrative framed by the Biden administration and their legacy media allies, Tuberville is not blocking votes, but is forcing the Senate Armed Services Committee to vote on each nomination individually rather than voting “en masse on large numbers of nominations.”
Throughout their column, the secretaries lament Tuberville’s protest and claim he’s “putting [U.S.] national security at risk.” If that talking point sounds familiar, it’s because it’s been repeatedly parroted by regime-approved media and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, a Biden appointee, to justify their attacks against Tuberville.
“Thus far, the hold has prevented the Defense Department from placing almost 300 of our most experienced and battle-tested leaders into critical posts around the world,” the secretaries wrote.
Ah yes, who could forget “battle-tested leaders” such as Air Force Col. Benjamin Jonsson, a Biden nominee who penned an article weeks after George Floyd’s death claiming “white colonels” are the “biggest barriers” to addressing so-called “racial injustice” in the U.S. military? Or Air Force Gen. Charles Q. Brown, another Biden nominee who happens to be a major proponent of neo-Marxist ideologies like what is euphemistically dubbed diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI)?
With leaders like this, China and Russia will surely be quaking in their boots!
Del Toro, Kendall, and Wormuth’s attempt to feign concerns about “national security” and the alleged effect Tuberville’s protest is having on nominees and their families falls flat for a few reasons. First, at no point in their article do they call on the Pentagon to abandon its abortion travel policy. In fact, the secretaries do the exact opposite by defending the policy and playing partisan word games by referring to abortion — the killing of an unborn child — merely as “reproductive health.”
“After the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, this policy is critical and necessary to meet our obligations to the force,” the secretaries wrote, citing an opinion by the Biden Department of Justice (DOJ) declaring that the policy is totally legit. Because as we all know, the DOJ — which has a history of unlawfully targeting pro-life activists — can be trusted to tell us what’s constitutional and what’s not.
Second, the secretaries’ column is unserious because of their invented claim that Tuberville’s protest will have a “corrosive effect on the force” by making other officers choose to leave the service. If that’s the case, then why did more than 3,000 military veterans and active-duty troops sign a letter expressing support for Tuberville’s actions and calling on the Pentagon to drop its abortion travel policy?
The secretaries seem to believe the actions of a single senator could have such detrimental effects on military recruiting and retention, but not the DEI policies Biden’s Pentagon is pushing on service members right now. I’ve written in these pages on numerous occasions about the military’s ongoing recruiting crisis and consistent failure to bring enough new talent into service. If these secretaries spent as much time worrying about their own branches’ failures to meet existing recruitment targets instead of lashing out at Tuberville over his lawful protest, then maybe our military wouldn’t be in such dire straits.
At the end of the day, the secretaries’ alleged concerns about “national security” and “the children!” are not to be taken seriously. If either of these things were truly that important to the Pentagon, it would have dropped its baby-killing policy months ago when Tuberville first started his protest.
The attacks on Tuberville, however, have nothing to do with military readiness or the lives of U.S. service members and their families. It’s about Democrats using any and every avenue and institution to advance the leftist cause.
Shawn Fleetwood is a staff writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He previously served as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClearHealth, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood
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