A former Army officer says former President Barack Obama’s social engineering policies did great harm to the U.S. military and the nation is still “paying a price” for it.
Former U.S. Army Captain James Hasson—a decorated Afghanistan veteran and now a contributor to the Washington Examiner—appeared on Tucker Carlson Tonight Monday evening to talk about his new book, Stand Down: How Social Justice Warriors Are Sabotaging America’s Military.
“The Army that I joined during Barack Obama’s first term was nothing like the Army that I left at the end of his second, Hasson said. “Social justice warriors imposed a progressive agenda on the military with no regard for the harm they caused to military readiness or national security. We’re still paying the price and the American people deserve to know.”
“Traditionally conservatives believe that the left goes after the military by inadequately funding it—just not giving it enough money,” Carlson noted. “You describe in this book something that is far more sinister and effective where they basically try to rot it from the inside.”
Hasson replied that the Left just has “a fundamentally different view of what the military is about.”
As an example, he cited Barack Obama’s undersecretary of defense Brad Carson, who once said his goal was to make the Department of Defense “the nation’s most progressive employer.”
“But the job of the military isn’t to be more woke than Apple or Google,” Hasson argued. “It’s to defend us all by preparing to fight and win the nation’s wars.”
Hasson cited some examples to describe how he believes the left is undermining the military.
“I think most Americans would be appalled to hear that [in] the Naval Academy—one of our premiere institutions—there are safe space signs outside instructors’ doors, military and civilian, saying that instructors have taken a sensitivity course called ‘Trans 101’ that is taught by contractors for Google.”
The American Military Partner Association–a 501(c)3 nonprofit that acts as a support network for LGBTQ service members and veterans—shared it’s Trans 101 recommendations for the military, which include:
- Ask about pronoun preference. If you make a mistake, briefly apologize and move on (and make a mental note to get it right next time). If you keep getting pronouns wrong for the same person, try harder. Practice at home if necessary.
- If someone else gets a pronoun wrong, take the time to correct them.
- If someone corrects you (whether it’s a trans person or an ally), try to avoid being defensive; e.g., avoid explaining how a preferred pronoun doesn’t match someone’s gender presentation.
In his book, excerpted at the Washington Examiner, Hasson describes a conference call in which the deputy assistant secretary of defense for military personnel policy foisted the new transgender policy on his unenthusiastic underlings.
Anthony Kurta announced, “There will be mixed genitalia in military bathrooms, showers, and billeting” on the call with Army Colonel Ron Crews and others. According to Hasson’s book:
Kurta explained that the new policy allowing transgender soldiers to serve according to their “gender identities” rather than their biological sex meant that a person whose gender identity and biological sex did not match would be allowed to use the barracks of the opposite sex.
Crews, a former chaplain, expressed concern about the privacy of female soldiers under the new policy and how it would effect recruiting and retention:
Crews: A larger proportion [of the force] comes from the Southeast U.S. than from any other region of the country—the so-called Bible Belt. . . . Don’t you think that moms and dads will have some second thoughts about encouraging particularly their daughters to join a military where their daughters may be exposed? If we have an 18-year-old female coming from an evangelical Christian home, and she’s in a two-person billet [and receives a transgender roommate who is biologically male], this young lady will have no recourse, correct? If she complains, she’s the one in the wrong—is that correct?
Kurta: That’s correct.
Crews: Don’t you think that’s going to raise concerns for recruiting?
Kurta: I believe Americans will be proud that our military is leading the way in this social transformation.
A Marine chaplain with a decade and a half of service had a nearly-identical, albeit slightly more personal experience with Kurta. After Kurta made similar statements in a meeting with a collection of chaplains at the Pentagon, this particular chaplain approached him and asked if he was serious.
He said Kurta “looked me right in the eye and said, ‘Hey look, there will be mixed-genitalia in our berthing areas, in our barracks, and it’s good for America.’” The chaplain cut to what should have been the heart of the issue, asking Kurta, “Wow sir, do you really believe that? This is going to make us better at warfighting?” Kurta simply replied, “Well, that’s just the way it is.”
President Trump nominated Kurta to be the head of military personnel and readiness in July 2017, and withdrew the nomination nearly a year later.
Hasson told Carlson that the Obama Administration also lowered standards in military schools to allow for more female soldiers and officers
“After the first female soldiers graduated from Army Ranger school, a significant number of whistle-blowers contacted Congressman Steve Russell from the House Arms Services Committee and told him that they had been pressured to pass the first candidates and that standards hadn’t been followed, but the Obama DOD stonewalled Russell for months, refused to meet with him, and then told him that the documents that he had requested had mostly been shredded,” he said.
Hasson said that he was able to obtain some of those documents and published them in his book and it showed that the whistleblowers were telling the truth.
“Mattis said these social justice demands impose harms that will only be evident to our political class after military failure,” Hasson told Carlson. “So my book, Stand Down shows that we’re still paying the price for Barack Obama’s social engineering in the military and it serves as a warning that if progressives retake the White House in 2020, we can expect the harm to military readiness and national security to be huge.”
Here's the second half of the segment, about how the Obama DoD told a member of the House Armed Services Committee—a man who commanded a battalion that helped catch Saddam Hussein no less—that records he requested had been shredded. But I obtained them and I'm publishing them. pic.twitter.com/E0xiENa9yh
— James Hasson (@JamesHasson20) August 27, 2019