In the weeks before President Joe Biden’s disastrous withdrawal from
Afghanistan
, the Pentagon insisted the Afghan military would withstand the Taliban’s offensive. Kabul wouldn’t fall, Gen. Mark Milley reassured us.
After the Afghan military crumbled, many started to suspect the Pentagon had lied. Obviously, the tens of billions of dollars we spend on intelligence should have given us the ability to detect this sudden collapse. Milley’s excuse was that the Pentagon wasn’t dishonest — just incompetent.
“There was nothing that I or anybody else saw that indicated a collapse of this army and this government in 11 Days,” Milley told reporters.
Pentagon leadership would rather we think they are incapable than dishonest. Unfortunately, they are both. Take, for example, the claims made by both Milley and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin that the military has not been captured by Leftism. If that is so, then what do you call a $90 million research and development contract awarded based on race other than “woke”? Because that’s what just happened with the Pentagon’s newly announced
five-year, $90 million research contract
awarded to Howard University.
Austin even admitted in his remarks that race played a deciding factor in the awarding of the contract. “Only a tiny fraction of the Defense Department’s research funding goes to [historically black colleges and universities],” he said. “You know, that just doesn’t add up. And as secretary of defense, I’m determined to change that.”
Austin’s role as secretary of defense isn’t to make sure that our research and development contracts are given out to people of the right race. He is supposed to be focused on keeping the nation safe. The quality of the research is what matters, not the skin color of the people performing the research. This used to be obvious, but apparently now it needs to be said out loud.
Austin has misled Congress before,
denying that China is ahead of the U.S. in the development of hypersonic weapons
. Something makes me doubt that China is awarding research contracts based on race.
In Austin’s defense, the Pentagon is merely following its commander in chief’s lead. On his first day in office, Biden called for an “ambitious whole-of-government equity agenda.” “Equity” is another word for socialism. Instead of equal opportunity, equity seeks identical results for everyone — or as Vice President Kamala Harris put it, “equitable treatment means we all end up at the same place.” In practice, this policy has led to
an illegal, race-based
attempt to forgive loans only for black farmers, among other things.
Austin wants to replicate such policies at the
Department of Defense
. He remarked at the event announcing the contract to Howard that the Pentagon is “committed to investing even more in HBCUs and minority-serving institutions.”
Republicans must put an end to this. Not only is the pursuit of “equity” immoral, but it’s most certainly no way to run a military. I’m determined to use the annual defense spending bill to uproot this sort of nonsense. Austin must prioritize winning wars, not winning applause from liberals.
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Matt Gaetz represents Florida’s 1st Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives.
