https://amgreatness.com/2025/03/03/who-really-politicized-the-pentagon/
Is the era of rounding up government or academic “experts” to declare their support or opposition to ongoing controversies over?
Public declarations by Anthony Fauci and his associates to follow their “expertise” or “science” did not work out well and persuaded few.
Recall the 1,200 partisan healthcare “professionals” of June 2020 who flipped to assure us that it was mysteriously now medically OK to break quarantines—but only if to publicly protest during the post-George Floyd unrest.
Do we remember the “70 arms control and nuclear experts?” In 2015, they were collected by Obama subordinates to convince America to embrace the flawed administration’s so-called Iran Deal.
In 2021, “Seventeen recipients of the Nobel Memorial Prize in economic sciences” assured there would follow no inflation from the Biden administration’s massive borrowing and spending.
Hyperinflation followed.
Most recently, five former Secretaries of Defense—William Perry, Leon Panetta, Chuck Hagel, James Mattis, and Lloyd Austin—co-authored a public letter to Congress. They blasted the Trump administration’s dismissals from command of several generals—including the current chairman of the joint chiefs, General C. Q. Brown Jr.
They argued that such firings were political and thus would weaken the military and depress recruitment. As a result, they demanded congressional investigations.
Oversight of anything in government is always welcomed. But there are a number of inconsistencies in the letter that unfortunately diminish the force of its argument.
First, firing generals is hardly new. Many presidents have relieved commanding officers—even wartime combat theater commanders—without much, if any, explanation.
Consider just one recent pre-Trump presidency—the tenure of Barack Obama. He fired Gen. David McKiernan as commander of all American troops in Afghanistan. And he did so without much explanation.
