WASHINGTON: In an impassioned speech today, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff struck back broadly at Republican charges that the US military is harming unit cohesion and injecting racism into the services by exposing troops to the teachings of critical race theory.
The money quote: “I want to understand white rage, and I’m white.”
But the exchange during a House Armed Services Committee hearing was much more charged than that. It began with the now standard charges by Republicans that any apparent endorsement or teaching of critical race theory by the US military is a threat to unit cohesion and can itself be a cause of racism.
Then Rep. Matt Gaetz, the prominent and embattled Trump supporter, raised the hackles of Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, pressing him in a fashion reminiscent of Sen. Joe McCarthy. He told Austin, who grew visibly angry, that “it is interesting to me that you have hired a critical race theorist to give you advice on personnel matters. And that person is Bishop Garrison.” Gaetz dredged up a tweet sent in 2019 by Garrison — one that has featured on a wide array of pro-Trump publications and TV shows since Garrison was named to head the Pentagon’s Counter Extremism Working Group. The tweet said: “President Trump, he’s dragging a lot of bad actors out into the sunlight, normalizing their actions. If you support the president you support racism. There is no room for nuance in this.”
Gaetz then asked Austin “what advice Mr. Garrison has given you, and are you concerned that while you testify publicly to our committee that the department doesn’t embrace critical race theory, you have hired someone who is precisely a critical race theorist.”
Gaetz told Austin he has heard from soldiers who have raised concerns about critical race theory.
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Austin, the first black Defense Secretary, was having none of it.
“And thanks for your anecdotal input, but I would say I’ve gotten 10 times that amount of input — 50 times the amount of input — on the other side that have said, ‘We are glad to have had a conversation with ourselves and our leadership.'”
As Gaetz began questioning Austin, Milley tried to speak. Gaetz cut him off, saying he was speaking to the defense secretary. Austin maintained his composure and the hearing continued. Then another HASC member offered her time to Milley, saying she thought he had something to say.
He did.
“First of all, on the issue of critical race theory, etc, we all obviously have to get much smarter on whatever the theory is. But I do think it’s important, actually, for those of us in uniform, to be open minded and be widely read. And the United States Military Academy is a university,” he said.
“And I want to know what caused thousands of people to assault this building and try to overthrow the Constitution of the United States of America. What caused that? I want to find that out. I want to maintain an open mind here.”
Appearing to refer back to the days of McCarthy, Milley said, “I’ve read Mao Zedong. I’ve read Karl Marx. I’ve read Lenin. That does not make me a communist.”
Looking at the range of lawmakers before him, Milley asked “what is wrong with understanding, having some situational understanding, about the country we are here to defend. And I personally find it offensive that we are accusing the United States military, our general officers, our commissioned, noncommissioned officers of being quote ‘woke,’ or something, because we’re studying some theories that are out there.”
Has Milley thought about critical race theory? Does he know of what he speaks?
“That was started at Harvard Law School, years ago, and it proposed that there were laws in the United States, Ante Bellum laws prior to the Civil War, that had to do with African-Americans that were three-quarters of a human being when this country was formed. And then we had a Civil War and an Emancipation Proclamation to change it, and we brought it up to the Civil Rights Act and it took another 100 years to change that.”
How all this will affect the Defense Department leaders relations with the GOP remains to be seen.