{"id":1580051,"date":"2022-07-30T07:18:48","date_gmt":"2022-07-30T11:18:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1580051"},"modified":"2022-07-30T07:18:53","modified_gmt":"2022-07-30T11:18:53","slug":"marine-officer-discharged-for-blasting-afghanistan-debacle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/marine-officer-discharged-for-blasting-afghanistan-debacle\/","title":{"rendered":"Marine Officer Discharged for Blasting Afghanistan Debacle"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">14<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fmarine-officer-discharged-for-blasting-afghanistan-debacle%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1580051&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><\/div>\n<p>Somewhat lost in the outrage over Joe Biden\u2019s unforgivable Afghanistan withdrawal was <a href=\"https:\/\/redstate.com\/streiff\/2021\/08\/27\/this-marine-battalion-commander-probably-burned-down-his-career-to-demand-accountability-for-chain-of-command-failures-in-afghanistan-n433726\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Marine Lieutenant Colonel Stuart Scheller Jr<\/a>., who put his career on the line in late August 2021, when he called out his chain of command over the disastrous efforts to evacuate the war-torn country.<\/p>\n<p>Lt. Col. Scheller was <a href=\"https:\/\/redstate.com\/bonchie\/2021\/09\/27\/marine-who-criticized-deadly-afghanistan-withdrawal-thrown-in-the-brig-n448831\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">imprisoned<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/redstate.com\/bonchie\/2021\/10\/15\/marine-who-was-imprisoned-for-speaking-against-afghanistan-incompetence-receives-surprise-sentence-n457366\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">court-martialed<\/a>, and ultimately <a href=\"https:\/\/redstate.com\/mike_miller\/2021\/08\/29\/marine-officer-relieved-of-duty-for-slamming-leaders-over-afghanistan-debacle-issues-blistering-warning-n434835\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">relieved of duty<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>In an <a href=\"https:\/\/humanevents.com\/2022\/07\/28\/scheller-the-american-military-is-promoting-cowardice\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">opinion piece<\/a> published at Human Events on Thursday, Scheller absolutely told it like it is, blasting the Armed Forces of the United States, as decimated by their \u201ccommander\u201d in chief Joe Biden, Secretary of Defense <a href=\"https:\/\/redstate.com\/sister-toldjah\/2021\/09\/28\/what-lloyd-austin-wouldnt-say-to-tom-cotton-about-advisement-on-afghanistan-troop-levels-spoke-volumes-n449043\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Lloyd Austin<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/redstate.com\/nick-arama\/2021\/09\/16\/chinas-behavior-now-shows-the-danger-of-mark-milleys-actions-n444083\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Mark Milley<\/a>, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff \u2014 the proverbial <em>Three Stooges,<\/em> hellbent on crippling America\u2019s fighting forces with more emphasis on so-called \u201ccritical race theory,\u201d gender self-identification, pronouns, and LGBTQIA+ (LMNOP) rights than maintaining combat readiness.<\/p>\n<p>The bottom line, declared Scheller: \u201cThe American military is promoting cowardice.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Scheller began with his imprisonment:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Following the Afghanistan evacuation, I was imprisoned\u00a0for publicly\u00a0challenging\u00a0military leadership. Nearly a year later, Americans still don\u2019t appreciate the dire implications emanating from foundational issues in the U.S. military.\u00a0During critical moments when military leaders should be standing for American values, we instead find impressively dressed old men nodding \u201cyes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>When that unconditional obedience leads to disaster \u2013 as it did in Afghanistan and Benghazi \u2013 military leaders focus on managing political narratives to save their own careers. In doing so, they miss timely assessments of failure, and\u00a0inadvertently squander the sacrifices of selfless young servicemembers.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Austin and Milley \u2014 the \u201cwokest\u201d of the \u201cwoke\u201d were shamelessly unavailable for comment. Speaking of woke generals, Scheller took a different tack \u2014 and blasted the lack of moral courage.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Some blame the problem on \u201cwoke generals.\u201d But that\u2019s a catch-all term misdiagnosing the root problem: the American military is currently led by senior general officers lacking moral courage. Most Americans don\u2019t understand how this quality is actively filtered out by the military promotion system.<\/p>\n<p>Officers are easily influenced, focusing on pleasing superiors for high markings on subjective evaluations. When senior military leaders focus on pleasing their bosses for forty years (the time required to make four-star general) it\u2019s not surprising they consistently acquiesce to political whims at the expense of building effective combat power.<\/p>\n<p>In practice, they tolerate, even incentivize, silence during military failures. Thus, it\u2019s not surprising that General Mark Milley, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and General Kenneth McKenzie, the theater commander, remain entrenched in their position that the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/humanevents.com\/2021\/10\/19\/state-department-to-investigate-botched-afghanistan-withdrawal\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Afghanistan evacuation<\/a>\u00a0was a success. To say otherwise would end their career, or worse, threaten lucrative post-service positions within the oligopoly of government contracting firms.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Incidentally, as many of us observed at the time, Biden\u2019s Afghanistan debacle was never about <em>leaving<\/em> Afghanistan; it was about <em>how he left it,<\/em> including leaving an untold number of American civilians behind the lines of the most brutal terrorist organization on the planet.<\/p>\n<p>Scheller also took a couple of well-aimed shots at Gen. <a href=\"https:\/\/redstate.com\/streiff\/2020\/09\/10\/james-mattis-contemplated-going-seven-days-in-may-on-president-trump-n254005\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">James Mattis<\/a> and the aforementioned Lloyd Austin:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>General James Mattis went from General Dynamics to Secretary of Defense and then back to General Dynamics, impervious to scrutiny due to the supposed greatness of his military policies \u2013 which contained many failures.<\/p>\n<p>Secretary Lloyd Austin followed a similar path: from four-star to the board of Raytheon to Secretary of Defense. When the media (beholden to their own corporate interests) cover this at all, they often focus on irrelevant problems, only scratching the surface of the deep rot.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>While a growing number of patriotic Americans understand, to varying degrees, the failures of the military under Biden, Austin, and Milley, <em>the question<\/em> is, how to fix it? What must be done to <em>refocus<\/em> \u2014 from the top down \u2014 America\u2019s energies <em>on<\/em> combat readiness, first and foremost, and <em>away from<\/em> the continuing metastasizing of the left\u2019s woke, crock-of-crap, nonsense?<\/p>\n<p>As Scheller sees it, not top-down \u2014 the stringent M.O. of the U.S. military and the federal government alike \u2014 but bottom-up.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Reform must come from the ground up. Simply replacing \u201cwoke generals\u201d doesn\u2019t correct the system producing hollow military leaders. Fortunately, America has two decades of combat warriors, the best young talent, and the finest training facilities on the planet.<\/p>\n<p>The next generation of generals could potentially break the cycle of working just to impress their boss. Instead of people-pleasing and nepotism, competitions illustrating performance in warfighting should earn officers the fast track to promotion.<\/p>\n<p>But these reforms won\u2019t get anywhere if the military is not held accountable to itself and to the public. The Afghanistan evacuation exemplified military failure, but America failed to hold anyone accountable.<\/p>\n<p>Accountability forces acknowledgment that in addition to pleasing superiors, senior military leaders must fight wars effectively. If nobody demands effective warfighting, the demoralizing failures will continue.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>At the end of the day, it\u2019s still all about \u201creal leadership,\u201d Scheller admonished:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Without real leadership, the cracks in the military foundation continue widening. The obvious problems cannot go unidentified much longer without great risk to the American people. Americans desperately need courageous leaders willing to confront and reform our deeply flawed systems.<\/p>\n<p>Fix the leaders, fix the culture, and watch as all other problems self-correct. The American military truly finds itself in a crisis of command.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Again, Joe Biden, Lloyd Austin, and Mark Milley were unavailable for comment.<\/p>\n<p>Wouldn\u2019t <em>you be,<\/em> if you were one of them?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Somewhat lost in the outrage over Joe Biden\u2019s unforgivable Afghanistan withdrawal was Marine Lieutenant Colonel Stuart Scheller Jr., who put his career on the line in late August 2021, when<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1580180,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1580051","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1580051","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1580051"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1580051\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1580180"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1580051"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1580051"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1580051"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}