Background

Lloyd James Austin III was born on August 8, 1953, in Mobile, Alabama, and was raised in Thomasville, Georgia. He graduated with a B.S. degree from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 1975, and then promptly began his military service as an infantry second lieutenant. In 1981, Austin was assigned to command a company in the Army Recruiting Battalion in Indianapolis, Indiana. Upon completing that assignment, he attended Auburn University, where in 1986 he received a master’s degree in education. Austin was then assigned as a company tactical officer at West Point. In 1989 he earned an MBA degree from Webster University. His education also included Infantry Officer Basic and Advanced courses, as well as studies at the Army Command and General Staff College, and the Army War College.

Some additional highlights of Austin’s military career include the following:

• 1997-1999: Commander, 3rd Brigade of the 82nd Airborne in Fort Bragg, North Carolina
• 1999-2001: Chief of the Joint Operations Division, J-3, in Washington, D.C.
• 2001-2003: Assistant Division Commander for Maneuver for the 3rd Infantry Division
• 2003-2005: Commanding General of the 10th Mountain Division in Fort Drum, New York
• 2005-2006: Chief of Staff of the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), Unified Combat Command at MacDill Air Force Base, Florida
• 2006-2009: Commanding General of the 18th Airborne Corps; Commander of the Multi-National Corps in Fort Bragg; and Commander of the Multi-National Corps in Operation Iraqi Freedom
• 2009-2010: Director of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, U.S. Department of Defense
• 2010: Promoted to Four-Star General
• 2010-2011: Commanding General of the United States Force in Iraq
• January 31, 2012 to March 2013: Vice Chief of Staff for the U.S. Army
• March 2013 to March 2016:  Commander of the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM)

Austin’s Failed Fight Against ISIS

During the Obama administration, Secretary Austin was the CENTCOM commander and was in charge of the fight against ISIS in Iraq when that nation quickly fell to the terrorist group. He was tactically and operationally in charge of the area where ISIS captured hundreds of U.S. military tanks, vehicles, and other equipment and paraded those items around for the world to see. In 2015, Austin testified to Congress that a $500 million U.S. military program had only trained “4 or 5” Syrian rebels to join, and remain committed to, the battle against ISIS.  As ABC News reported on September 16, 2015:

“General Lloyd Austin, the commander of U.S. Central Command leading the war on ISIS, told Congress today that only ‘four or five’ of the first 54 U.S.-trained moderate Syrian fighters remain in the fight against ISIS. Christine Wormuth, the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, also told the Senate Armed Services Committee that there are currently between 100 and 120 fighters in a program that was slated to have trained 5,400 fighters in its first 12 months. […]

“The first 54 graduates of the program were re-inserted into northern Syria in July and were quickly attacked by the Al Nusra Front, the dominant Islamist rebel group in Syria. Though the attack was repelled with U.S. airstrikes, it was characterized as a major setback for the viability of the progam. When Austin was asked how many trained fighters remained in the fight, he responded ‘it’s a small number,’ before adding: ‘[T]he ones that are in the fight, we’re talking four or five.’”

Private Sector

After retiring from the U.S. military on April 5, 2016, Austin entered the private sector, where he founded the Austin Strategy Group, a firm devoted to promoting “business development” for its client companies. In 2016 as well, Austin joined the board of Raytheon Technologies, one of the world’s largest corporations dealing in the aerospace, intelligence services, and defense industries. On September 18, 2017, he was appointed to the board of Nucor, a steel production company based in North Carolina. On May 29, 2018, Austin became an independent director on the board of the Dallas-based corporation, Tenet Healthcare. And in July 2020 he became a partner at Pine Island Capital, an equity investment firm with which Antony Blinken and Michèle Flournoy have also been closely affiliated.

Secretary of Defense

On December 8, 2020, President Joe Biden named Austin as his nominee for the position of U.S. Secretary of Defense. But Austin, under the provisions of the National Security Act of 1947, was technically ineligible for that post because he had not yet been retired from active military duty for seven years; to be confirmed, he would need to be granted a congressional waiver. Congress gave Austin that waiver on January 21, 2021, by a 326–78 vote in the House and a 69–27 vote in the Senate. The next day, the Senate confirmed Austin by a vote of 93-2, making him the first black Secretary of Defense in American history. On January 25, he was sworn in ceremonially by Vice President Kamala Harris.

Supporting the Iran Nuclear Deal

During Austin’s Senate confirmation hearing on January 19, 2021, he voiced support for having America rejoin the Iran Nuclear Deal, from which President Trump had withdrawn the U.S. in 2018. Said Austin: “I would hope, and I think the president-elect [Biden] has been clear, that the pre-conditions for us considering to reenter into that agreement would be that Iran meet the conditions outlined in the agreement. Back to where they should have been. I would hope that as we enter into that agreement, we could have this discussion about when things sunset [i.e., when the deal’s various restrictions on Iran are scheduled to expire], and also take a look at some broader things that may or may not be a part of this treaty, but certainly things that I think need to be addressed. One of those things is ballistic missiles.”

Addressing the Matter of “Racists and Extremists” in the Military

During that same confirmation hearing, Austin vowed to rid the U.S. military of the many “racists and extremists” that allegedly had infiltrated its ranks. “The job of the Department of Defense is to keep America safe from our enemies,” he said. “But we can’t do that if some of those enemies lie within our own ranks.” Austin made those remarks with reference to the infamous January 6, 2021 incident where hundreds of unarmed people, claiming to be supporters of President Trump, had temporarily occupied the U.S. Capitol building in Washington to protest what they viewed as a stolen presidential election. Austin and his allies in the Biden Administration voiced concern regarding the fact that about 50 of those individuals were, as CBS News reported, “current or former military members.” But that seemingly ominous statistic was not nearly as significant as it may first have appeared, because only one of the 50 was an active-duty service member at the time, and just four were current part-time troops in the Army Reserve or National Guard.

On February 3, 2021, Austin began to make good on his promise to crack down on “racists and extremists” in the military when he announced a 60-day staggered pause and review – known in the military as a “stand down” – during which commanders and leaders across every branch of the Armed Services could search for evidence of domestic “extremism” among uniformed personnel. This process would include interviews with every service member vis-à-vis their experience with, and their observations of, extremist ideology and behavior among their peers.

Ties to the Southern Poverty Law Center

Austin and the Biden administration decided that in order to determine who was, or was not, a dangerous “extremist,” they would rely heavily on the judgment of the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) — an entity that routinely conflates traditional, respectable conservative organizations with fascist, skinhead, and neo-Nazi groups.

On February 10, 2021, the SPLC’s President and CEO, Margaret Huang, sent Lloyd Austin an unsolicited letter “to applaud your call for the service branches to conduct a 60-day stand-down on the issue of extremism in the military and to offer our expertise and full support for this important effort.” Asserting that “white supremacy ideology within the ranks is apparently disturbingly pervasive,” Huang urged Austin to:

• “expand and clarify existing prohibitions against advocating for, or involvement in, supremacist or extremist causes”;
• “tighten recruitment and screening processes for military enlistees to prevent induction of individuals with white supremacist and racist beliefs”;
• “immediately rename the ten US Army bases named for Confederate leaders”;
• “expand existing Marine Corps and Navy prohibitions against the display of the Confederate battle flag and other racist symbols”;
• “establish and integrate anti-racist programming, courses, and training against white supremacy and extremism … at US service academies”; and
• “institute annual … surveys to enable military personnel to anonymously report their exposure to white supremacy and extremist views during their service.”

“We deeply appreciate your leadership and early action to address and eliminate hate and extremism in the military,” Huang wrote in the final paragraph. “We would welcome an opportunity to meet with your staff to discuss initiatives, resources, and programs we believe could help in your mission.”

Absent from Huang’s letter was any mention of the widespread black extremism and black supremacy ideology that was on display throughout 2020, when Black Lives Matter played a prominent role in more than 600 full-blown, violent riots across the country.

Austin Establishes the Heavily Leftist “Countering Extremism Working Group”

On April 9, 2021, Defense Secretary Austin issued a memorandum announcing the establishment of a Countering Extremism Working Group (CEWG) to spearhead the military’s continued effort to locate and stamp out “extremism” in its ranks.

To lead the CEWG, Austin appointed his senior adviser on Human Capital and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, an African American named Bishop Garrison, a former director of Human Rights First. Garrison had made no secret of his profound contempt for former President Trump and the scores of millions of people who supported Trump. In July 2019, for example, Garrison said in a tweet: “Support for him [Trump], a racist, is support for ALL his beliefs. He’s dragging a lot of bad actors (misogynist, extremists, other racists) out into the light, normalizing their actions. If you support the President, you support that.” “There is no room for nuance with this,” Garrison added. “There is no more ‘but I’m not like that’ talk.”

Defense Secretary Austin’s decision to appoint Garrison to head the CEWG was even more significant in light of the fact that Garrison was a vocal supporter of the 1619 Project, an initiative whose overriding message is that the United States was born with the original sin of slavery and can never be redeemed. Garrison had put forth a passionate defense of the 1619 Project in an August 2019 essay where he wrote that America’s “hatred of communities of color and other vulnerable groups” is “deeply rooted in slavery, the treatment of African slaves, and the continued struggle of the black American community for equal treatment.” “Now, arguably more than at any time in recent history, we need to recognize that extremism, racist policies, and white supremacy stand as existential threats not only to American life but to the future of our country and others around the globe,” added Garrison.

While Defense Secretary Austin claimed that the CEWG “is not about politics or political views,” nearly all of the panel’s 18 members had supported Joe Biden and the Democrats in the 2020 elections. Author Daniel Greenfield pointed out that no fewer than 6 of the CEWG’s 18 members were radical Islamists who viewed the United States as a racist cesspool:

1) One Islamist member of Defense Secretary Austin’s CEWG was attorney Hina Shamsi, a Pakistani citizen who resided in the United States and headed the ACLU’s National Security Project. She had previously defended the Holy Land Foundation (HLF), a pseudo-charity that was created by the now-defunct “Palestine Committee,” which in turn was established by the Muslim Brotherhood to advance Hamas’s political and financial agendas in the United States. Shamsi also had advocated passionately on behalf of the Islamic terrorists being held at the Guantanamo Bay detention center. In January 2018, for instance, she characterized Guantanamo as a financial boondoggle that had inflicted “incalculable human suffering” on its inmates by means of “torture and unlawful indefinite detention.” “We all must pledge — not one person more in Guantanamo, not in our names,” Shamsi declared at that time.

2) Another Islamist member of Defense Secretary Austin’s CEWG was Faiza Patel, Co-Director of the Brennan Center for Justice’s Liberty & National Security Program. A Pakistani immigrant and possibly a citizen of that country, Patel co-authored a 2017 article arguing against the designation of the Muslim Brotherhood as a foreign terrorist entity, and describing it instead as “a religious organization, a political party, and a social service provider” that had “disavowed violence decades ago.” When testifying before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on May 18, 2021, Patel lamented “the persistent problem of white supremacist and far-right violence.”

3) A third Islamist member of Defense Secretary Austin’s CEWG was Manar Waheed, a Pakistani activist who served as a Senior Legislative & Advocacy Counsel with the ACLU. In September 2019 she had condemned the Trump administration’s decision to reduce refugee admissions to the U.S. as a “manifestation” of President Trump’s “anti-immigrant agenda” and his “discriminatory and hateful policies.” It seems never to have occurred to Ms. Waheed that Trump simply understood that it was impossible to adequately screen all aspiring refugees from countries that were chaotic hotbeds of terrorism and extremism. Indeed, high-ranking officials of the Obama administration – like FBI Director James Comey, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, and CIA Director John Brennan – had made this very same case years before.

4) A fourth Islamist member of Defense Secretary Austin’s CEWG was Wael Alzayat. Alzayat is the CEO of Emgage, a leftwing organization dedicated to increasing political involvement by Muslim Americans, who statistically are far more likely to support Democrats rather than Republicans. Daniel Greenfield wrote the following about Emgage’s radical nature: “The national co-chair and founding member of [Emgage] is Khurrum Wahid, who has been described as one of the country’s most prominent terror lawyers and whose clients [have included] an al Qaeda operative who plotted to kill President George W. Bush, and Sami al-Arian, who was linked to Islamic Jihad.” “Prior to creating Emgage,” wrote counterterrorism researcher Joe Kaufman, “Wahid served as a legal advisor for the national office of the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and a director of CAIR’s Florida chapter.” Moreover, Kaufman noted that Emgage “holds events at terror-linked mosques,” including one founded by Sami al-Arian, and another where “Dirty Bomber” Jose Padilla was a student.

5) A fifth Islamist member of Defense Secretary Austin’s CEWG was Iman Boukadoum, a staff attorney for the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), an organization that has spent many years justifying Islamic terrorism and extremism. In 1994, for instance, then-ADC president Hamzi Moghrabi said: “I will not call [Hamas] a terrorist organization. I mean, I know many people in Hamas. They are very respectable … I don’t believe Hamas … is a violent organization.” Two years later, Moghrabi’s successor, Hala Maksoud, said: “I find it shocking that [one] would include Hezbollah in … [an] inventory of Middle East ‘terrorist’ groups.” In 2000, new ADC president Hussein Ibish characterized Hezbollah as “a disciplined and responsible liberation force” whose members “conducted themselves in an exemplary manner.” And more than once, ADC co-founder James Abourezk has referred to Hamas and Hezbollah as “resistance fighters.”

6) A sixth Islamist member of Defense Secretary Austin’s CEWG was Ali Soufan, a “counter-terrorism expert” who co-authored a February 2020 article that said: “White supremacists today are organizing in a similar fashion to jihadist terrorist organizations, like Al Qaeda, in the 1980s and 1990s. They transcend national barriers with recruitment and dissemination of propaganda…. Yet despite these profound similarities, United States law has not caught up to the new threat we face. International white supremacist groups are still not designated as foreign terrorist organizations.”

In addition to the aforementioned six radical Islamists, Defense Secretary Austin’s CEWG also included three individuals with close ties to the Southern Poverty Law Center:

• One of those was Heidi Beirich, the former head of the SPLC’s Intelligence Project, which publishes a “Hatewatch” blog for the purpose of “monitor[ing] and expos[ing] the activities of the American radical right.”
• Another was Susan Corke, who became Director of the SPLC’s Intelligence Project in January 2021. Corke had falsely accused former President Trump of fomenting “riotous and deadly sedition” with his January 6^th “Stop the Steal” speech which was followed by the breaching of the Capitol by several hundred radicals who in fact had planned their action weeks before Trump delivered his speech. “For the longer term good and survival of our country,” Corke wrote on January 25, “impeachment [of Trump] is necessary because if this is not a high crime that deserves impeachment, then nothing is.”
• The third was the SPLC’s Chief of Staff, Lecia Brooks, who had written in October 2020: “These are hard times for Black America. It is a moment in our centuries-long struggle for racial equity in which we face more than these manifestations of persistent, structural white supremacy. The other threat facing us today goes beyond anti-Black racial bias. Our entire democratic system is under attack from the white nationalist movement.” This movement, she emphasized, is “committed to overthrowing the U.S. government to establish a whites-only nation.”

Another seat on Defense Secretary Austin’s CEWG was occupied by Michael Breen, the President and CEO of Human Rights First. Condemning what he described as Donald Trump’s “scheme” to “use public health as an excuse to close the border” during the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020, Breen had once stated: “The pandemic provided a perfect pretext for shutting down the U.S. asylum system at the border and expelling nearly all refugees to face danger in Mexico or the countries they fled.”

Another member of Defense Secretary Austin’s CEWG was Audrey Kurth Cronin, a professor at American University’s School of International Service. Viewing “extremism” as a problem associated mostly with conservatism, she claimed, without evidence, that “[n]othing occurring in association with Black Lives Matter protests and other racial unrest has approached … the level of today’s right-wing extremist violence.”

Yet another member of Defense Secretary Austin’s CEWG, the Anti-Defamation League-affiliated historian Mark Pitcavage, said that: “Problems related to white supremacy in the military can be traced back a century…. For some decades, each time the white supremacist movement has surged, that surge has been mirrored by a similar upswell within the armed forces…. Today it is happening again, as the U.S. is experiencing a surge in white supremacy propelled by the rise of the alt right, which has brought many young, newly-radicalized white males into the movement.”

The Anti-Defamation League was further represented on Defense Secretary Austin’s CEWG by the ADL’s national security analyst Ryan Greer, who had written in April 2019: “Though most Americans think of terrorism as Islamist-inspired, the numbers show that far-right terrorism has posed a greater danger to Americans.” Greer at that same time (April 2019) had also called for the leaders of Big Tech to be granted unchecked power to promote propaganda, suppress truth, and mandate intellectual conformity. Likening conservatives to bloodthirsty genocidal terrorists, Greer wrote:

“The private sector will have to do their part. When ISIS propaganda ran rife, the Obama Administration worked with Silicon Valley and others to take it down, spearheading efforts such as the shared database of terrorist content that Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter, and YouTube use to speed the process. Beyond just removing content, they should invest in ways to counter it, such as reducing algorithms’ likelihood of showing offensive content and redirecting risky searches to non-extremist sources.”

Another member of Defense Secretary Austin’s CEWG, Kathleen Belew, was an assistant professor of history at the University of Chicago who had authored the 2018 book, Bring the War Home: The White Power Movement and Paramilitary America. In a 2020 interview, Belew said: “[A]n earlier moment of white nationalism proper would have been the 1920s Klan, which is all about 100% Americanism and marching on the National Mall and trying to claim the nation as a space of whiteness. The people that I’m looking at are really not interested in that so much as they’re interested in overthrowing the country, expelling populations of color, killing racial enemies, and eventually trying to figure out either a white homeland or a white world.”

Austin Orders Hundreds of Trump Appointees in the Pentagon to Resign

By no means was the CEWG the only means by which Lloyd Austin had set out to purge America’s military of any members who held political opinions that differed from his. In his early days as Secretary of Defense, Austin ordered hundreds of former President Trump’s appointees from at least 31 Pentagon advisory boards and panels, to resign.

Austin Emphasizes Leftwing Indoctrination Regarding “Diversity,” “Equity,” & “White Supremacy”

Central to the worldview of the race-obsessed Defense Secretary Austin, is a belief that racism is America’s most salient and enduring feature. That belief animates Austin’s passionate crusade to impose racial “diversity” – by force – upon the military that he oversees. As Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby said in May 2021 about Austin: “He’s certainly concerned about the diversity at the senior levels of the department. And this is not just senior enlisted levels, but senior officer levels, admirals, and generals. The numbers [of nonwhites] are not very high.” “[Austin] also believes there’s a sense of urgency here,” added Kirby. “The time is now to start to grow that [nonwhite] talent and develop that talent and provide opportunities for that talent to continue to advance of the ranks.” And for anyone who might wonder whether “diversity” is in fact a worthy goal for an institution whose main purpose is to defend a nation rather than to serve as a social laboratory for leftwing dogmas, Kirby explained that Austin “strongly believes that diversity is a readiness issue because it allows different perspectives, additional context, different lived experiences to inform the way we make decisions in the policies that we craft, the operations that we lead.”

In accordance with Lloyd Austin’s priorities and with Biden Administration policy, the Defense Department and all branches of the U.S. Armed Forces resurrected the “sensitivity” and “diversity” training programs — founded upon the Marxist precepts of Critical Race Theory – that the Trump administration had banned from the federal workplace on grounds that they were “divisive” and “un-American” rituals teaching “that the United States is an inherently racist or evil country.”

After Austin became Defense Secretary, personnel affiliated with the U.S. military’s Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) were strongly encouraged to attend virtual conferences that indoctrinated them in race-based, leftwing ideology. For example, a 2021 conference on “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” included a panel on “Racism, White Supremacy and Anti-Racism,” which taught that “[r]acism is not a new thing but it seems as if recently [it] has gone mainstream.”

Another 2021 conference featured a panel titled “Black Emotional Lives Matter: Embedding Diversity and Inclusion in Your Approach to Employee Well-Being.” It explored such topics as: “the emotional tax paid by Black employees as they navigate the biases of a white-centric society and have to adapt to fit in with white-dominated work cultures”; “the psychic pain caused by micro-aggressions”; and “the emotional toll of exclusion.”

On May 25, 2021, thirty Republican House Members sent a letter to Defense Secretary Austin, each signatory individually urging him to take action against the growing left-wing extremism in the U.S. military. Representative Andy Biggs of Arizona, for one, wrote: “The United States military cannot afford to have politicized military leaders push their deranged wokeness on our fighting force [whose …] sole purpose is to defend our great nation and extinguish enemy threats. These sorry attempts to indoctrinate our forces with left-wing extremism not only weakens our mission but undermines the very security of our nation.”

In a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on June 10, 2021, Republican Senator Tom Cotton told Austin:

Mr. Secretary, I have received, along with Congressman Crenshaw, several hundred whistleblower complaints about Pentagon extremist and diversity training. I just want to share a small selection of what your troops are saying. … One Marine told us that a military history training session was replaced with mandatory training on police brutality, white privilege, and systemic racism. He reported several officers are now leaving his unit, citing that training.  Another service member told us that their unit was required to read [the book] White Fragility, by Robin DiAngelo, which claims, and this is a quote, “People raised in Western society are condition into a white supremacist worldview.”

A member of the Special Operations community has told us that they are being instructed that “The U.S. Special Operations community is racist.” One Army officer relayed to us the word of his general officer, who told him that the entire U.S. Army is racist.

A midshipman at the Naval Academy said classmates were calling America a “fundamentally racist place” and this sentiment is not contested by school administrators. An airman told us that their unit was forced into a racist exercise called a “privilege walk,” where members of the wing were ordered to separate themselves by race and gender in order to stratify people based on their perceived privilege. One African American officer disparagingly said, and I quote, “The Navy thinks my only value is as a black woman” and not the fact that she is a highly-trained military specialist.

Soldiers have come forward to tell us they are being forced to watch videos about systemic racism and documentaries that rewrite American history as a fundamentally racist and evil nation. One Space Force officer told me that two guardians left his ranks in a short period of time; one was a young African-American who said that after the training that she would never have joined the military had she known that it was such a hotbed of racism. The other was a white airman who said he didn’t sign up to be indoctrinated, and filed separation paperwork.

Mr. Secretary, we’re hearing reports of plummeting morale; growing mistrust between the races and sexes where none existed just six months ago and unexpected retirements and separations based on these trainings alone. And again, these are not my words, these are the words of your own troops.

When Austin subsequently stated that “diversity, equity and inclusion is important to this military now, and it will be important in the future,” Cotton replied: “This is not about diversity in general, though; this is about a very specific kind of anti-American indoctrination that is seeping into some parts of our military based on the whistleblower complaints we have received.”

Matthew Lohmeier’s Book Lays Bare the Marxist Threat to America’s Military

On May 10, 2021, Lt. Col. Matthew Lohmeier, a commanding officer with the U.S. Space Force, released a self-published book titled Irresistible Revolution: Marxism’s Goal of Conquest & the Unmaking of the American Military. The book warned that Marxism and Critical Race Theory had gained a firm foothold within the U.S. military in recent years. Indeed, the only serious pushback to this trend had come when President Trump issued an Executive Order requiring the Defense Department to “immediately suspend diversity and inclusion training.” But during his first week in office, President Biden proudly and ceremoniously rescinded Trump’s order. Defense Secretary Austin was in full agreement with Biden’s decision.

As author Bruce Bawer wrote in June 2021, Lohmeier’s book noted that after the death of George Floyd in the spring of 2020, military personnel were shown videos that: depicted all whites as racists; described American history as, in the words of one video’s director, “400 years of white supremacy”; cast contemporary American society as a “system of oppression”; accused President Trump of promoting “systematic racism”; portrayed Barack Obama and the Clintons as champions of the “anti-racist” cause; and promoted a picture of America that, in Lohmeier’s view, seemed intended “to justify … violent riots.”

“As a commander of young military professionals, all of whom have taken an oath to support and defend the Constitution,” wrote Lohmeier in his book, “I became concerned that race-based identity politics would erode the trust and confidence these young people have in their country and in the Constitution.” Further, Lohmeier recounted stories of white officers who had left the military because they grew tired of being told that “they are racists solely based on the color of their skin.” He described high-school students reluctant to join the armed services because “they are unsure what their country stands for anymore.” And he cited black West Point cadets who, as a result of the Marxist propaganda with which they had been indoctrinated, were “conflicted about swearing an oath to defend a white supremacist country.”

On May 7, 2021 — three days prior to the official release of his book — Lohmeier was interviewed on L. Todd Wood’s podcast, Information Operation, to promote the book. During the  interview, Lohmeier criticized Defense Secretary Austin’s decision to have the military “stand down” against “extremism” and to resurrect the “sensitivity” and “diversity” training programs that were, by the author’s telling, “rooted in critical race theory, which is rooted in Marxism.” “I don’t demonize the man [Austin],” said Lohmeier, “but I want to make it clear to both him and every service member [that] this agenda—it will divide us. It will not unify us.” “What you see happening in the U.S. military at the moment,” Lohmeier added, “is that if you’re a conservative, then you’re lumped into a group of people who are labeled extremists, if you’re willing to voice your views. And if you’re aligned with the left, then it’s OK to be an activist online because no one’s gonna hold you accountable.”

On May 14, 2021 – one week after the aforementioned interview – Lt. Gen Stephen Whiting removed Lohmeier from his post as commander of the 11th Space Warning Squadron because, as a Space Force statement put it, his “public comments” may have “constituted prohibited partisan political activity.”

Austin’s Additional Priorities As Defense Secretary

Austin came into office as Defense Secretary defining the coronavirus pandemic as America’s greatest national security challenge, and declaring climate change to be an “existential threat” that he intended to meet by “electrifying our own [military] vehicle fleets.” “Climate change is making the world more unsafe and we need to act,” Austin asserted in April 2021. “Today,” he added, “no nation can find lasting security without addressing the climate crisis. We face all kinds of threats in our line of work, but few of them truly deserve to be called existential. The climate crisis does.”

In early 2021 as well, Austin claimed that yet another of his top priorities as Defense Secretary would be to address the allegedly pervasive problem of sexual assault in the U.S. military, saying: “Sexual assault is a problem that plagues us. It is a readiness issue. It is a leadership issue. We’re going to lead real change for real results.”

In March 2021, Austin weighed in on the matter of the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Drawing a moral equivalence between the two sides, he said: “The President [Joe Biden] has expressed his full support for replenishing Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system, which saved so many innocent lives during the most recent conflict. Now going forward, we seek lasting security for Israelis and Palestinians alike. As my colleague Secretary [of State] Blinken made clear in Israel last week, a lot of work needs to be done to rebuild confidence and trust, and to create conditions to reengage in a meaningful way on the path to a two-state solution.”

The Collapse of Afghanistan

In August 2021, the Biden Administration, without having first escorted out the 10,000+ U.S. civilians who remained in Afghanistan, withdrew all of the American troops that remained in that country. At that point, Afghanistan fell quickly under the complete control of the brutal Taliban. Austin was the top Pentagon official in charge of this Afghanistan debacle.

In an August 22 appearance on ABC’s This Week, Austin said that that “nobody predicted” that the Afghan government would “fall in 11 days,” as it had. Anchor Martha Raddatz said to Austin: “The president [Biden] has said the intelligence absolutely did not show … that the Taliban could take over in 11 days. What’s the earliest you were aware that that could happen?” Austin replied: “There were assessments that ranged from one to two years to several months. It was a wide range of assessments. As the Taliban began to make gains and we saw that in a number of cases, there was less fighting and more surrendering and more forces just kind of evaporating, it was very difficult to predict with accuracy. This all occurred in a span of about 11 days. Nobody predicted that the government would fall in 11 days.”

Raddatz, in turn, said to Austin: “When you look at the planning, I mean, Joe Biden said he wanted to get out of there for years and years. It was probably pretty certain that he would say that. Do you believe, as you look at it now and the military loves to plan for the worst case, that the planning was acceptable and appropriate?” Austin answered: “I do, based upon, you know, what we were looking at and the input to the plan. You have to go back and look at what the administration inherited. We came in, and we were faced with a May 1st deadline to have all forces out of the country. This deal had been struck [by the Trump Administration] with the Taliban. He [Biden] had to very rapidly go through a detailed assessment and look at all options in terms of what he could do. None of those options were good options. He listened to the input that was provided by all of the stakeholders and the interagency process. At the end of the day, the president made his decision. Again, he was faced with a situation where there were no good options. All were very tough.”

In that same ABC interview, Austin and Raddatz had the following exchange:

Raddatz: “Why aren’t American troops able to go out into Kabul and help those Americans, help those Afghans who helped Americans get to the airport?”

Austin: “We have been out. You saw evidence of an operation the other day where we flew a couple of helicopters over. It was a very short distance. It helped 169 American citizens get into the gate without issues.”

Raddatz: “You’ve got tens of thousands of people out there desperate to get to the airport, surrounded by the Taliban, so why can’t the U.S. send convoys out there?”

Austin: “If you have an American passport, and if you have the right credentials, the Taliban has been allowing people to pass safely through.”

Raddatz: “Not in all cases.”

Austin: “There’s no such thing as an absolute in this kind of environment, as you would imagine, Martha. There have been incidents of people having some tough encounters with Taliban. As we learn about those incidents, we certainly go back and engage the Taliban leadership and press home to them that our expectation is that they allow our people with the appropriate credentials to get through the checkpoints.”

For extensive details about the Afghanistan debacle, click here.

The COVID Vaccine Mandate for U.S. Military Personnel

In August 2021, Austin announced a COVID-19 vaccine mandate for all members of the U.S. military — in order “to preserve readiness” in its ranks. But in practice, the vaccine mandate did enormous damage to the readiness of the force. Thousands of active-duty service members, many with combat experience, were forced out. With little notice, they had to leave behind medical benefits, education benefits, pensions and careers they had worked for years to establish. As of the beginning of August 2022, some 40,000 National Guard members were unvaccinated, as were approximately 22,000 Reserve members.

Paying Travel Costs for Military Personnel seeking Abortions

On October 20, 2022, Austin issued a directive requiring the Department of Defense (DoD) – for the first time ever –to pay the cost of travel for service members and their dependents to receive elective (“non-covered”) abortions.

On February 16, 2023, the DoD issued guidance to begin implementing that directive. In addition to covering travel expenses, the guidance: (a) allowed service members a full 20 weeks to notify their commanding officer of a pregnancy, and (b) permitted them to take an administrative absence of up to 21 days for their abortion procedures.

Lauding LGBTQ+ Members of the Military

On June 1, 2023, Austin marked the beginning of “Pride Month” by issuing a statement lauding the “powerful” contributions of homosexual and transgender military personnel:

“This Pride Month, we honor the service, commitment, and sacrifice of the LGBTQ+ Service members and personnel who volunteer to defend our country. Their proud service adds to America’s strength.

“Their contributions to our national security are powerful. Members of this community have deployed to combat zones around the globe, held high-ranking positions in the Pentagon, and fought and died alongside their teammates.

“To defend our republic and win its wars, the ranks of the U.S. military must remain open to all qualified patriots who seek to serve. Militaries that do not avail themselves of the best possible talent of their citizenry put themselves at a strategic disadvantage. We would be rendering ourselves less fit to our weighty task if we excluded from our ranks people who meet our standards and who have the skills, the guts, and the devotion to serve in uniform.

“I believe that the story of America should be one of widening freedom, not deepening discrimination. In 2021, I was honored to implement President Biden’s directive to ensure that transgender Americans who wish to serve and meet Department standards are able to do so openly and free from discrimination.

“This often painful history has made something clear: Who you love and how you identify has nothing to do with how bravely you can fight for your country. When we speak up for the rights of all Americans, when we encourage all qualified Americans to stand a post, we strengthen both our democracy and our national security. […]”

Further Reading

“Lloyd Austin” (Ballotpedia.org); “General Lloyd J. Austin III” (Defense.gov); “Lloyd James Austin III” (Blackpast.org); “Biography of Lloyd Austin III” (Stripes.com, 8-31-2010); “Lloyd Austin: Fast Facts” (KESQ.com, April 13, 2021).

Additional Resources:

Betraying America: Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and the New Democrat Order
By David Horowitz, John Perazzo, and Mark Tapson
June 14, 2021

Why It’s Time for Defense Secretary Austin to Resign
By Amber Smith
August 2, 2022