So I recently found out that the Obama administration has been firing an awful lot of high-ranking military personnell. Hearing numbers like “9 admirals and generals”, “197 high-ranking officers”, and the like. Now, I will say that it is quite telling that I can’t find a decent source on these claims; the only people talking about it are sources like “BeforeItsNews” or “TruthExposed”. But I don’t know what to think of these lists - they are, in fact, legitimate. These people apparently were fired, and it does seem to be quite a lot. Anonymous sources from within the military seem to indicate that they think it’s Obama “getting rid” of dissenters, as that Blaze article above indicates, but then again, it is “The Blaze”, so I’m not sure what to think of this.
I also have no context. I can’t find figures on how many officers of similar rank were fired under Bush.
Scaling down the military makes sense, because you don’t need as many soldiers during peacetime as you do when you’re invading two countries. As for who they are culling, it depends on who is being focused on. If the ones getting the sack are the ones who allowed rape to become such a problem, great! If it’s the ones who refuse to keep their mouths shut when somebody commits a war crime, not so great.
If he had dismissed any other federal employee, there would be applause.
I especially like in the first article that “If you provide services for the government or have a contract, they can pull that out from under you.” Uh, yeah. Federal contract law is VERY clearly defined, and these jobs are typically extremely lucrative for retired high-level officials. And now you want to complain that what? The government doesn’t want to pay for goods and services it doesn’t need? What would he propose? That government agencies are required to cut massive checks to contractors just for kicks?
I’m not sure what the upside of “purging” the army (in the nefarious, remove ideological opposition sense of the word) is when you’ve only got one and a half year left in the seat, no third term available and not much in the way of projects left to implement. Looks more like jettisoning dead wood to me.
From the second link :
Yeaaah… those all seem like pretty *good *reasons to remove people, conspiracy guy. You really want “mishandles nuclear missile silo” and “steals from the petty cash” guys to keep their post ?!
From first link :
So there’s downsizing going on, which generally involves letting people go. That doesn’t scream nefarious, does it ?
And what crisis is not being wasted here, BTW ? Or is the absence of any crisis the crisis ?
Oh hey, the first link also lists the 9 generals and why they were canned. So we’ve got :
guy in charge of the African theatre during Benghazi, who resigned.
guy who went on at least two separate racist tirades
guy who groped a civvy
guy who cheated on his wife (I guess that one’s not really warranted, but apparently it’s still part of UCMJ)
guy who got two of his guys killed by failing at camp security
counterfeit poker chip guy
Which leaves two “suspicious” firings, one of which is apparently due to an investigated “innapropriate relationship” (honey pot ? conflict of interests with a contractor ? I dunno), an undisclosed “personnal behaviour” which could be anything from making too many off-colour jokes to serial rape, and a lone “no reason provided”.
It’s necessary to first say how often this has happened during previous administrations before one can say that it’s anything particularly related to Obama. How many military officers were fired during the past, say, fifty years for each year? Are there any records of such numbers? If not, how can one possibly say that recent numbers are higher?
General Ham had just completed a normal twenty-four month assignment as a theater commander. He was 61 years old and had served a 39 year career. So it’s likely that his decision to retire at that point had no sinister causes behind it.
Purge, schmurge, as mentioned, among the general officers the dismissals are mostly for the sort of causes why people are dismissed. Before someone says “but some of those are trifles”, High Command is a position of trust, not a tenure. No career federal official is per se untouchable, being military is not an exception, and in that field if you get a disciplinary mark in your record that prevents you from being promoted or reassigned to a new command at the same rank level – or, if through no fault of your own you are repeatedly passed over for such(*) – the expectation is that you’ll honorably walk away when you get the chance without being asked.
(*And there’s no obligation to create a post just so you can keep an officer on active duty if it’s time for him to cycle out of his current one, and all equal-or-higher slots are already otherwise filled)
Plus if on top of all that, you are imprudent enough to bitch and moan about the CinC and your lawfully appointed superiors on the record, you’d better be a star performer to stay on a good career path. That is not new. Early in your career you learn to NOT give out free ammo to use against yourself.
Obama is responsible for promoting every one of those generals listed to their top positions. If there really was a purge, would he have, you know, just not put them in those top jobs in the first place?
From first link:
“A Pentagon official who asked to remain nameless because they were not authorized to speak on the matter said even “young officers, down through the ranks have been told not to talk about Obama or the politics of the White House.”
Wonder what the hell this means? Not talking negatively about the POTUS at work; that’s been the standard for as long as I’ve been in (since '88) of officers who act professionally. If an officer talks to subordinates about how screwed up someone in the Executive branch is, how is that gonna affect good order and discipline, ya think?
If a JO has to be reminded to not talk politics at work, I worry for their career.
I think sometimes military generals get axed for having a different or opposite opinion. Say an administration wants to focus on NATO-Europe, but another general thinks the Middle East is the bigger concern. Or an administration wants to focus on the F-35, but another general thinks the A-10 and close air support are more important. That general may be on the way out.
