The Problem With the SecDef Purity Test – By Kevin Baron (Defense One) / Dec 8 2020
You don’t want a general, a man, a war veteran — and everyone in the defense industry is evil?
So, you don’t want a general to be defense secretary. You don’t want anyone who has worked in the defense industry. You don’t want a man. You don’t want anyone who supported a prior war. You don’t want anyone who carried out their duties in Iraq or Afghanistan. You don’t want — what exactly do you want?
These are the questions for the liberal think-tankers and advocacy groups who decried, in turn, the appointment, or potential appointment, of Mark Esper, Michèle Flournoy, and now Lloyd Austin to lead the Department of Defense.
In our time of historic social upheaval and change, every leadership position is seen as an opportunity. So it’s quite expected and welcome to see Team Biden trying delicately to balance the Cabinet with faces that more accurately resemble the kaleidoscope of the American people, especially after Trump’s four years of overwhelmingly lily-white men. This is the era of identity politics and Black lives mattering and MeToo movements moving.
What should be more concerning to U.S. national security leaders is the purity test that pits the defense industry against the entire country. By the sound of activists like the Project on Government Oversight, Code Pink, and liberals like Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., if you are an American who has ever worked for a defense company, you are not to be trusted with public office ever.
CONTINUE > https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2020/12/problem-secdef-purity-test/170584/
