The U.S. military must focus on lethality and projecting military might and power, but instead, under its current leadership, it's focusing on being politically correct, Rep. Pat Fallon, a retired U.S. Air Force captain, told Newsmax on Saturday.
The Texas Republican told Newsmax's "American Agenda" that he agrees with former President Donald Trump's assessment that the military, under the leadership of Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair Gen. Mark Milley and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, is focusing instead on "wokeness, political correctness, and diversity and inclusion."
"You know what? I want a diversity of weapons," Fallon added. "I don't care about the racial makeup of my military. That handles itself just by simply asking for and demanding the best."
Fallon also discussed the trove of classified documents that have been leaked, revealing damaging information about the country's foreign affairs interests, and called for a better process for handling such sensitive items.
"There are assets across the globe that could lose their lives — all because of a 21-year-old who wanted to impress his friends," Fallon said.
He noted that with Congress, when a member handles classified documents in the sensitive compartmented information facilities (SCIFs), "it's nearly impossible for me to take those documents out of the SCIF."
"We want to make sure — we have to, if we're going to have our allies trust us in the future — that only the folks that need to see the documents ... have this access," said Fallon. "This isn't the first time. This is repeating over and over again, like President Trump said, like a bad novel. If we don't do that, I don't know how in the world we are going to be able to have an effective intelligence service."
There is no doubt that Congress will have a role to play, said Fallon.
"We need to have hearings and absolutely demand that the military fixes this," he said. "I mean, think about what we found, too: that the Russians may have suffered as many ... as 223,000 casualties in 14 months. That's about eight times the casualty rate that we suffered in Vietnam, and you saw how that ended for the United States."
Fallon said he thinks the figures are accurate because the Russians have labeled the reports as disinformation.
"They're trying to pull the wool over the eyes of their own population," said Fallon.
The congressman also called on President Joe Biden to take action, saying he wishes he would "step up and finally show leadership, after two years, and get the military to address this."
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Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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