How to Intimidate a Paperclip General
By Wes Pruden
PrudenPolitics.com
Political correctness is always petty, often
infuriating, and sometimes does no permanent harm.
But occasionally it’s a threat to the nation’s
security. When a paperclip general at the Pentagon
surrenders to the enemy at the first sound of the
popguns, the harm can be permanent.
Gen.
Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff, stood up to the enemy in Iraq, where he made
an enviable combat record. But at the Pentagon, he
appears to have fallen, not on his sword, but on a
paperclip, attached to a point of religious
doctrine.
When,
18 months ago, apologists for Islamic radicals
complained that an instructor at the National
Defense University, the military war college, was
guilty of the sin of showing insufficient deference
to radical Islam, the general first humiliated him,
then cashiered him, to appease Muslim critics, some
of them radical and no friends of the United States.
Now the instructor has been rejected for battalion
command and his promising Army career is effectively
over.
Army
Lt. Col. Matthew Dooley (a good Irish Catholic
name), decorated for valor in Iraq, was an
instruction leader at the Joint Forces Staff College
in Washington, lecturing on the dangers of radical
Islam, when he invited an authority on Islamic
extremists to talk to his students about how the
extremists operate. You might think that “knowing
the enemy” is a good thing in senior Army officers.
One passage in the materials used by a guest
lecturer, former FBI agent John Guandolo,
particularly enraged the critics:
“If
Islam is so violent, why are there so many peaceful
Muslims? This is similar to asking why there are so
many Christians who are arrogant, angry and
vindictive, if Christian doctrine requires humility,
tolerance and forgiveness.” There were no protests
from Christians, or Christian organizations. But one
participant in the course complained to the
Pentagon, and the witch hunt, led by the thoroughly
frightened Gen. Dempsey, began.
Paperclip generals, more politician than warrior,
naturally take their cues from the White House, and
it’s reasonable to assume that the pressure from
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue was the prevailing
pressure, intense and effective. President Obama
bows low in the presence of Muslims, as we all know,
and ordered effective cleansing of all references to
Islamic terrorists. John Brennan, the hero of
Benghazi and the new director of the CIA, insists
there is no such thing as an “Islamic extremist.”
The al Qaeda terrorists who blew up the World Trade
Center had nothing to do with Islam, they were just
terrorists trying to make a dishonest living. The
Muslim major who shouted the Islamic battle cry,
“Allahu Akbar” (“God is great!”) as he killed 13 and
wounded 30 at Fort Hood, Texas, was guilty only of
“workplace violence,” not “terrorism.” If he’s
convicted of murder by court martial, he can apply
for workmen’s compensation (and call John Brennan
and Gen. Dempsey as supporting witnesses). Paperclip
generals have sharp antennae and know who punches
their tickets.
They
know how to cover the part of their anatomy that
most needs covering, too. Gen. Dempsey landed hard
on Col. Dooley at a press conference, speaking as an
academic and maybe even a theologian: “It’s totally
objectionable,” he said of the colonel’s course
work. “It was just totally objectionable, against
our values, and it wasn’t academically sound. This
wasn’t about, we’re pushing back on liberal thought.
This was just objectionable, academically
irresponsible.”
Such
an emotional response was not quite what’s expected
of a four-star general. A week later another
general, only a two-star, was dispatched to blame
the colonel for “institutional failure.” Gen.
Dempsey’s spokesman, a Marine colonel, insisted his
boss’ public denunciation of the “individual” had
not poisoned the investigation. “ Dooley’s name is
never even mentioned,” he told The Washington Times.
We
can’t expect paperclip generals to show the fighting
spirit of Stonewall Jackson or U.S. Grant, Blackjack
Pershing or George S. Patton. They were men of their
times and we’re stuck with our own times, and the
men who populate the times. But the craven deference
to the Islamic lobby, which often makes no
distinctions between the millions of good Muslims
and the bad Muslims, is a recipe for catastrophe.
Gen. Martin Dempsey
The
West in general and America in particular has shown
remarkable patience and forbearance to the Muslims
in our midst, according them, as we should, respect
and a welcome into what we once called “the melting
pot.” But somebody ought to instruct the paperclip
generals that there’s an enemy out there in the
dark, and it’s important to know who he is.
Wesley Pruden is editor emeritus of The Washington
Times.