Friday on FNC’s “The Story,” Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) warned there were consequences of putting a premium on so-called critical race theory and other “woke” exercises within the U.S. military.
Cotton, a former infantry office, discussed his questioning of Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin a day earlier.
“Martha, the anecdotes I read yesterday for Secretary Austin are genuinely alarming, but I can tell you, they’re just the tip of the iceberg,” he said. “I first started hearing from some of my old friends who are still in the army, about these training sessions that were pushing critical race theory concepts like America is an inherently racist nation or that some races are inherently oppressive or privileged months ago when Congressman [Dan] Crenshaw and I put out a general request for any whistleblowers.”
“We’ve been inundated with hundreds of such examples,” Cotton continued. “And what will happen if we allow this kind of training to continue at our frontline units, is as I said yesterday, there’ll be growing mistrust between the races and the sexes, were very little existed just six months ago, that will be damaging for morale, and unit cohesion should our troops need to go to battle.”
“It’s also a huge opportunity cost; every minute every hour every day that is wasted whether in frontline units with a service academies or professional military courses on things like critical race theory, is a time that couldn’t be dedicated to say, military history, or operational excellence, or training in the field,” he added. “Those are real intangible costs, that our troops will be the ones to bear should they go to war, not sufficiently prepared, because we’ve wasted so much time on this nonsense.”
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