WorldNetDaily contributor J.M. Phelps loves to fret that the military is allegedly becoming too woke (whatever that means), as well as push right-wing narratives about the military. He did more of that in a July 23 article in which he fretted that “a U.S. Army anti-terrorism brief from Fort Liberty, North Carolina, identified various pro-life organizations as terrorist groups.” Phelps actually has a point on this, and the information was eventually corrected. But it is worth noting (since Phelps didn’t) that one of those anti-abortion groups featured on a slide in the presentation, Operation Rescue, provided information to Scott Roeder that helped him find and murder abortion provider George Tiller.
Phelps was back on the “woke” stuff in an Aug. 17 article:
Throughout the Biden-Harris administration, hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars have been thrown at the military for the promotion of controversial and divisive ideologies based on identity politics.
Recently, the Daily Wire published a story showcasing information first obtained by the nonpartisan Functional Government Initiative. According to the report, “The Biden-Harris Defense Department paid outside organizations millions of taxpayer dollars to advance diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, including race-based career advancement programs, in the U.S. military.”
In one example, the University of Missouri-Kansas City received $760,000 from the Department of the Navy to develop a program that would result in preferential treatment for non-white students and women in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) programs applying for Defense Department jobs. In another, Cornell University was awarded approximately $202,000 “to provide Diversity training that is mission imperative to ensure readiness and addressing discriminatory behavior from a cognitive perspective.” Shockingly, between 2022 and 2024, nearly $270 million in “taxpayer funds” was used to bolster the DEI agenda of the Pentagon.
Phelps found someone to rant that “DEI is the antithesis to the culture of the military,” but no proof was offered to demonstrate how, exactly, that is the case.
Phelps played the victimhood narrative in an Aug. 18 article, trying to claim that Christian nationalists are in the mainstream of Christianity:
A policy revision adopted recently by the U.S. Army could spell trouble for soldiers who believe in and follow the Holy Bible.
In June, the Army issued two new directives regarding the handling and reporting of “protest, extremist and criminal gang activities” by soldiers. Army directive 2024-07 on handling extremist activity, as well as the service’s directive 2024-08 on reporting extremist activity, can both be found on the website of the Army Inspector General.
Phelps quoted two alleged experts who fretted that military members won’t be allowed toe hate transgender people like the good Lord allegedly intended, claiming that “because they feel they need to please their political superiors, some military commanders will infer that because you disagree with women competing in men’s sports, you are now engaging in an act of extremism.” He went on to insist that those who do engage in that hate are merely “doctrinally aligned with traditional biblical views of life, marriage and gender.”
Phelps also contributed to WND’s fearmongering about a Kamala Harris presidency in a Sept. 7 article:
The outcome of November’s presidential election will affect the U.S. military in the profoundest ways possible. The beliefs, values, practices and potential deployments of America’s armed forces under the leadership of Donald Trump and J.D. Vance versus Kamala Harris and Tim Walz could not be more different.
As Army Lt. Col. (Ret.) Darin Gaub, who for a decade commanded thousands of soldiers, told WorldNetDaily: “Throughout the Biden presidency, I began hearing for the first time in my life that people are telling their children to do something else rather than join the military – and I can’t blame them.”
Gaub, a former UH-60 Blackhawk pilot and co-founder of the nonprofit Restore Liberty, explained simply: “Many of today’s military leaders are inadequate, and in the military, everything ultimately comes down to leadership.”
As far as November’s presidential election, Gaub started with the obvious: Harris’ and Walz’s uninterrupted embrace of the Biden-Harris administration’s profoundly leftist ideology “would continue to significantly affect the morale of those who serve the country.”
“For example,” he told WND, service members “would be forced to endure at least another four years of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion deciding who gets promoted based on everything but merit.” And that, in turn, would result in families across the nation continuing to dissuade their children from joining the military in the first place, he said.
Gaub warns that “only those who comply with an agenda that has nothing to do with our military war-fighting capacity will be promoted.”
Phelps served up more whining in a Sept. 14 article:
“A lot of senior military leaders today clearly have resolved themselves to be order-following automatons, denying and/or impinging upon constitutionally guaranteed rights of the individual service member simply because that is what gets them promoted.”
This shocking assessment of the degree to which groupthink has taken hold of many current leaders in the U.S. military comes from retired U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Ryan Sweazey, founder of Walk the Talk Foundation, an organization that advocates for and protects whistleblowers. The former F-16 fighter pilot, who once served as inspector general in the Air Force, spoke to WorldNetDaily in an exclusive interview.
At the extreme, Sweazey said, the thought process of too many of today’s U.S. military leaders forces one to recall what happened in Nazi Germany. “I’m not making parallels between today’s military leadership and Nazis outside of the incredible amount of groupthink psychology that’s going on,” he told WND.
Um, isn’t a certain level of groupthink what you want in a military? Apparently not — Phelps and Sweazey then demanded exceptions to groupthink:
“A carrot was dangled in front of many, [providing] a path to become a senior officer and continue to progress their careers,” Sweazey said. “It came in the form of something like implementing the controversial shot mandate or carrying out questionable implementations of divisive Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion policies that many might not have wanted to accept, but they did it anyway to advance their careers.”
[…]“The infiltration of questionable and/or illegal acts and policies into the ranks has become a more permanent fixture because no one is willing to speak out against it,” Sweazey explained. “To speak out of turn, or speak out against a general officer or flag officer, is career suicide,” he said. “As a result, nearly everyone is forced to toe the line, whether they believe what’s happening around them is moral and just or not.”
Vaccinations and diversity are not “illegal acts.” And Phelps still hasn’t explained why increased diversity in the military is a bad thing.