Political correctness, US military style

Looks like the Obama administration's 'community organizer' pedigree is now infecting the US military as well.

A controversial 600-plus page manual used by the military to train its Equal Opportunity officers teaches that "healthy, white, heterosexual, Christian" men hold an unfair advantage over other races, and warns in great detail about a so-called "White Male Club."

“Simply put, a healthy, white, heterosexual, Christian male receives many unearned advantages of social privilege, whereas a black, homosexual, atheist female in poor health receives many unearned disadvantages of social privilege,” reads a statement in the manual created by the Defense Equal Opportunity Management Institute (DEOMI).

. . .

I obtained a copy of the manual from an Equal Opportunity officer who was disturbed by the course content and furious over the DEOMI’s reliance on the Southern Poverty Law Center for information on “extremist” groups. 

“I’m participating in teaching things that are not true,” the instructor told me. He asked not to be identified because he feared reprisals.

“I should not be in a position to do that,” he said. “It violates Constitutional principles, but it also violates my conscience. And I’m not going to do it – not going to do it.”

. . .

The military manual goes into great detail about a so-called “White Male Club.”

“In spite of slave insurrections, civil war, the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments, the women’s suffrage movement leading to the 19th amendment, the civil rights movement, urban rebellions and the contemporary feminist movement, the club persists,” the document states.

DEOMI states that “full access to the resources of the club still escape the vision of equitable distribution.”

The military also implies that white Americans may be in denial about racism.

. . .

I called former Congressman and Lt. Col. Allen West (ret.) to get his take on the manual. In a nutshell – he wants a congressional investigation.

“This is the Obama administration’s outreach of social justice into the United States military,” he told me. “Equal Opportunity in the Army that I grew up in did not have anything to do with white privilege.”

West said he is very concerned about the training guide.

“When the president talked about fundamentally transforming the United States of America, I believe he also had a dedicated agenda of going after the United States military,” he said. “The priorities of this administration are totally whacked.”

There's more at the link.

The only 'equal opportunity' I encountered during my military service, many years ago, had nothing to do with race.  It was simply that we all had an equal opportunity, every day, to surmount a given challenge - a set of exercises, or an assault course, or learning a new skill.  Those who passed got more 'equal opportunities' the following day to surmount the next, even greater challenge.  Those who failed got just as many 'equal opportunities' to suffer through squad punishment, additional physical training, and repeated attempts at the challenge until one did surmount it.  Lather, rinse, repeat, ad nauseam.

Frankly, that's the only kind of 'equal opportunity' I want to see in a professional armed service.  Anything else simply plays into our enemies' hands.  Just ask the Taliban about that - or China's armed forces.

Peter