
The White House has picked the first female general to head the Air Force in the Pacific, which will make her the first non-pilot to command air power in such a large theater of operation.
The Pentagon announced this week that Air ForceLt. Gen. Lori J. Robinson has been nominated for promotion to four-star general and as commander of Pacific Air Forces, the Air Force component of U.S. Pacific Command. It is a major combatant command whose air, ground and naval forces have broad responsibility for security in the Asia-Pacific region. Her nomination was sent to the Senate for confirmation.
Officials said pilots historically have commanded Air Force war-fighting components for the Pacific and for U.S. Air Forces Europe; Air Forces Central, which covers the Middle East and Afghanistan; and the 1st Air Force, which is part of Northern Command and protects U.S. skies.
Gen. Robinson is not a career pilot. Her military profession is air battle manager. She has served aboard the Air Force’s surveillance aircraft, the E-3 AWACs and E-8 JSTARS, and she was nominated for a promotion amid a drive for more diversity in the Pentagon.
If this was a single event, the meaning of it would be less important. But it is not a single event. Many including some of the highest ranking Generals, in a position to be able to talk about it, say a political purging of our military is taking place.
If so, that is not only a matter of unjustly politically corrupting our military, it is a matter of competence. The USA military was designed from the beginning to be non-political, to be civilian controlled. That is why, unlikely many countries such as Egypt, Iran, China, Greece, Russia and Bulgari, we have not had a military coup. Countries like the Soviet Union, which had a politicized military, had competence problems. That is why the Finns repelled the Soviets despite being massively outnumbered, and why Hitler was able to rush into Russia so easily, promotion was based on politics, not competence.
Iraq is an example of that today, the Sunnis were purged from the upper ranks, before the collapse.
It is worthwhile to listen what top generals are saying about Obama’s political purge of the USA military: