On Thursday, both the House and the Senate approved a waiver for Retired Army Gen. Lloyd Austin to serve as President Biden’s secretary of defense. The Senate still must vote on Austin’s confirmation.
Under US law, a Pentagon chief must be at least seven years removed from military service. Since Austin retired in 2016, a waiver is necessary.
Initially, some Democratic senators said they opposed the waiver, and a bloc of House Republicans released a statement against it. But ultimately, Austin’s waiver was overwhelmingly approved. In the House, it passed in a vote of 326 to 78. The waiver was passed in the Senate in a vote of 69 to 27.
Those who opposed the waiver feared it would set a dangerous precedent, since the last one was granted to James Mattis only four years ago, in 2017. Before Mattis, the last Pentagon chief that was granted a waiver was George Marshal in 1950.
Another issue some Republicans have with Austin is that they don’t think he has enough experience dealing with China and that he wouldn’t be sufficiently hawkish enough on issues in Asia. To placate the China hawks, Biden hired Ely Ratner to advise Austin. Ratner is a China hawk who works for the interventionist Center for a New American Security think tank.
Austin is simply not qualified to be SecDef. Becoming a general officer by sucking up and beating down works for some, but it is no way to run a railroad. It’s nothing new. If qualification were necessary for Washington jobs we wouldn’t have had Hillary or Pompous as SecState, etc. Also Trump made the mistake of hiring a lot of generals, and we know how that turned out.
Meanwhile the downward spiral continues, with Biden sending out his fifty executive orders. . . .Democracy in action.
All the China Hawks in the Biden administration, or some of them, might make things difficult (or more difficult) for Austin so they can get Flournoy as the Pentagonal Puzzle Palace chief, along with her idea of sinking the 300+ China fleet in 72 hours.