Our Special Ops get woke | Eastern North Carolina Now

If you think Joe Biden’s efforts to debilitate and demoralize our Armed Forces have gone far enough, you’ve grossly underestimated the Left’s desire to ruin everything it touches. Not even our vaunted Special Forces are being spared.

“USSOCOM welcomes our new Chief of Diversity & Inclusion, Mr. Richard Torres-Estrada,” said last Thursday’s tweet from U.S. Special Operations Command. “We look forward to his contribution in enhancing the capabilities and effectiveness of SOF through diversity of talent, helping us recruit the best of the best. #QuietProfessionals”

Our nation’s Special Operations Command oversees Delta Force, the Navy SEAL teams, and the rest of our best-trained and most lethal warfighters. So it’s no surprise that this new-hire announcement reads more like a hostage video.

SOCOM’s Instagram post is even more depressing, as we learn that the new guy, Mr. Torres-Estrada, has “nearly two decades worth of experience working diversity and inclusion programs and activities in federal agencies.” Strangely absent from the post are any details about Mr. Torres-Estrada’s experience in the U.S. military generally or in Special Ops particularly. Clearly, he doesn’t have any. We also learn that his arrival is of a piece with “the publication of the USSOCOM [Diversity and Inclusion] Strategic Plan, which will guide the enterprise-wide effort to institutionalize and sustain D&I.”

Translation: Diversity and inclusion are now necessary preconditions for our elite warfighters’ ability to conduct reconnaissance, counterterrorism, hostage rescue and recovery, and other highly demanding activities.

No longer is it sufficient to be the best of the best. Going forward, our special operators must now be woke — with proficiency and lethality now trumped by race and gender identity. As the Strategic Plan itself says, our Special Forces must now “create enduring organizational change by developing comprehensive inclusive environments, policies, processes, and procedures while divesting of harmful cultural norms, narratives, processes, and procedures that diminish diversity and inclusion.”

As if the hiring of a non-military bureaucrat weren’t bad enough, Torres-Estrada is an ardent hater of Donald Trump. Last summer, he snidely commented on social media, “Here I leave this and slowly retire (to continue working from home)…” over a two-sided picture: President Donald Trump holding a Bible on one side and on the other a photo of — who else — a book-holding Adolf Hitler.

In addition, Torres-Estrada posted this meme, with denigrating quotes from Trump’s former advisers. He added the caption, “I just have to post this.”

A quick scroll through the comments thread beneath SOCOM’s Twitter post shows that we aren’t alone in our revulsion. “As a retired USAF Lt Col,” tweeted one commenter, “I find this is despicable & how Generals care not about readiness but allowing a waste product like this to trowel out a tonnage of woke crap all about getting their next star. So glad I’m retired.”

We’re happy that the above officer and others like him got out in the nick of time. The real problem, though, is that the morale and readiness of the Patriot men and women currently in uniform will be seriously harmed by the “woke” garbage being heaped upon them by an America-hating commander-in-chief and his social engineers.

COMMENTARY: The enemies of our country, too numerous to mention, must be licking their chops at how easy it is going to be to roll over any form of defense we have. While they storm the gates of freedom our men and women will be in class outing those in their ranks they don't like.