Air Force Nominee Ravi Chaudhary Focuses on Skin Color, Not Readiness for Military
Ravi Chaudhary, nominee for Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Installations, Energy, and the Environment (SAF/IEE), is clearly a woke, progressive that plans to bring that ideology into his non-partisan position in the Air Force.
Chaudhary believes that there is a new mantra or mission to be presented for the United States military: diversity and inclusion. In one of his Op Eds he wrote, “Diversity for the mission must be the new mantra in our fight…diversity must become forever synonymous with our military’s combat edge, and a critical piece of our national security strategy” and “It is no longer enough for the battle formation to be colorblind. To win the war against extremism abroad and at home, we should be colorful.”
As you know, the SAF/IEE office is primarily charged with ensuring our installations are in a state of readiness and meet safety requirements. Chaudhary has other ideas on what is important vis a vis readiness for the United States military.
Chaudhary Allied with Leftist Group
Men are judged by the company they keep, and Chaudhary has some concerning friends. He is affiliated with and advocates for the group, Stop AAPI Hate, which has been an aid for the state run media of the Chinese Communist Party.
Stop AAPI Hate parroted the CCP line by sending President Biden a letter demanding that he pause the DOJ’s China initiative, with the false accusation that “the [DOJ China initiative] program unfairly targeted individuals based on their race and ethnicity.” The letter went on to maintain that any linkage to COVID and China is a conspiracy theory that should not be discussed: “COVID originating [sic] from Chinese laboratory experiments has sparked flurry of conspiracy theories” and those theories “aim to deflect criticism about the U.S. response to the pandemic and direct blame on China.” Chinese state-run media outlets, such as Xinhua News, are amplifying this letter, agreeing that any claims against China for spreading COVID are Asian hate speech.
Overstates January 6 Events to Divide Americans Indict Military
Furthermore, Chaudhary said that the “January 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol sounded a critical alarm on violent domestic extremism, and its potential for threatening the foundations of American democracy. The January 6 insurrection also alerted us to the fact that these threats also reside, of all places, within the ranks of the U.S. Military.”
As a result, Chaudhary proposes that the military use AI technology, like that from CommSafe AI, (a company he advises for) to identify, fix, and track “extremists” in our military. CommSafe AI is a tool to monitor communications (emails, texts, messaging, etc.) 24/7 to identify and target individuals conversing in “toxic communication,” a term that is ill-defined but would likely sweep up individuals who don’t abide by what woke corporate dictates. Chaudhary also writes that “identifying toxic communications coupled with machine learning and the use of advanced algorithms would ensure a more proactive approach by immediately identifying toxic behaviors as they occur.”
This idea is perilous to not only our servicemembers, but the U.S. Constitution. This kind of monitoring of speech and ideas that those in power deem “toxic” is a clear violation of our first amendment rights, and no appointed official should hold such views.
As the Senate considers Ravi Chaudhary’s nomination, these concerns require serious consideration. Dividing our servicemembers by identifying “toxic communication” and labeling Americans as extremists for their political views is borderline authoritarian, and the wrong fit for the Air Force. The military needs to remain a bipartisan sphere in the federal government, and Chaudhary has shown he has no respect for that and wants to push a woke social experiment over combat readiness.