Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks was on vacation in Puerto Rico.
Is this an outrage or a perfect metaphor for this administration in which no one is in the driver’s seat? Sometimes literally.
Amid tensions in the Middle East, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin was hospitalized, including spending four days in the intensive care unit, according to two senior administration officials.
The Pentagon did not inform senior officials in the White House’s National Security Council of Austin’s hospitalization until Thursday — three days after he arrived at Walter Reed Medical Center, a U.S. official confirms. Politico first reported the delay.
Austin is 70. There was a time when Donald Rumsfeld was considered on the old side, but his first time on the job, he had been in his 40s. Dick Cheney was actually in his late 40s during the Reagan administration, Bill Cohen was in his late 50s and Bob McNamara was in his forties.
But by the standards of the Biden administration, Austin is ‘the kid’. Still an administration with a lot of people past retirement age should probably be more prepared for medical emergencies by senior staff.
Since Austin is 11 years younger than Joe Biden, they probably figured there was nothing to worry about. But spending 4 days in the ICU is not a joke. This suggests something serious was going on.
And so no one was running the Pentagon while we were clashing with Iran’s Houthi-backed Jihadis.
Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks, who was on leave, has picked up his duties, the senior defense official said.
Hicks was on pre-scheduled leave when Austin was hospitalized this week, according to a defense official. She has been on vacation in Puerto Rico, the official said.
She “has maintained full communication with the DOD staff throughout,” the official said. “She has monitored DOD’s day-to-day operations and conducted some routine business.”
Zoom.
Austin’s number two was on vacation (and no one told her to scrap her vacation because your boss, who is a rather vital figure, is undergoing surgery, and you should probably stay home.
And even afterward, she “maintained full communications” while on vacation.
This is the sort of nonsense we’d have expected from a fourth-rate European NATO member country twenty years ago where nothing really matters anyway and the military just exists to occasionally show up at parades.
I don’t even understand this insane level of ineptitude and disregard for basic protocol. But then again I also don’t understand how national security secrets keep being leaked by guys arguing on video game forums.
(By the way if you want to know what Kathleen’s qualifications are to head the Pentagon, don’t ask. It will only depress you further.)
VMS says
The armed services are probably better off without Austin or Hicks in charge. The generals and the admirals are perfectly capable of handling any threat by themselves without meddling from above. The meddling from above always takes the form of a limited engagement or restraint, In favor of perceived diplomacy (which almost always never works).
࿗Infidel࿘ says
I dunno. If Kathleen Hicks is totally unqualified to be Deputy Secretary of Defense, maybe it’s good that “she’s” on vacation while our Navy is fighting the Houthis & whoever else
Btw, “she’s” a White woman? How on earth did “she” get in? Or does “she” (my apologies for assigning her pronouns w/o asking “her”) belong to one of those miraculous 60 other genders that would make “her” one more of those “firsts” in our government?
Westman says
Big surprise, Austin, Hicks, and hundreds more are redundant. No need to call the medicated POTUS, the real people in control knew what they needed.
When Congress holds a public hearing and questions department heads who say, “I Don’t have that information”, or, “The borders are closed”, do you really think they have a controlling role? The head who says, “That’s classified”, has the best job, unaccounted money, and free range. That’s the King who makes the rest nervous.
The significant message coming from this event is the major US departments are so deep in bureaucracy that the heads, two or three deep, are simply redundant PR positions, handed out as political plums. The real decisions are made elsewhere as are those proported to be from POTUS. Handshake, anyone?
Haven’t we figured out, yet, that huge departments of government are free-running empires making their own rules, levying their own punishments, reliant only on taxpayer money – that they are the very robots and support of a corrupt Deep State?
The Law Of Diminishing Returns applies to government growth just as it does to business. Maybe that was a factor in the fall of Rome? The bankrupting of the British Empire, etc?
James Lincoln says
Westman,
The one that gets me the most is “I can’t comment on that because it’s part of an ongoing investigation”.
Maybe they’re investigating, maybe they’re not.
Or maybe they “started the investigation” immediately following the question.
Blah, blah, blah…
somehistory says
James,
What “gets me” is that all of the people in government are *elected* or *selected* to work for “the people” and get paid from taxes taken from “the people”; and yet, those *elected* and *selected* get to make the rules, enforce the rules on “the people,” and lie to “the people” without the consequences that would be handed down to “the people’ if anyone lies to the *elected* and *selected.”
It’s all backward to the way a business is run where the man with the money hires employees….*selected*…and he makes all of the rules, and tells the employees what to do because the money comes from his pocket. If they lie to him, or fail to do the job assigned, they are out the door.
People who get the money in this political sphere, also get to hide the facts, shout at and lie to those who have every right to know.
James Lincoln says
somehistory,
True on all counts.
The United States of America has lost its moral compass – and this is, indeed, tragic:
“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
John Adams
somehistory says
Thank you, James. And Adams should be quoted more often so more people know some correct ways of thinking on things.
Beneath the Veil of Consciousness says
Take the wheel, Jesus! He’s a cosigner in charge. Unlike a real Secretary of Defense, he obviously had no real input in the disasterous exit from Afghanistan. The exit strategy hinged upon getting it done before an anniversary of some sort that that the puppet in the White House could point to as a symbol of accomplishment.