{"id":51866,"date":"2021-04-30T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-04-30T09:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/militarytimes\/uncategorized\/2021\/04\/30\/commentary-on-extremism-was-a-trojan-horse-for-ideology\/"},"modified":"2026-08-07T20:55:23","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T20:55:23","slug":"commentary-on-extremism-was-a-trojan-horse-for-ideology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/militarytimes\/commentary\/2021\/04\/30\/commentary-on-extremism-was-a-trojan-horse-for-ideology\/","title":{"rendered":"Commentary on extremism was a Trojan horse for ideology"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I read the commentary, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.airforcetimes.com\/opinion\/commentary\/2021\/04\/24\/enough-about-not-picking-sides-the-only-right-position-is-against-white-supremacy-and-extremism\/\" target=_blank>\u201cEnough about \u2018not picking sides.\u2019 The only right position is against white supremacy and extremism,\u201d<\/a> by Esteban Castellanos, U.S. Air Force Academy Class of 2003. He and his co-signers use terms such as \u201cinsurrection,\u201d \u201cwhite supremacy,\u201d and \u201cextremism.\u201d They represent a view that whites, especially our nation\u2019s Founders, inspired by a Judeo-Christian tradition, are oppressors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Esteban was born while I was stationed at Sembach Air Base, West Germany, as a forward air controller flying the OV-10 Bronco when I was not operating out of an MRC-108 jeep with radio pallet, armored personnel carrier, or OH-58 Kiowa helicopter. We trained aggressively to maintain a level of readiness to counter the Marxist ideological threat from the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact alliance. My wife recalled that I was gone an average of 250 days each year during our three-year assignment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Western alliance was outnumbered by enemy forces in the range of 3:1 to 5:1. But that represented the \u201cphysical\u201d element (tanks, fighters, bombers, etc.) that Carl von Clausewitz wrote about in his seminal work, \u201cOn War.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Clausewitz also wrote about the \u201cmoral\u201d element: the esprit de corps and anything else that unites a military force. The moral is three times more powerful than the physical. The successful strategist targets the moral element. This notion was not revolutionary. More than two millennia earlier, Sun Tzu argued that effective deception allowed a general to defeat the enemy via a \u201csheathed\u201d sword in his book, \u201cThe Art of War.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Castellanos and his co-signers demonstrate naivete in \u201ctaking sides\u201d in a situation that is being manipulated and orchestrated by elements within America\u2019s society bent on destroying it \u2014 the proverbial Trojan horse. I have not read any commentaries by Castellanos or his co-signers criticizing Black Lives Matter and antifa riots and looting deliberately staged to influence the 2020 presidential election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Nor have I read commentaries about First Amendment rights being violated when fellow Americans have been canceled, doxed, fired, and a whole range of punishments for not complying with the \u201cantiracist\u201d (antiwhite) orthodoxy pushed by ideologues like Ibram X. Kendi and Robin DiAngelo, prophets of the new woke religion based on critical race theory and its neo-Marxist ideology. For those who have read F.A. Hayek\u2019s \u201cThe Road to Serfdom\u201d published in the 1950s for an American audience, they will recognize the pattern that fuels and justifies totalitarianism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I respect Castellanos and his co-signers for taking ownership for their view. Yet, if the view is dangerous to the well-being of America by generating action, is this not by definition sedition: \u201cconduct or speech inciting people to rebel against the authority of a state or monarch\u201d?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And what is the ultimate authority in America? Although exercising delegated authority, it is not the president, the Congress, or the Supreme Court. It is \u201cwe the people\u201d exercising God-given inalienable rights to equality, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It is this ultimate authority that compelled \u201cpatriots\u201d to assemble and seek redress of grievances (as First Amendment rights) at the Capitol on Jan. 6.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We do not yet know the extent the assembly was hijacked. Those who broke the law should be held accountable, unlike the lack of justice involving Black Lives Matter and antifa riots and looting going into the presidential election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There is no doubt that those who are anti-America will employ, to the maximum extent possible, the deception Sun Tzu wrote about in \u201cThe Art of War.\u201d Its effectiveness can be seen in commentaries such as Castellanos\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><i>Dr. Ronald J. Scott Jr., Ph.D., retired Air Force colonel, is a member of the Class of 1973, United States Air Force Academy and served over 30 years in uniform, to include Europe during the Cold War, the Middle East, and Asia.<\/i><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><i>Editor\u2019s note: This is an op-ed and as such, the opinions expressed are those of the author. If you would like to respond, or have an editorial of your own you would like to submit, please contact Military Times managing editor Howard Altman, <\/i><a href=\"mailto:haltman@militarytimes.com\"><i>haltman@militarytimes.com<\/i><\/a><i>.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A recent commentary taking issue with the Air Force Academy&#8217;s response to the DoD&#8217;s extremism stand-down demonstrated naivete, says the author of this commentary.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":25895,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":97,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[97,28,17],"tags":[],"coauthors":[4056],"class_list":["post-51866","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-commentary","category-disaster","category-opinion"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"ZBITZMEOA5FN7P2C3ON5OCM2NM","arc_canonical_url":"\/opinion\/commentary\/2021\/04\/30\/commentary-on-extremism-was-a-trojan-horse-for-ideology\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.0 (Yoast SEO v28.1) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Commentary on extremism was a Trojan horse for ideology - Military Times<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A recent commentary taking issue with the Air Force Academy&#039;s response to the DoD&#039;s extremism stand-down demonstrated naivete, says the author of this commentary.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Commentary on extremism was a Trojan horse for ideology\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A recent commentary taking issue with the Air Force Academy&#039;s response to the DoD&#039;s extremism stand-down demonstrated naivete, says the author of this commentary.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/militarytimes\/commentary\/2021\/04\/30\/commentary-on-extremism-was-a-trojan-horse-for-ideology\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Military Times\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2021-04-30T09:00:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-08-07T20:55:23+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Dr. Ronald J. 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