To mark Veterans Day, six national security analysts at The Heritage Foundation who served in the military released a statement Thursday supporting Sen. Tommy Tuberville’s stand against the Pentagon’s abortion policy.
President Joe Biden “is the one playing politics with the military,” longtime Heritage national security expert James Jay Carafano, who signed the statement, told The Daily Signal. (The Daily Signal is Heritage’s news outlet.)
Referring to Tuberville, R-Ala., a retired college football coach, Carafano added: “Coach is making a stand to get politics out of military policy and get the Pentagon focused on the mission and taking care of service members and their families rather than putting the woke agenda first.”
To end what he calls the Defense Department’s unlawful use of taxpayers’ money to pay for abortion-related travel for service members and dependents, Tuberville placed a “hold” on hundreds of military promotions that normally are confirmed routinely by the Senate.
“We stand united in our support of Sen. Tuberville’s opposition to the Department of Defense’s illegal and immoral policies that attempt to bypass U.S. law and which further erode America’s trust in the capability of the U.S. armed forces to fulfill its mission,” reads the written statement from military veterans who are members of Heritage’s national security team.
Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, is one of Tuberville’s fellow Senate Republicans who publicly back his move to block military promotions until Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin scraps the abortion policy.
“While Americans may disagree on the legality of abortion, and they do,” Lee said in a September speech on the Senate floor, “there has long been this overwhelming, bipartisan, supermajority understanding, first and foremost among the American people at large, and until very lately [there has] been that overwhelming, bipartisan, supermajority consensus among federally elected lawmakers that Americans are against tacitly supporting abortion with their taxpayer dollars.”
Tuberville and other conservatives argue that the Pentagon’s policy is illegal under the Hyde Amendment, a congressional measure that forbids the use of taxpayer dollars to provide abortions.
“It is essential those who take an oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States comply with our laws,” reads the statement from members of Heritage’s defense and national security policy team who are military veterans. “Failure to do so undermines public trust and confidence and the chain of command.”
The statement was signed by Carafano, who is senior counselor to Heritage President Kevin Roberts as well as the think tank’s E.W. Richardson fellow, and five other Heritage national security experts who are military veterans:
—Robert Greenway, director of Heritage’s Center for National Defense.
—JV Venable, Heritage senior research fellow for defense policy.
—Dakota Wood, Heritage senior research fellow for defense programs.
—Wilson Beaver, Heritage senior policy analyst for defense budgeting.
—Steven Bucci, Heritage visiting fellow for cybersecurity and military special operations.
“Coach is following the rules set by the Senate,” Carafano told The Daily Signal, speaking of Tuberville. “That’s not a problem, that’s standing up and taking responsibility.”
Read the entrire statement here.
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