New Military Diversity Initiative Aims To Make Leadership Look More Like Countries They Invade

WASHINGTON—In a move that officials from the Pentagon called long overdue, a new U.S. military diversity initiative unveiled Wednesday aimed to make leadership look more like the countries they invade. “It’s the 21st century, and it simply isn’t right to have a group of generals leading the United States Armed Forces who don’t resemble the populations of the nations we bomb into oblivion,” said Gen. Mark Milley, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who added that while the military had made strides in recent years, proportional representation of women and people of color among leadership remained just a fraction of the diversity represented in countries like Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, and Somalia. “In country after country we invade, we see that there’s a diversity that’s lacking among our top leaders, and this initiative will take steps to change that imbalance. We need more Muslims, more folks of Arabic descent, not only African Americans but Africans too. We don’t have children represented at all at the top levels of Pentagon leadership. When the U.S. is ignoring every tenet of international law to pursue its own financially driven objectives in your country, whether you’re a victim of a drone strike, had your government overthrown, or just live in the daily terror of violence, you should be able to point to one of the people doing that to you and say, ‘That person looks like me.’” U.S. military officials announced that their first phase would involve armed recruitment of potential candidates representing the backgrounds of countries they invade, and they were prepared to integrate them into leadership by force.