On August 17, the US Army began what might very well be an inexorable slide into the status of a Third World Army. That would not be because of a lack of money or manpower but because the Army senior leadership has become so politically corrupt that it will do whatever it is told, no matter the outcome on some far flung battlefield. Two women were pushed, pulled, and hauled through Ranger School.

“Congratulations to all of our new Rangers,” Army Secretary John McHugh said in a statement. “Each Ranger School graduate has shown the physical and mental toughness to successfully lead organizations at any level. This course has proven that every soldier, regardless of gender, can achieve his or her full potential.

Earlier, it had seemed that the Army’s experiment, using 19 carefully selected and intensively trained women, would fail. Zero of the women candidates made it through the first phase of training. This was despite the fact that the women received a gold-plated level of preparation that is available to absolutely no male. This from a male officer going through the class with women.

I honestly know that some (not all) of the females who are going through right now were treated favorably in order to be better prepared for Ranger School. And “favorably” is a very conservative way of putting it. For example: multiple opportunities to pass RTAC; training in-between RTAC cycles to get better prepared to complete RTAC; training by an RI (not from RTB or RTAC) to get better prepared for Ranger School; PT plans focused on RAP week events and weapons training. All of this took place on the the governments dime at Ft. Banning and they did not have duty obligations back at their units. I’m sure all Ranger students would love to be put on active duty orders (if guard or reserve) or separated from their daily duties to strictly prepare for Ranger school. At the end of the day, they needed this preparation in order to have a good shot at passing rap week in ranger school.

What we didn’t know for sure at the time was that the fix was in. The school was directed that it would graduate at least one woman.

Way back in January, long before the first women attended the Army’s elite Ranger School – one of the most grueling military courses in the world – officials at the highest levels of the Army had already decided failure was not an option, sources tell PEOPLE.

“A woman will graduate Ranger School,” a general told shocked subordinates this year while preparing for the first females to attend a “gender integrated assessment” of the grueling combat leadership course starting April 20, sources tell PEOPLE. “At least one will get through.”

That directive set the tone for what was to follow, sources say.

“It had a ripple effect” at Fort Benning, where Ranger School is based, says a source with knowledge of events at the sprawling Georgia Army post. “Even though this was supposed to be just an assessment, everyone knew. The results were planned in advance.”

On Tuesday, PEOPLE revealed that Oklahoma Republican [mc_name name=’Rep. Steve Russell (R-OK)’ chamber=’house’ mcid=’R000604′ ] had asked the Department of Defense for documents about the women who attended Ranger School after becoming concerned that “the women got special treatment and played by different rules,” sources say.

These are a few of the advantages awarded the women:

• Women were first sent to a special two-week training in January to get them ready for the school, which didn’t start until April 20. Once there they were allowed to repeat the program until they passed – while men were held to a strict pass/fail standard.

• Afterward they spent months in a special platoon at Fort Benning getting, among other things, nutritional counseling and full-time training with a Ranger.

• While in the special platoon they were taken out to the land navigation course – a very tough part of the course that is timed – on a regular basis. The men had to see it for the first time when they went to the school.

• Once in the school they were allowed to repeat key parts – like patrols – while special consideration was not given to the men.

• A two-star general made personal appearances to cheer them along during one of the most challenging parts of the school, multiple sources tell PEOPLE.

Even the women graduates were surprised that they were allowed to repeat sections of the course until they graduated:

“I thought we were going to be dropped after we failed Darby [part of Benning] the second time,” Griest said at a press conference before graduation. “We were offered a Day One Recycle.”

There is much, much, much, much more in the story. And when an abuse of process that favors women is so grotesque that PEOPLE Magazine objects, then you know it was actually much worse than they are saying.

But the point isn’t to harp on the disservice done to the Army, to the two young women who are wearing a Ranger Tab that they and everyone else knows they really didn’t earn, and to the young men who are eventually going to be killed because of this nonsense. Neither is this an objection to women serving in positions where they are physically capable of serving. There are many non-combat specialties where women are simply not physically suited to be able to perform adequately. This is not sexism or misogyny, this is what is known as science:

This is about a coordinated and conscious attack on military efficiency in the service of perceived gender equity is in full swing in the military.

Recently, the USMC did a study that compared all-male infantry squads to co-ed infantry squads in performing combat tasks. It wasn’t even close. But rather than accept the science that the left is all in favor of, the Secretary of the Navy accused the Marines of fixing the study. Perhaps in his view, “fixing” means the same as “honest assessment.”

The Navy is planning on opening up SEAL training to women

Adm. Jon Greenert said he and the head of Naval Special Warfare Command, Rear Adm. Brian Losey, believe that if women can pass the legendary six-month Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL training, they should be allowed to serve.

“Why shouldn’t anybody who can meet these [standards] be accepted? And the answer is, there is no reason,” Greenert said Tuesday in an exclusive interview with Navy Times and its sister publication Defense News. “So we’re on a track to say, ‘Hey look, anybody who can meet the gender non-specific standards, then you can become a SEAL.'”

None of this does anything to promote combat effectiveness. From a training resource point of view it is little removed from fraud, waste, and abuse. Those 19 slots given to women to Ranger School would have produced about 13 or 14 Ranger trained men to go to positions that needed them. Instead, it produced zero Ranger qualified soldiers. The same will be true with SEAL training.

This is about social engineering. Back in the Lyndon Johnson Adminstration, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara came up with Project 100,000. This scheme brought in, eventually, 320,000 recruits who would have been deemed mentally unqualified to enlist under earlier standards. The results were much as you can imagine: a disaster for the units and for the men. The SWJ types have concluded that women can, against all scientific evidence, adequately perform in every military position. This is nonsense. When confronted with the data they simply resort to brute coercion to force military units to warp standards in order to achieve their goals. And they are willing to kill as many people as it takes to get their way.