They don't care about talent. They only care about who is loyal TO THEM.
Put another way, would having somebody around who despised you, and who regularly has a loaded gun in his hand, make you feel all warm and fuzzy?
These are scared, insecure people. They want to surround themselves with people loyal to them, at whatever cost to the United States.
My point was that any attempt to turn an incompetent and out manned military against its people would likely fail.