Pete Hegseth here.
Wow.
Wow.
I’ve called you members of the Fake News together for this special meeting because I can’t believe you could have gotten it so wrong.
I am personally ashamed of you. You are the reason that people are saying that the mission “only set back Iran’s nuclear program for months” and “was not an unmitigated success.” Did you not hear the president? The target was OBLITERATED. Stop acting like something can’t be obliterated for months. I’ve been obliterated for months myself.
Maybe if you BELIEVED more, you would understand how well the mission went! You would know that the second the bombs fell, the only thing they could possibly have hit was their target, and the only thing they could possibly have done was DECIMATE and DESTROY their target exactly as intended. But instead, because you didn’t BELIEVE enough, you demanded “reports”—and now we’re in this mess. You are making our pilots sad!
I know there is an old journalistic saying: If your mother says she loves you, check it out. I would never! I know my mother loves me, despite what her emails published in The New York Times suggest.
Everyone with eyes knows this mission was a success! And if you doubt, here are a number of quotes from people brave enough to see what was REALLY there and not just what so-called INTELLIGENCE shows. This is also what I’m like when my loved ones come out of surgery. I don’t need to see the patient. I just want to hear statements from True Patriots about how he’s probably doing. That’s enough for me. If you weren’t FAKE NEWS, it would be enough for you.
Now, thanks to Donald Trump, we are on the historic, unprecedented verge of a thing that we used to have before he tore up the treaty! Where’s the praise? Where’s the adulation?
You are free to write whatever you want. You can say the target was “devastated.” You can say the target was “obliterated.” Choose whatever word you like, as long as it is a synonym for destroyed. You can even say “utterly destroyed.” It’s a free country.
When I look out over this press corps, I think, Is it any wonder the mission only set back the nuclear program for months? Which, of course, it didn’t. It set the program back for an untold, unfathomable length of time. Who can fathom it? Who can tell it? Not I. After a mission like this, how about we take a beat, wave a flag, celebrate our warriors’ success?
Maybe, if you were a better press corps, the mission would have gone better. Have you ever considered that?
Not that it didn’t go perfectly! But hypothetically.
Say you are one of our brave pilots. How do you think he feels? He’s refueled. He’s dropped his payload. What he wants to hear you say is, “Great job, Kevin! Mission accomplished, Kevin!” He doesn’t need you saying, “Actually, was the whole target, you know, THERE?”
Look, we remember from 2003 that all you need in order to have accomplished your mission is a big-enough banner. Then it’s your job, as the media, to say, “Great job accomplishing that mission!” You know what it isn’t your job to do? Ask questions.
Why don’t you want to celebrate? Why do you hate America?
CLAP if you believe in mission.
CLAP! See, it’s going better all the time. CLAP! KEEP CLAPPING!
The post Yes, the Iran Mission Was Successful. No, We Are Not Taking Questions. appeared first on The Atlantic.
