Listening to Pesident Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth address the convened leadership of the US military today in Quantico, Virginia revealed in an unexpected way the might of America’s armed forces.
Because today was the first time I, like many Americans, realized our Army, Navy, and Air Force were now being directed at us.
We who dare to disagree with Trump or who do not show him adequate loyalty are now in the cross-hairs of the most awesome fighting force the world has ever known.
Today, the President of the United States stated clearly that cities like “San Francisco, Chicago, New York and Los Angeles” would become priority targets for America’s military. He stated in no uncertain terms that Democrats and others who oppose him are enemies against whom they would be leading the fight.
And Hegseth made it clear that any who did not support Trump’s priorities should resign.
Trump’s remarks were not, as some have already asserted, merely among the most disturbing or dangerous ever delivered by a US president. None, even during civil war or other moments of unrest, has so openly and hostilely targeted their own civilians.
Standing in front of over 800 generals, flag officers and senior non-commissioned officers, Trump made the US military’s new mission clear. He called America’s cities—specifically those “run by radical left Democrats”—“very unsafe places.”
“We’re gonna straighten them out one by one,” he said. “That’s a war too. It’s a war from within.” And he made the case that American citizens who opposed him should be, in his words, “taken out.”
Frankly, it was a moment at which every senior officer present, recalling their oath to the Constitution and the traditions they revere, should have stood up and walked out of the room. They did not. Instead, they sat, many glassy-eyed, seemingly in shock, watching Trump make it clear he saw them as pawns in his campaign to transform America into an authoritarian nation.
There were other dimensions, also disturbing, to the unprecedented spectacle. Some were ridiculous as when Trump, famed draft-dodger, described for the collected war-fighters the perils of going down the stairs too quickly. Or as when Pentagon Pete said almost anything. The Secretary of Defense focused many of his remarks on the so-called “warrior ethos” he was seeking to instill. That, in his eyes, meant calling for an end to bearded or overweight troops—without any sense of irony given the nearby presence of his obese boss.
Other comments were more pernicious. Hegseth reiterated that he and Trump were committed to eradicating any hint of ‘wokeness’ in the military, repeating lines intended to imply (erroneously) that women and people of color have been afforded promotions they did not deserve, and that they have benefited from standards lowered to accommodate their inadequacies. He stepped up his on-going defense, meanwhile, of one group for he has long had an affinity—people who have committed or are inclined to commit war crimes: “We unleash overwhelming and punishing violence on the enemy. We also don’t fight with stupid rules of engagement,” he promised. “We untie the hands of our warfighters to intimidate, demoralize, hunt and kill the enemies of our country.”
His message was clear, echoing past efforts to “clear the names” of soldiers who violated US and international military law, as well as recent US military actions including the wanton and illegal killing of the crews of vessels in the Caribbean alleged to be trafficking in drugs.
Hegseth clearly wants to be not just Secretary of War, but America’s Secretary of War Crimes.
But immorality was not the only thing that set Hegseth’s remarks apart. There was also the profound misreading and ignorance of history he displayed. (One such assertion: “As history teaches us, the only people who actually deserve peace are those who are willing to wage war to defend it. That’s why pacifism is so naïve and dangerous.”) Trump of course had ill-informed observations of his own to share, including his musing bizarrely for a return to building battleships, a form of naval power universally seen as having been rendered obsolete by the first days of World War II.
But both also appeared to be failing to learn from recent history. It was Trump who brought up his old friend Putin, criticizing his failure to go along with Trump’s “plans” to end the war in Ukraine. He noted that Putin had failed to achieve his military objectives in that war, but appeared oblivious to the reality that he and Hegseth are repeating all the critical mistakes that have weakened the Russian military.
They are demanding absolute loyalty and zero independent thinking. They are imposing impulsive, strategically incoherent views from above. They are making choices that were bad for the economy and unpopular with citizens at large. And they are undercutting readiness by establishing the wrong priorities and misdirecting key resources.
Hegseth is reportedly about to release a new National Defense Strategy that has already generated deep skepticism. It is expected to call for reducing US troops in Europe, narrowing preparedness for conflict with China and turning many resources to defending American borders from illegal immigration and drugs. Military leaders and defense professionals with whom I have spoken consider these directions to be dangerously ill-conceived, inconsistent with US international or domestic interests and a profound threat to national security.
The daunting question we now face is: Which threat is greater? That posed by rivals and enemies seeking to take advantage of our growing weakness or that posed by our own president seeking to turn the resources of the US military, as well as those of the rest of the government, against his own country?
Unfortunately, we have little time for debate. Both threats are real. Both are growing graver by the minute. Both have the same targets—the American people. And both have the same cause: a reckless, misguided president surrounded by a team of lawless, extremist acolytes. What remains to be seen is whether any others in power in America—including those who were present in the room in Quantico—are willing to stand up, speak out and defend us against the clear and present danger posed by our own commander-in-chief.
The post Opinion: Trump’s Generals Speech Proved to Be Dumb, Deluded… and Dangerous appeared first on The Daily Beast.
