Some of us found the defense establishment getting caught off guard par for the course.
But the nomination of an extreme, anti-establishment crusader like Hegseth was predictable.
Trumps re-election means the upheavals have just begun.
Pete Hegseth celebrates Independence Day on ‘Fox & Friends Weekend’ on July 4, 2021 in New York City.James Devaney/GC Images
While many will celebrate a cultural shakeup at thePentagon, they may not like the direction it takes.
But it comes from a sincere place of frustration and discontent.
Washington pretendedAfghanistanwas turning the corner for decades.
There has never been an accounting for the grand failures of the GlobalWar on Terror, or GWOT.
There is fury in the hearts of those who served in these wars.
Because the system is malfunctioning.
The Trump administration plans to harness that rage and direct it at its enemies.
That may be a daydream, but what many people want is someone to blame for America losing.
Trump and his supporters dont want reform, they want revenge.
They violated their oath.
They disgraced our troops, and our nation.
They got people killed, unnecessarily, Hegseth wrote in his recently published book,The War on Warriors.
And, to this moment, they keep their jobs.
Worse, they continue to actively erode our military and its values by capitulating to civilians with radical agendas.
They are an embarrassment, with stars still on their shoulders.
Hegseth isnt just a thumb in the eye of the career brass.
Trump alsointendsto purge generals he doesnt like.
Ive never met Hegseth.
I worked with various National Guard units over the years, but never the Minnesota Guard.
Our paths never crossed in the military or in television.
I dont want to push this too far.
Weve had different lives and careers.
The point is, Hegseths experiences are not alien to me.
An important period is from 2007 to 2011.
They became what one of my platoon commanders acerbically dubbed Born-Again Hard.
It worked or seemed to.
Attacks on American forces declined.
There remains fierce debate about what Petraeus actually achieved in Iraq.
Washington was convinced: COIN would win GWOT.
Petraeus was sent to Afghanistan with his gospel, in the hope of replicating his Surge miracles.
At least it felt like something different.
you’re free to still see him on TV sometimes.
Needless to say, it didnt work.
COIN did not save Afghanistan from the Taliban.
He added many Americans were lulled by a strategy that donned the guise of temporary victory.
Make Christendom Great Again
America may run on Dunkin, but its built on fear.
It always has been.
Warrior philosophies are meant to be an antidote to fear.
Martial pastimes ebbed and flowed back-and-forth across the civil-military divide, mutated versions ingesting extreme politics and fringe philosophies.
Hegseth, too, became an adherent.
Much discourse about Hegseths nomination has centered around his ink, his Jerusalem Cross and his Deus Vult tattoos.
Good luck sorting it out to everyones satisfaction.
But Hegseths writings and statements do.
His bookAmerican Crusadecalls for a holy war for the righteous cause of human freedom.
Our present moment is much like the 11th Century.
A lot of inexactitude in two sentences, but I get it.
So whats our target, Major?
Islamism is the most dangerous threat to freedom in the world.
Well, ok then.
Were gonna invade modernity and lay siege to multicultural liberalism, not liberate Jerusalem from infidels.
DeRicko Gaither, charged with identifying insider threats, in an email to commanders explaining concerns over Hegseth.
He is a militant Christian nationalist.
Some of Americas warriors are lost.
They dont know where were going or how were getting there.
He scoffed, saying the only place people still talk about GWOT is in VFW halls.
But when I mentioned the plan to prosecute leaders for the Afghanistan withdrawal, it clicked.
Like the Laws of Armed Conflict.
you might always find puffed-up poseurs in the military, swaggering around saying war has no rules.
But that idea is problematic in a professional military unit.
But if people want a myth about why that happened, Hegseth has one.
He saluted a North Korean general, for heavens sake.
If anything, Trump loves the military a little too much.
At the outset of his first administration, Trump loved his own generals, too.
Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn; Maj. Gen. H.R.
McMaster; Gen. James Mattis; Gen. John Kelly; Gen. Mark Milley.
These are central casting, hesaid.
If Im doing a movie, Id pick you generals.
The public breakup with the men he once called my generals was ugly.
Hes somewhere toward the top of Trumps enemies list now.
They warned he was a fascist and a threat to democracy.
Hegseth will serve at his pleasure.
Hegseth will be the tool Trump uses to purge the Pentagon, and many will cheer him on.
He didnt make it to the end of Trumps term, either.
The American people should know it, too.
