The War On Pete Hegseth

Authored by ‘Cynical Publius’ via American Greatness,

I have had enough. I can no longer sit still while the Deep State does its very best to smear Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and have him removed from his post via lies, rumors, propaganda, and innuendo. It feels exactly like version 2.0 of the “Trump/Russia Collusion” disinformation campaign, and it needs to be called out for what it is.

Enough.

I am here to defend the best Secretary of War/Defense since Caspar Weinberger.

What we have seen in the last few weeks is clearly an orchestrated, carefully constructed character assassination campaign against Hegseth.

The campaign began in the early days of November when the leaders of the Sedition 6 introduced legislation known as the “No Troops in Our Streets Act,” legislation clearly designed to undermine the roles of President Trump and Secretary Hegseth in the military chain of command. Then, of course, on November 18, the Sedition 6—led by Senators Mark Kelly and Elisa Slotkin—launched their infamous video calling (via innuendo and plausible deniability) for military members to disobey lawful orders they disagree with politically by pretending such lawful orders are “unlawful.” For the next eight days, the Deep State went into a full media onslaught that seemed designed to foment a military mutiny against Trump and Hegseth. Suddenly, these wannabe seditionists were forced to hit the brakes on their information operation, as on November 26 two West Virginia National Guard soldiers patrolling the streets of Washington, D.C., in support of anti-crime operations were shot by an Afghan civilian with former ties to the CIA, and America saw an easy connection between that attack and the calls to undermine Trump, Hegseth, and the anti-crime mission.

But the Deep State never rests and was quick to shift gears and change the subject away from their own perfidy. On November 28, the Washington Post published its anonymously sourced hit piece on Hegseth, alleging that he personally directed war crimes, and in a matter of minutes, the entire Democrat hierarchy and its minions in the national media ran with Nancy Pelosi’s beloved “wrap-up smear” in a transparent effort to remove Hegseth.

We now know, of course, it was all a lie. The Democrats and the national media want you to believe that two “fishermen” survived a first strike on their drug-laden speedboat and were then floating in the water helplessly like Rose and Jack at the end of “Titanic,” and we gunned them down as helpless victims and in violation of the Geneva Conventions. In reality, the two narco-terrorists were back on board their partially damaged boat, seeking to conduct damage control and recover their WMD cargo. The narco-terrorists and their lethal cargo were lawful targets under all U.S. laws and all treaties to which the U.S. is a party. No war crimes were involved—just an effective and entirely lawful military strike on narco-terrorists who kill thousands of Americans annually. The Washington Post lied, as is its wont in any matter involving the Trump Administration.

But the damage was done, and too many Americans are still clinging to the lies. In fact, it was an opinion piece I saw today by the desiccated remains of George Will, published in that same Washington Post and uncritically repeating all of that tabloid’s original lies, that pushed me over the edge and caused me to rise to the defense of Pete Hegseth with this article.

As a veteran of the same wars Hegseth fought in and as a retired Army colonel who also fought the Beltway wars of the Pentagon, I take the attacks on Hegseth personally, as he is trying to fix all of the ills that I saw so clearly in my time in service. My sincere belief is that at this time in American history, Pete Hegseth is the perfect person to serve as Secretary of War.

I’ll explain why.

America’s military spent 20+ years engaged in a GWOT battle that, after its first few years, became a predominantly political, economic, diplomatic, and law enforcement mission where the military was not the right tool in the DIME-FIL (DIME-FIL = The “elements of national power” under U.S. military doctrine, or diplomatic, informational, military, economic, financial, intelligence, and law enforcement) toolbox. “Nation building,” ridiculously restrictive, JAG-inspired rules of engagement, social justice experimentation, Military Transition Teams and Security Force Assistance Brigades, and the bastardization of combat arms units away from their mission-essential tasks all created a U.S. military that was risk averse to a crippling degree, lacked adequate training and equipment readiness levels for high-intensity conflict, had broken morale and poor retention/recruiting, and was more concerned about DEI than closing with and destroying the enemy.

The military that Donald Trump inherited from Joe Biden in January of this year was a broken shell of the military that entered the GWOT in 2001. It had lost its focus on lethality, valued skin color and genitalia more than warfighting competency, and was not even able to fully recognize its own missions in a world rife with peer competitors bent on high-intensity global or regional domination, such as China and Russia. Yes, low-intensity conflict was still on the menu in places like Yemen, Syria, and the battles against narco-terrorists, but a military trained for high-intensity conflict can adjust to low-intensity conflict quickly, but it does not work so well the other way around.

As Donald Trump took office, what America needed was a Secretary of War who was intimately familiar with these failures—somebody who had fought those GWOT battles and understood our failings deep in his or her soul. Such a person could not be one of the Perfumed Princes who engineered and would repeat our failures. Instead, it needed to be someone with muddy boots who had experienced the mess we had become at a deeply personal, tactical level.

Moreover, it needed to be someone who understood information operations and the climate of global, instantaneous messaging that is our new day-to-day.

This person did not need to have a comprehensive understanding of military procurement and the military/industrial complex that accompanies Beltway jockeying with Congress and defense contractors—those skills are widely available and could easily be obtained by hiring effective subordinates with the shared vision of a military that needed to be once again focused on lethality.

What might such a person have looked like?

Well, he or she would need to have the following qualifications:

1. A military career that involved killing the enemy up close and personal in the most efficient manner possible. An infantryman, if possible. A Combat Infantryman Badge would be double plus good.

2. Muddy boots experience leading troops in direct combat in Iraq and/or Afghanistan.

3. Deep experience in leading one of the failed coalition training missions in Iraq or Afghanistan.

4. Someone who shared the dark personal struggles of every veteran who had come home from our endless wars.

5. A final military rank that meant he or she was never a Perfumed Prince and was never polluted by the Beltway mind virus that seems to infect every soldier, sailor, airman, Marine, or Guardian who ever pins on a star.

6. Deep experience in information operations, such as being a best-selling author on military affairs or being a military expert on a major news network.

Those are the qualifications that were needed to turn America’s military around and restore it to once again being the premier warfighting force in world history. We did not need more of the same. We did not need a former Raytheon board member. We did not need a former congressman who cared more about politics than winning wars. We did not need yet another retired general who was an architect of our useless, endless wars. What we needed was someone who truly understood the errors of the GWOT, understood that the mission of the U.S. military is to close with and destroy the enemy in the most violent and expeditious manner possible, and who had the chops in the 24/7 modern information environment to wage information warfare just as effectively as his opponents.

One American and one American only had those qualifications: Pete Hegseth, and that man is doing everything I could have ever hoped for to restore the pride and skill we have lost. His focus on lethality and warfighting skill is the one and only antidote to the intentional failures that have scarred veterans like Hegseth and me over the past 24 years.

Please realize this: Hegseth is a threat to anyone who prefers the Obama/Biden vision of an impotent social justice military. He is a threat to anyone who thinks R2P (R2P = “Responsibility to Protect,” i.e., a leftist, globalist doctrine popularized under the Obama Administration that says the U.S. military has a core mission of protecting foreign populations against the deprivations of their own or neighboring governments or warlords. Although legitimate in some instances, it prioritizes the national interests and lives of foreigners over the national interests of the USA and the lives of American servicemen and servicewomen) is a core competency of the American military. He is a threat to anyone who thinks enriching the military/industrial complex is more important than winning wars. Basically, he is a threat to anyone who sees the military as a politicized force and not an effective warfighting endeavor. In other words, Hegseth is a threat to the Beltway defense establishment that has exchanged failure for dollars since the days of Robert McNamara.

Which is why it is so very, very important that the same defense establishment (elected, unelected, and media) smear him in every way imaginable and at every opportunity. When you see and hear the abject lies of the Sedition 6 and their ilk, and when you see and hear wholly fabricated, libelous stories like the “Kill Them All” Hoax, realize why this is happening. These fake news stories are designed to attack and defeat an existential threat to the leftist vision of a social justice American military that exists to enrich defense industry campaign contributors.

Like Donald Trump, Pete Hegseth is an existential threat to the leftist evils that nearly defeated America and the Constitution via Barack Obama and Joe Biden.

It takes a strong man to withstand the onslaught of the Deep State, with all of its lies, libel, and propaganda. Donald Trump is one man who withstood that fire of infamous defamation. Pete Hegseth is another.

We all owe Pete Hegseth our gratitude for the personal cost he is enduring in the name of freedom. He could be sitting at home enjoying his writings and his Fox News appearances. Instead, he is enduring the cowardly slings and arrows of powerful liars as he strives to fix the ills that have long beset our nation’s military.

The disgusting disinformation campaign against Hegseth needs to be challenged vigorously, and I encourage all of you readers to help lead the counterattack.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ZeroHedge.