Trump Defense pick Hegseth’s sex scandal distracts from his troubling extremism – National & International News – FRI 22Nov2024

Trump Defense pick Hegseth’s sex scandal distracts from his troubling extremism.

Putin threatens Ukraine’s backers after launching new hypersonic missile.

NATIONAL NEWS

Trump Defense pick Hegseth’s sex scandal distracts from his troubling extremism

Pete Hegseth, the Fox News host and former Minnesota guardsman Trump has tapped to lead the Pentagon, has been making the rounds in the Senate to drum up support for his candidacy, accompanied by soon-to-be VP J.D. Vance. This pick initially raised eyebrows among Senate Republicans because Hegseth is a relative outsider. Trump is fond of outsiders and this is not necessarily a bad thing. However, other information about Hegseth has come to light which has led to more trepidation among lawmakers, who will have to vote to approve his appointment.

The controversy that is getting the most attention at the moment is a 2017 sexual assault allegation against Hegseth by an unnamed accuser. The police report, released yesterday, reveals that the woman accused Hegseth of blocking the door of her hotel room and forcing himself on her while she was in an inebriated state. Hegseth has claimed that the encounter was consensual, and no charges were ultimately filed. However, Hegseth did pay an undisclosed amount to his accuser to head off a lawsuit.

This is the topic that seems to have most preoccupied lawmakers concerned about his candidacy. As Sen. Kevin Kramer (R-ND) pointed out, “it’s a pretty big problem, given that we, you know, we have a sexual assault problem in our military”. Other Republican lawmakers seem happy to chalk this up to a case of he-said/she-said.

Hegseth has also written and spoken extensively against the role of women in the military. In his 2024 book “The War on Warriors,” Hegseth wrote, “Dads push us to take risks. Moms put the training wheels on our bikes. We need moms. But not in the military, and especially not in combat units”. As of 2021, women made up 17.3% of the active-duty military force and 21.4% of the National Guard and reserves. The military is having trouble recruiting enough people as it is.

However, Hegseth has another potential red flag that does not seem to be making its way into the discussion about his fitness to lead military policy. That is his militant far-right extremist views. These terms are often thrown about loosely. However, based on Hegseth’s own statements, it’s hard to know what else to call it.

“Insider threat”

Hegseth was among a dozen or so Guardsman whose deployment to protect Biden’s 2021 inauguration was canceled due to being flagged as a potential “insider threat”. According to D.C. Master Sergeant DeRicko Gaither, who recommended Hegseth’s withdrawal, his assessment was based on a social media photo of Hegseth sporting a tattoo on his bicep reading “Deus Vult,” or “God wills it” in Latin. This was a rallying cry of the medieval Crusaders who attempted to seize control of the Holy Land from Islamic powers. The slogan has been co-opted in recent years by far-right militant extremists and white supremacists in the United States.

After learning of the reason for his deployment being canceled, Hegseth, who also served in Iraq and Afghanistan, left the service for good.

MSG Gaither has clarified in recent interviews that he did not consider the Crusader cross tattooed on Hegseth’s chest in his assessment, as Hegseth has repeatedly claimed. It is interesting that it was apparently Hegseth himself who identified this tattoo as a potential cause for concern. The Crusader cross, or versions of it, has also been featured prominently at demonstrations by far-right extremists in recent years, both in the US and Europe. You can see Hegseth’s tattoos in more detail here.

Despite these troubling associations, Hegseth has maintained that these tattoos are merely an expression of his Christian faith. His allies, including J.D. Vance, have portrayed his dismissal as “anti-Christian bigotry”. However, most modern Christians do not embrace Crusader symbology because of its extremely bloody history and explicit European supremacist overtones. Even if one gave Hegseth the benefit of the doubt here, his own published writings have added even more smoke to this fire.

“Soldier for Christ” or “proto-fascist”?

In his 2020 book “American Crusade: Our Fight to Stay Free”, Hegseth tells his Christian conservative audience, “Arm yourself – metaphorically, intellectually, physically. Our fight is not with guns. Yet“.

He evokes the time of the birth of the Crusades, the start of centuries of blood-drenched, wasteful, and at times genocidal conflict. This era gave rise to generations of enmity that has only begun to dissipate in the modern day, at least for most people. “Our present moment is much like the 11th century” Hegseth writes. “We don’t want to fight, but, like our fellow Christians 1,000 years ago, we must”.

Hegseth exhorts his followers to fight back against a potential “Islamist” takeover of the United States. Such a takeover is not in evidence, but, in Hegseth’s view, it is inevitable due to “very high birth rates” among Muslim immigrants and refugees in the US. Hegseth asserts without evidence that 25% of the global Muslim population support forcing the world to submit to Islam or be killed.

According to a poll by the Council on American- Islamic Relations (CAIR), Donald Trump received 21% of the American-Muslim vote, while Kamala Harris took 20%.

Hegseth also calls on his American Crusaders to combat other “domestic enemies”, namely those who do not share his political ideology. He calls on his readers to “mock, humiliate, intimidate, and crush our leftist opponents” who he claims are prone to “sedition”.

John Whitehouse of watchdog group Media Matters says that throughout Hegseth’s career in media, he has “always given off a proto-fascist vibe“. Referring to Hegseth’s service, Whitehouse surmises that what “appealed to [Hegseth] was going into Iraq as a Crusader, and when that went wrong, he started looking at America through the same lens”.

One wonders if the few Republican Senators who were troubled by Hegseth’s sexual allegations will find these revelations equally off-putting.

INTERNATIONAL NEWS

Putin threatens Ukraine’s backers after launch of new hypersonic missile

Yesterday, Russian forces fired a newly-developed intermediate range ballistic missile at a military-industrial facility in the city of Dnipro in central Ukraine. The new weapon, dubbed “Oreshnik” (Russian for hazelnut tree) carries multiple warheads and has hypersonic capability.

After this show of force, Russian President Vladimir Putin issued a stern warning to Ukraine’s Western allies in his first televised address since the US authorized Ukraine to fire long-range missiles into Russia. “We consider ourselves entitled to use our weapons against the facilities of those countries that allow their weapons to be used against our facilities”. Earlier this week, Ukraine launched long-range missiles into Russia supplied by both the US and the UK. Putin described yesterday’s ballistic missile attack as a direct response to this.

“In the event of an escalation of aggressive actions, we will respond decisively and reciprocally,” Putin said. “I recommend that the ruling elites of those countries that are hatching plans to use their military contingents against Russia seriously think about this”.

Threat to US and other NATO countries

Putin claimed that the new missile flies at 10 times the speed of sound. In fact, Ukrainian military officials said that the missile had traveled at a speed of Mach 11. Putin asserted that American and European missile defense systems would be powerless to intercept such a weapon.

This claim was backed up by Matthew Savill, director of military sciences at the Royal United Services Institute. Savill summarized Putin’s message to the West as “we’re happy to enter into a competition around intermediate-range ballistic missiles. P. S.: These could be nuclear tipped. Do you really want to take that risk?”.

After the US lifted its restriction on long-range strikes by Ukraine, Putin adjusted Russia’s nuclear policy. Under the new doctrine, a major attack on Russian soil by a non-nuclear country (such as Ukraine) which is backed by a nuclear power (such as the US or UK) could theoretically be sufficient to trigger a nuclear response by Russia.

Running out the clock

During Putin’s address, he boasted that “No one in the world has such weapons”. However, he acknowledged that, “Sooner or later, other leading countries will also get them. We are aware that they are under development”. But, he added, “we have the system now. And this is important”.

With the launch of this powerful new weapon, Russia seems to be in a position of escalation dominance in the situation, for the time being. If that were to change, Russia considers itself within its rights to escalate accordingly.

Putin appears to be biding his time until President-elect Donald Trump takes office in January. Trump has vowed to bring the Ukraine-Russia conflict to an end with a negotiated settlement. With this recent show of force, Putin hopes that Ukraine’s European allies will think twice about continuing to support Ukraine militarily if the Trump administration pulls US support.

Since Russia is currently dominant on the battlefield and has captured about 20% of Ukraine’s territory, any negotiated settlement will likely require major territorial concessions from Ukraine, something Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky has repeatedly rejected. It appears there is room for negotiation on the Kremlin side on these territorial points. One point the Kremlin considers non-negotiable is that Ukraine must be barred from joining NATO.