Hegseth Plus Trump Equals Unrestrained State Violence--Here, in the USA

https://prospect.org/blogs-and-newsletters/tap/2025-10-02-hegseth-plus-trump-equals-unrestrained-state-violence/



President Trump’s speech to our generals and admirals on Tuesday has rightly generated headlines and buzz for his telling them to refocus on “the enemy within,” and that deploying to American cities would provide valuable training for their troops. But it’s only when you combine Trump’s directives with the further directives that Secretary of Defense (excuse me, Secretary of War) Pete Hegseth gave those generals and admirals in the talk following Trump’s that a more rounded view of Trumpworld policy emerges.

Hegseth’s lessons could be boiled down to a few simple points: The department will drop restrictions on “bullying and hazing” in order “to empower leaders to enforce standards without fear of retribution or second-guessing.” Similarly, he added, “We untie the hands of our war fighters to intimidate, demoralize, hunt, and kill the enemies of our country. No more politically correct and overbearing rules of engagement.”

Leaders sensitive to such rules of engagement were out. “Out with the Milleys,” he said, referring to former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark Milley, who began to question Trump’s adherence to the Constitution after he’d ordered the military dispersal of Black Lives Matter demonstrators on 16th Street, near the White House. “In with the Stockdales, Schwarzkopfs, and Pattons.” To this, Hegseth appended a further general rule for generals: “It’s completely unacceptable to see fat generals and admirals in the halls of the Pentagon.”

I’d say that Hegseth’s instructions were dangerously backward-looking, but for the fact that he also completely misstated our military norms all the way back to January 1776. It was then, in the first decisive victory for the American cause, that Washington’s army compelled the British to end their occupation of Boston when a force commanded by Henry Knox brought cannons from Fort Ticonderoga in upstate New York across mountains in the dead of winter so that Washington could train them on the redcoats in Boston. Knox, who went on to command Washington’s artillery throughout the Revolution and then became our first secretary of war, was a genuine fatso. So, for that matter, was 300-pound Gen. Leslie Groves, who directed the Manhattan Project during World War II.

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