The Guardian ran a story on March 8 by its Washington correspondent David Smith with the headline, “‘A Very Dangerous Person’: Alarm as Pete Hegseth Revels in Carnage of Iran War.” Its importance is in the prominence it gives to Hegseth’s crusader mentality and the danger that it presents.
“Hegseth, 45, a former Fox News TV host who now commands the world’s most powerful military, has this week become the face of Donald Trump’s war in Iran. That has set off alarm bells for critics who warn that the Secretary of Defense—pointedly rebranded ‘Secretary of War’—has rapidly transformed the Pentagon into the staging ground for an ideological and religious crusade,” Smith writes. “With machismo, Christian nationalism and callousness toward the lives of U.S. troops, they say, Hegseth’s puerile displays on TV are aimed at sating Trump’s desire for a warmonger worthy of the manosphere. This was reinforced by a lurid social media video that intersperses clips from Hollywood blockbusters such as Braveheart, Gladiator, Superman and Top Gun with Hegseth and real kill-shot footage of the attacks in Iran.” A review of the video can be found here.
Janessa Goldbeck, chief executive of Vet Voice Foundation, a nonprofit advocacy organization, said: “Pete Hegseth is a very dangerous person. He’s a white Christian nationalist and has the arsenal of the United States government at his disposal and a permission slip from President Trump to deploy carnage wherever he wishes against whomever he wishes.”
