Former Naval War College professor Tom Nichols had some harsh words on MSNBC for Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth's speech to generals at Quantico — and what it reveals about his dark priorities for the use of military force.
"What I was concerned about, what I thought about when Pete Hegseth was giving that speech, was not so much the woke culture war stuff, which I expect," said anchor Katy Tur. "It's the consequences of trying to go after the woke culture war. And what gets wrapped up in that. The military has had a problem with sexual assault. It's been a longstanding problem, and one that leaders have tried to address. When he's talking about not derailing careers, not, you know, listening to the complainers, I really — I wondered, does that send a message to women, if you're assaulted, no one wants to hear it?"
"It sends a message to everybody," said Nichols. "It says, if your leader is a toxic jerk whose command is a mess and you're trying to complain to the IG or to warn your superiors that you have a leader who's somehow off the rails and behaving inappropriately, because this is just — this is about more than just women. I mean, basically, Hegseth said, if you are a toxic leader, don't worry, I've got your back."
"I think part of that is because the one person Pete Hegseth is tired of people smearing in his mind is Pete Hegseth, because the building keeps leaking about what a hot mess Pete Hegseth's Pentagon is," Nichols continued. "This is, I think, that the point of putting all those people in a room was to generate video clips of bold, tough, alpha guy Pete Hegseth reading the riot act to all of these admirals and generals, many of whom, as I've pointed out many times, were officers when Pete Hegseth was still in high school. And to say, you know, no more wokeism, no more complaining. We don't want to hear anything from, you know, the women. We don't want to hear anything about bad leaders."
"And by the way, in case people are wondering about the beard issue, the, you know, the men can't have beards because of a shaving exception for a medical condition that falls heavily on Black men. The targets of all of this were very clear. It was that Pete Hegseth wants it to be, you know, the Defense Department to be a club, a kind of a frat, and everybody else isn't too far for — for soldiers who see wrongdoing out there on the battlefield, soldiers who are worried that their fellow soldiers are going too far and maybe crossing a line into committing a war crime."