A war expert Tuesday slammed Pete Hegseth as morale drops among the service members in the Judge Advocate General’s Corps (JAG) — the group of independent and apolitical lawyers who advise American military leaders on war.
Rachel VanLandingham, a JAG who has advised generals and Southwestern Law School professor, told Bloomberg columnist Andreas Kluth that Hegseth's "obsession with lethality is 'sophomoric' because it reduces the U.S. military to his vision of 'the warrior dude on Fortnite.'"
"He in effect 'repudiates the concept that killing should only be done as a last resort,'" VanLandingham explained.
Former JAGs have criticized Hegseth and report he is trying undermine them as he tries to change the JAG Corps and has fired two top judge advocates, lowered the rank requirement from three stars to two stars, and given litmus tests to prospective JAGs to check their ideologies as he wages his own war against what he refers to as "DEI/Woke sh*t.” He also plans to transfer some JAGs to serve as immigration judges.
The changes have resulted in low morale and even more concerns about how his actions and the recent U.S. military attacks, including the bombing of boats in the Caribbean, "constitute a threat to the rule of law and the legitimacy of the U.S. military."
The self-described secretary of war has referred to JAGs as “roadblocks to orders that are given by a commander-in-chief.” However, JAGs cannot block military actions but instead advise top brass on legal consequences. Commanders ultimately make the final call.
"Hegseth’s disdain for JAGs fits a pattern of contempt for accountability and oversight," Kluth wrote. "His department recently tried to force accredited journalists to pledge not to use any information that the Pentagon hadn’t officially approved, making a mockery of the fourth estate."
He introduced the "next generation" of press corps after forcing out media organizations and journalists who refused to sign the loyalty pledge.
Another former JAG told Kluth "'We’re heading in the direction of a political commissariat' and becoming 'the Soviet army of yore.'”
He explained how autocracies — China, Russia, North Korea — are the only countries that do not have JAGs or oversight groups.
"The former JAGs I spoke to told me that his vitriol toward their profession is worse because it shows that Hegseth confuses lethality with lawlessness. They point to the American air strikes off the coasts of Venezuela and Colombia as examples of what is to come," Kluth wrote.
As strikes have continued, Adm. Alvin Holsey, who was concerned about the strikes and the legality of them, stepped down from his role as the head of U.S. Southern Command, which oversees military operations in Central and South America.
“The boat strikes constitute murder,” Eugene R. Fidell, a former JAG in the Coast Guard and now Yale Law professor, told Kluth. He criticized the recent military actions as "treating the world as a free-fire zone."
He is also concerned about the deployment of federal troops in Democratic cities.
“The country is being groomed to see nothing odd in people in uniforms on our streets,” Fidell said.