TOI correspondent from Washington: MAGA supporters found the speeches – “Pattonesque” – redolent of the stirring remarks by the famed US General consecrated in Hollywood movies. Liberals and peaceniks on the other hand heard echoes of demagoguery from 1940s Germany still available in black and white documentaries.
Some 800 American generals, admirals, and commanding officers summoned from all over the world to a military base in Quantico outside Washington DC for an unprecedented briefing listened to the country’s commander-in-chief and its “Secretary of War” articulate a refined doctrine of “peace through strength" under which US will always be prepared for war with “violence, precision and ferocity” and will dispense with pacifism, wokeness, and diversity.
In remarks that many Americans found dark and disquieting, President Trump also declared that the US was already at war against the “enemy within, defending his administration’s use of the military to police American cities – Portland being the latest – citing presidents early in the country’s history who “used the armed forces to keep domestic order and peace.”
“We’ve brought back the fundamental principle that defending the homeland is the military’s first and most important priority. It is only in recent decades that politicians somehow come to believe that our job is to police the far reaches of Kenya and Somalia, while America is under invasion from within,” he said.
While indicating that America will be ceding from minor conflicts and won’t put boots on the ground in distant countries, Trump also signalled that the US will maintain a hair-trigger posture against major adversaries, relating how he had recently dispatched a nuclear-armed submarine towards Russia after threats of nuclear war from Moscow’s mouthpieces.
Trump also wheeled through his “greatest hits,” airing his familiar grievances about stolen elections, migrant invasion, deranged Democrats and radical left lunatics, denied Nobel Prize for ending wars etc with an occasionally coherent remarks in a nearly hour-long speech that was received with dead silence – punctuated only by a few titters and a smattering of applause at the end.
In his speech before Trump’s remarks, “War Secretary” Pete Hegseth, a former platoon commander and Fox News host, projected the need for machismo and strength in the US military asking it to be ready for war at all times. He had a message for America’s enemies: “FAFO:
If necessary, our troops can translate that for you." The acronym stands for F*** Around and Find Out.
"The only people who deserve peace are those who are willing to wage war to…that's why pacifism is so naive and dangerous...either you protect your people and sovereignty or you will be subservient to something or someone," Hegseth said in remarks that underscored the new ethos aggression and masculinity Trump and he are bringing to the US military.
“No dudes in dresses. No more climate change worship, no more gender delusions. We are done with that shit,” Hegseth said, as he fat-shamed overweight and unfit troops, and declared the US is done with “beardos.”
The new strictures against beards and the need to be clean-shaven will undercut the hard-won rights of about 100 Sikhs in the US military, a minuscule minority has only recently been granted religious accommodation to maintain unshorn hair (kesh) and wear their turban (dastar).
Some 800 American generals, admirals, and commanding officers summoned from all over the world to a military base in Quantico outside Washington DC for an unprecedented briefing listened to the country’s commander-in-chief and its “Secretary of War” articulate a refined doctrine of “peace through strength" under which US will always be prepared for war with “violence, precision and ferocity” and will dispense with pacifism, wokeness, and diversity.
In remarks that many Americans found dark and disquieting, President Trump also declared that the US was already at war against the “enemy within, defending his administration’s use of the military to police American cities – Portland being the latest – citing presidents early in the country’s history who “used the armed forces to keep domestic order and peace.”
“We’ve brought back the fundamental principle that defending the homeland is the military’s first and most important priority. It is only in recent decades that politicians somehow come to believe that our job is to police the far reaches of Kenya and Somalia, while America is under invasion from within,” he said.
While indicating that America will be ceding from minor conflicts and won’t put boots on the ground in distant countries, Trump also signalled that the US will maintain a hair-trigger posture against major adversaries, relating how he had recently dispatched a nuclear-armed submarine towards Russia after threats of nuclear war from Moscow’s mouthpieces.
Trump also wheeled through his “greatest hits,” airing his familiar grievances about stolen elections, migrant invasion, deranged Democrats and radical left lunatics, denied Nobel Prize for ending wars etc with an occasionally coherent remarks in a nearly hour-long speech that was received with dead silence – punctuated only by a few titters and a smattering of applause at the end.
In his speech before Trump’s remarks, “War Secretary” Pete Hegseth, a former platoon commander and Fox News host, projected the need for machismo and strength in the US military asking it to be ready for war at all times. He had a message for America’s enemies: “FAFO:
If necessary, our troops can translate that for you." The acronym stands for F*** Around and Find Out.
"The only people who deserve peace are those who are willing to wage war to…that's why pacifism is so naive and dangerous...either you protect your people and sovereignty or you will be subservient to something or someone," Hegseth said in remarks that underscored the new ethos aggression and masculinity Trump and he are bringing to the US military.
“No dudes in dresses. No more climate change worship, no more gender delusions. We are done with that shit,” Hegseth said, as he fat-shamed overweight and unfit troops, and declared the US is done with “beardos.”
The new strictures against beards and the need to be clean-shaven will undercut the hard-won rights of about 100 Sikhs in the US military, a minuscule minority has only recently been granted religious accommodation to maintain unshorn hair (kesh) and wear their turban (dastar).
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