Hegseth thinks we should disregard the Geneva conventions, embrace violence, and pursue a “clash of civilizations” war against Islam. He’s a terrifying Secretary of Defense who exposes the hollowness of Trump’s “peace” platform.

Article by Nathan J. Robinson

In 2018, Donald Trump nominated Brett Kavanaugh to be an Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. Kavanaugh’s confirmation process was contentious, because he was accused of having sexually abused a woman named Christine Blasey Ford when he was a teenager. Kavanaugh responded angrily to the accusations, and conservatives insisted he was being smeared by Democrats for political reasons. As we showed in this magazine, Kavanaugh’s rebuttal to the charges was full of inconsistencies and outright lies, which Senate Democrats failed to press him on. There was, however, a huge amount of discussion of Blasey Ford’s accusations in the press.

There was less discussion of Kavanaugh’s actual jurisprudence. In fact, some liberal supporters of Kavanaugh insisted that because he was intelligent and studious, he was qualified for the Court, with the only unsettled issue being the accusation by Blasey Ford. It was debated whether Kavanaugh deliberately selected attractive female clerks, or whether he was a supportive mentor to women. Certainly his past behavior toward women was highly relevant, particularly in light of the Blasey Ford allegation. The problem was that, even among Senate Democrats, few seemed interested in Kavanaugh’s horrendous record as a judge, including cases in which he immunized torturers from accountability and undermined labor unions in favor of corporations. (When I wrote that Kavanaugh was clearly lying about basic facts concerning the Blasey Ford accusation, I was invited on NPR. When I wrote a long exposé of his horrific court decisions, hardly anyone read it.) It seemed to me at the time that many liberals saw something they describe as character as more important than ideology, even though ideology can have far more serious implications. As Jay Willis put it in a debunking of the “liberal case” for Kavanaugh, they are part of an elite political world that “prioritize[s] comity and civility over the real-world implications of its work.”

I was reminded of the frustrating, narrow debate over Kavanaugh in the discussions around Pete Hegseth, who has now been sworn in as Trump’s Secretary of Defense. As with Kavanaugh, Hegseth was accused of being abusive to women. (His own mother once called him “an abuser of women,” although she retracted her judgment in a recent interview and says she regretted it soon after making it.) There have been numerous accounts of his poor behavior, from getting dragged out of a strip club in uniform while drunk to squandering the funds of two nonprofits he ran (one pro-war and one pro-privatization of the VA). At one he is alleged to have “treated the organization funds like they were a personal expense account,” and even Republican insiders were concerned about his “frequent public intoxication, poor leadership and the toxic work climate he fostered within the organization.” Hegseth paid a $50,000 settlement to a woman who accused him of rape, and his former sister-in-law says he was so terrifying that his wife had to develop an “escape plan” complete with a codeword in case he got out of hand.

These are very serious accusations, although it’s not clear how the Senate should evaluate accusations that have never been put before a jury. I can see why these lurid and disturbing stories predominated in coverage of Hegseth’s nomination. But let’s be clear: this atrocious behavior is just one reason that Hegseth should not have been made the Secretary of Defense. An even more important reason that he should not be Secretary of Defense is that his political beliefs are likely to contribute to atrocities and aggressive war. A person accused of being an abuser and having alcohol problems who also had “benign” beliefs might not do much damage to the world at large in a government post, although the people around them will certainly be affected. Hegseth, however, holds Nazi-like views on Muslims. He makes Donald Rumsfeld look like Mahatma Gandhi. He should not be anywhere near power, even if every single one of the behavioral allegations against him was proven conclusively false.

First, Pete Hegseth is a rancid bigot whose “clash of civilizations” view of humanity will sanction aggressive warfare against the Muslim world. It is fair to say that if Hegseth said any of the things about Judaism that he says about Islam, it would be transparently obvious that he held neo-Nazi beliefs that could easily justify genocide. But there is a double standard on the treatment of the two religions, so that one can get away with horrific comments about Muslims that would (rightly) be career-ruining if spoken about Jewish people. He specifically says that the very presence of Muslims in a society is harmful:

“Islam itself is not compatible with Western forms of government. [Some] countries want to stay free, so they are fighting like hell to block Islam’s spread. In this age, it’s incredibly difficult to remain clear-eyed about the fact that some ideas for society are better than others. And that is where the real fight lives.”

While he cursorily acknowledges the existence of “moderate” Islam (“When appropriate, I am careful to separate individual moderate Muslims from the radical element”), he says that ordinary, non-jihadist Muslims are essentially misinterpreting their own religion, because “the real heart of Islam is much closer to Islamists than to moderates.” He usually uses the term “Islamism” rather than Islam, but repeatedly makes clear that the distinction is essentially unimportant:

“Esmat is a Muslim, not an Islamist. To him it’s a big difference, but in the larger scheme, the distinction becomes less important.
“ Moderate Muslims are battling not just the Islamists but also the bulk of Islamic theology, history, and traditions… the real heart of Islam is much closer to Islamists than to moderates.”

“Islam—the fastest-growing religion in the world—is almost entirely captured and leveraged by Islamists who believe that their mission is the same as their founder’s. Muhammad led armies, enslaved or killed his opponents, and sought to conquer everyone else. Modern Islamists, of course, have the same goal.”

“Islam and Islamism are two branches of the same theological tree. Islamism is a widespread interpretation of Islam that draws on the text of the Muslims’ holy book, the Quran, which tells the story of a leader who, empowered by his god, spread the Islamic faith by subjugation and the sword. This is a fact, whether it makes you uncomfortable or not.”

“Millions of Muslims have joined modernity and choose to live peacefully; but they do so by disregarding intolerant and violent Qur’anic passages that are no less authoritative today than they were a thousand years ago. Islamists choose to interpret the Quran as it is written, not as modernity tries to edit it.”

So Hegseth is clear: the very presence of Muslims in the United States is a problem, regardless of their interpretation of their faith or their behavior. “The United Kingdom is done for,” he says, citing the fact that many cities now have Muslim mayors. “The British were invaded, and they didn’t even know it.” As “Muslims’ birth rates have grown,” countries that permit Muslim immigration are being destroyed, because they have “import[ed] unskilled, noncontributing Islamist throngs from the Middle East.” The U.S., he says, is next. “Just like the Christian crusaders who pushed back the Muslim hordes in the twelfth century, American Crusaders will need to muster the same courage against Islamists today.” He thinks those who “ “balk at Muslim immigration bans or moratoriums” are deluded: “The ‘Islam = Peace’ narrative is a naive and cowardly worldview, because the alternative is confronting the reality of a threat that’s almost too scary to fathom.” The very fact that the U.S. lets Muslims hold elected office shows we are falling prey to the “cultural invasion”: “In November 2019, twenty-six Muslim candidates won elected office in the United States. Muhammad is now a top ten boys’ name in America—what will it be in 2030?” (Quotations are from his books American Crusade and The War on Warriors.)

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