Anyone who is unhappy should resign, the war secretary said in an purge announcement that has already reached almost 20 officers
Igor Gielow-In an unprecedented action in the modern history of the United States, Donald Trump and his war secretary Pete Hegseth called hundreds of general officers of the six branches of their armed forces to present a plan to the president’s right-wing ideology.
Anyone who is unhappy should resign, Hegseth said, in an purge announcement that has already reached almost two dozen graduated officers in this first year of Trump’s second term.
Already the president suggested that “our insecure cities” will be “training fields”, in reference to the interventions they made in places like Washington. “We are under invasion inside, not unlike an internal enemy, but harder in many ways because they do not wear uniforms,” he said.
“If the words I say today are leaving your hearts tight, then you should do the honorable thing and renounce,” said the secretary. “I know most of you feel the opposite,” Hegseth said, whom she was able to give the message more objectively.
With this, the Trump government mimics what happens in Venezuela since Chavism took power 26 years ago. It’s not little irony: the regime in Caracas, which metamorphosed on a dictatorship under Nicolás Maduro, is now the subject of a threat of military attack against alleged drug cartels precisely by Trump.
The president himself gave a speech after Hegseth, uncomfortable, inserting topics such as tariffs and plays about his taste for a documentary about naval victories. He passed on themes that he had already addressed about defense, from the Ukraine War to the Middle East, with inaccuracies and falsehoods, but gave a unmistakable political tone to speech.
“You will be four years old like never before,” promising “fight, fight, fight,” one of your campaign mothers, to “win, win, win.” He pledged criticism to democratic predecessors Joe Biden and Barack Obama.
“I never got into such a silent room,” he said, forgetting that Apolitic Military Discipline obliges it. He made a not so funny joke: “If you don’t like what I say, you can go out, but of course, your patent go, there are your futures.” In the end, it was applauded in a contained way, protocol.
In his first term, Trump had been blocked by the military summit, in particular by the head of the joint state-state, Mark Milley, who, leaving office in 2023, said the military did not “swear loyalty to an aspiring dictator.” The Republican revoked the legal protection given to the general to assume the position.
The American Constitution prohibits the politicization of the Armed Forces. The movement occurred in the command of the Marines in Quantum, near Washington. Last week, the Pentagon had summoned the entire American military summit for a release without released.
They spoke to about 800 generals and admiral generals on a stage with a large American flag in the background imitating the scene of the classic speech by General George S. Patton to his troops before the invasion of France in 1944 – as described in the movie “Patton” (1970), not real life, which says something about trumps.
General Patton, by the way, was quoted in the speech as an inspiration, alongside other leaders.
“Tolos and irresponsible political leaders indicated the wrong meaning and we got lost. We became the Woke department,” Hegseth said, in reference to terms associated with the inclusion culture adopted by American progressives. “But no more.”
He defended the resignation he has been promoting from military leaders, such as the black man who commanded the country’s joint state, General Charles Q. Brown Jr., the most graduated position in the country. Then Trump starred in an especially embarrassing moment regarding this when talking about nuclear weapons.
“We can’t use a word. I call it a word-N. There are two words-N, and you can’t use any of them,” he said, associating weapons with nigger, highly pejorative and racist form to refer to blacks in the US.
The Pentagon also removed the post the first commander of the Navy, Admiral Lisa Franchetti.
His actions were also directed to those politically unwanted, such as the dismissal of General Jeffrey Kruse, the Military Intelligence Chief who had said that the US attack on the Iranian nuclear program had been “limited”, unlike Trump and Hegseth’s fanfare.
The secretary spent a series of directives, some meme candidates, such as the veto to use a beard in military service. It also required the return of daily exercise and physical capacity tests twice a year. “It is completely unacceptable to see fatty generals and admiral in the Pentagon’s halls,” he said, “I immediately joke on the networks about Trump’s form as the supreme commander.
But his focus was on what he caught the end of attention to topics such as climate change or gender inclusion, as several measures already taken, such as the prohibition of trans people in uniform – algo that was endorsed by the Supreme Court. He said he will review criteria on complaints for “toxic leadership,” alluding to himself.
Earlier this month, Trump had renamed the Department of Defense, which had been using that name since 1947, as “war.” Congress has not yet ratified the change, which technically keeps Hesgeth with the previous title.
There are 817 general officers in the US, 38 of them at the top of the hierarchy. In May, Hegseth determined a 20% reduction in this elite’s condition, the so -called four -star generals and admirals, as in Brazil.
On the opposite way, in his speech Trump said that “he wants larger armed forces” because “everyone wants to do what you do.” The US, the largest military power in history, concentrates almost 40% of defense spending on the world and has the third largest staff of soldiers, behind China and India.
