SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
senate armed services committee
3 Reasons the Senate Should Reject Pete Hegseth for Secretary of Defense
I will protest the nomination of Fox News commentator and Trump’s buddy Pete Hegseth to lead the DOD over sexual assault allegations, his views on women in the military, and his history of financial mismanagement.
Jan 14, 2025
On January 14 at 9:30 am, the Fox News commentator and Army National Guard Major Pete Hegseth is scheduled to be questioned by the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee in a confirmation hearing on President-elect Donald Trump's nomination for him to be Secretary of Defense.
I, along with many other women and men military veterans, will be at the hearing to strongly protest Hegseth's nomination and demand that the committee refuse to send the nomination forward for a vote of the entire Senate.
I am an unlikely protester. I served 29 years in the U.S. Army and Army Reserves. I retired as a colonel. I was also a U.S. diplomat for 16 years and was on the team that reopened the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan in December 2001. I resigned from the U.S. government in March 2003 in opposition to the U.S. war on Iraq.
Sexual Assault Allegations
I will protest lackluster Army National Guard Major Pete Hegseth's nomination on several points, but my primary concern is his physical and psychological violence toward women.
I am 78 years old. I joined the Army in 1967 when less than 1% of U.S. military forces were women. Now, 17.5% of U.S. military forces are women.
Sexual assault in the military is rampant, and Hegseth has a history of sexual violence toward women. He secretly paid a financial settlement to a woman who had accused him of raping her in 2017.
Even Hegseth's mother, Penelope Hegseth, in 2018, during Hegseth's divorce proceedings from his second wife, strongly criticized his treatment of women. In an email obtained by The New York Times, Hegseth's mother wrote:
As a woman and your mother I feel I must speak out... You are an abuser of women—that is the ugly truth and I have no respect for any man that belittles, lies, cheats, sleeps around, and uses women for his own power and ego. You are that man (and have been for years) and as your mother it pains me and embarrasses me to say that, but it is the sad, sad truth. [...] It's time for a someone (I wish it was a strong man) to stand up to your abusive behavior and call it out, especially against women. [...] On behalf of all the women (and I know it's many) you have abused in some way, I say... get some help and take an honest look at yourself.
The Associated Press reported that "Tim Palatore, Hegseth's attorney, has revealed that the woman who made the allegations was paid an undisclosed sum in 2023 as part of a confidential settlement to head off the threat of what he described as a baseless lawsuit."
A 22-page police report was released in response to a public records request and offers the first detailed account of what the woman alleged to have transpired—one that is at odds with Hegseth's version of events. The report cited police interviews with the alleged victim, a nurse who treated her, a hotel staffer, another woman at the event, and Hegseth.
Considering the horrific history of sexual assault in the military, Hegseth's payoff to someone who has accused him of sexual assault must disqualify Hegseth from confirmation as Secretary of Defense.
With sexual assault in the military a continuing problem for women…and for men, there is no way that a person who has been involved in even allegations of sexual assault should be Secretary of Defense… or president, for that matter, but that's another issue for evangelical Christians, Catholics, and other religious conservatives who voted for Trump to explain to their daughters.
The number of sexual assaults in the U.S. military is likely two to four times higher than government estimates, according to a study from Costs of War Project at Brown University's Watson Institute. "During and beyond the 20 years of the post-9/11 wars, independent data suggest that actual sexual assault prevalence is two to four times higher than DOD estimations—75,569 cases in 2021 and 73,695 cases in 2023," the authors wrote in the report, which was released August 14, 2024.
The Costs of War Project report comes a year after a Pentagon report found that reports of sexual assault at the country's three military academies increased by over 18% between 2021 and 2022, setting a new record.
A 2016 Department of Veterans Affairs study of over 20,000 post-9/11 veterans and service members found that 41.5% of women and 4% of men experienced some form of sexual trauma while serving. One in three women and 1 in 50 men have reported military sexual trauma during VA healthcare screenings.
And finally, if the previous concern about on sexual assault allegations isn't enough to torpedo Hegseth's nomination, his statements on women's role in the military should sink his nomination.
Hegseth's Negative View of the Role of Women in the Military
In a podcast, Hegseth said the military "should not have women in combat roles" and that "men in those positions are more capable." In another podcast he said that female soldiers "shouldn't be in my infantry battalion."
U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), a former Army National Guard member and a Purple Heart recipient, said Hegseth was "dangerous, plain and simple." Duckworth was one of the first women in the Army to fly combat missions during Operation Iraqi Freedom. She lost both of her legs and partial use of her right arm in 2004 after a rocket-propelled grenade struck her helicopter. "Where do you think I lost my legs? In a bar fight? I'm pretty sure I was in combat when that happened," she told CNN. "It just shows how out of touch he is with the nature of modern warfare if he thinks that we can keep women behind some sort of imaginary line, which is not the way warfare is today."
Additionally, Sen. Duckworth added: "It's frankly an insult and really troubling that Mr. Trump would nominate someone who has admitted that he's paid off a victim who has claimed rape allegations against him... This is not the kind of person you want to lead the Department of Defense."
If sexual assault issues and his negative view of women's role in the military do not convince the Senate's Armed Services Committee that Hegseth's nomination should not go forward, then the mismanagement of funds of tiny organizations compared to the massive Department of Defense budget should take him out of consideration for the extraordinary position of Secretary of Defense.
Mismanagement of Tiny Organizations Compared to the Massive Department of Defense
In the face of serious allegations of financial mismanagement, sexual impropriety, and personal misconduct while in the organizations, Hegseth was forced to resign from the two nonprofit advocacy groups that he ran, Veterans for Freedom and Concerned Veterans for America.
According to CBS, "Hegseth received a six-figure severance payment and signed a non-disclosure agreement when he exited the organization Concerned Veterans of America" in 2016. "The payment came amid allegations of financial mismanagement, repeated incidents of intoxication and sexual impropriety, as well as dissension among its leaders over Hegseth's foreign policy views," CBS reported.
Prior to joining Concerned Veterans for America, Hegseth faced allegations of financial mismanagement from Vets for Freedom (VFF), where he worked from 2007 to 2010.
"Donors were concerned their money was being wasted and arranged for VFF to be merged with another organization, Military Families United, which took over most of its management," CBS reported further. "Revenue at VFF dwindled to $268,000 by 2010 and by 2011, the organization's revenue was listed as $22,000. Hegseth joined Concerned Veterans for America the following year."
Margaret Hoover, host of the PBS program "Firing Line" and a former adviser to Vets for Freedom, said in an interview on CNN that Hegseth had managed the organization "very poorly." Hoover expressed doubt about his ability to run the sprawling Defense Department when he had struggled with a staff of less than 10 people, and a budget of under $10 million.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Pete Hegseth Should Not Be the Person Advising Trump on Whether to Use Nukes
Given serious concerns about his qualifications, dangerous beliefs and values, and lack of meaningful track record, Hegseth is a poor choice for the consequential position of secretary of defense.
Jan 14, 2025
This week, Pete Hegseth will face questions from Congress as President-elect Trump’s nominee for secretary of defense. If he is confirmed, he would become the civilian authority over the U.S. military, second only to the president. The job of secretary of defense is as difficult as it is critical. Pete Hegseth, a television presenter and author who formerly served in the National Guard, does not have the qualifications to perform this role. Worse, his values and beliefs make him a downright dangerous candidate.
Requirements of the Job
The Department of Defense is the largest federal agency, with a budget of more than $850 billion, almost 900,000 civilian employees, and oversight of 2.5 million service members. Pete Hegseth is not qualified to manage this sprawling bureaucracy—he has not served in a senior role in the military, served in the government, made national security policy, nor led any large organization, in stark contrast to the last 10 confirmed secretaries, who all had either decades of senior military service, ran large organizations, or served in governmental or policymaking roles. Hegseth headed two small nonprofit veterans advocacy organizations, though was reportedly removed from those positions due to financial mismanagement and personal and sexual misconduct.
The secretary of defense also shapes strategic decisions, advises the president on sensitive issues of national security, and engages with counterpart defense ministers in both allied and adversarial countries. The next secretary will have to perform the job during a challenging time, when existing arms control structures are collapsing, ongoing wars in Ukraine and the Middle East are threatening to pull more countries into these conflicts, and tensions in East Asia are rising. In the event of a crisis, especially a worst-case scenario involving nuclear weapons, the secretary of defense may be one of the only people the president consults. That’s why it’s extremely important the job be filled by someone with experience, a steady hand, and a proven record of seeking the best information before making decisions. In each case, Pete Hegseth falls short.
The Secretary of Defense’s Role in U.S. Nuclear Weapons
In terms of the most consequential decision anyone could face—and with little time to make it—there is no scenario worse than if U.S. early warning systems detected an incoming nuclear attack. The president would only have minutes to assess whether the warning was false or real and whether to retaliate with U.S. ICBMs. An emergency conference would be convened for the president with the secretary of defense, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and other military leaders. While the secretary of defense is not officially in the nuclear chain of command—the president has the authority to use nuclear weapons without the agreement of anyone else—the president would look to the secretary for advice.
Through his writing, candidacy for public office, and time as a Fox News contributor, we know some things about Hegseth’s personal views, and many of them are dangerous. For example, he has expressed hostility and contempt for international humanitarian law, blaming rules that protect human life for hindering the operations of the U.S. military. Hegseth has argued repeatedly that U.S. forces should ignore international humanitarian laws governing the conduct of war. The United States has a legal and moral obligation to follow these rules, and has devoted significant resources to operationalizing that commitment. International law not only protects civilians and soldiers in war, but helps recruit allies and undergirds support at home.
Hegseth’s disregard for international humanitarian law and the rules of armed conflict is consistent with his alarmingly cavalier attitude towards the use of nuclear weapons. In his book The War on Warriors, discussing the United States’ use of nuclear weapons in World War II, Hegseth writes, “They won. Who cares.” Meanwhile, the few remaining Japanese survivors of nuclear weapons are trying desperately to get the world to understand the horror of nuclear weapons and eliminate them before they can be used again.
Nuclear risks are rising globally. Arms control is on life support. The military is pursuing an unnecessary trillion-dollar project to replace every weapon in the U.S. nuclear arsenal. Given serious concerns about his qualifications, dangerous beliefs and values, and lack of meaningful track record, Hegseth is a poor choice for the consequential position of secretary of defense. The members of the Senate Armed Services Committee should ask hard questions in this week’s hearing. Given the enormity of the challenges facing the next secretary, the United States deserves someone with the experience, expertise, and judgment to deal with them wisely.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Refuting Jurists, Lloyd Austin Says US Has No Evidence of Gaza Genocide
The U.S. defense secretary's remarks came after Sen. Elizabeth Warren and other law experts around the world asserted that Israel's Gaza onslaught meets the legal definition of genocide.
Apr 09, 2024
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Tuesday became the latest Biden administration official to deny that Israel's six-month bombardment, invasion, and siege of Gaza constitute a genocide, a statement that came after Sen. Elizabeth Warren joined a growing number of international jurists asserting that Israeli policies and actions are genocidal under the letter of the law.
After pro-Palestine protesters wearing T-shirts with the message "Austin's Legacy = Genocide" interrupted a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing Tuesday morning, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) asked the Pentagon chief if Israel was committing genocide in Gaza.
"We don't have any evidence of genocide being created," Austin replied after a short pause.
After telling the defense secretary his response was "better than" the replies from CIA Director William Burns and Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines—whom Cotton said "dodged that question" before the committee last month—the senator asked Austin to respond to allegations of "greenlighting genocide" in Gaza.
"From the very beginning, we committed to help assist Israel in defending its territory and its people by providing security assistance, and I would remind everybody, you know, that what happened on October 7 was absolutely horrible," Austin said, referring to the Hamas-led attacks in which more than 1,100 Israelis and others were killed—at least some of them by so-called "friendly fire"—and over 240 others were kidnapped.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, when asked if he believes Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza: "We don't have evidence of that."
So, Israel's killing of more than 33,000 Palestinians—44% of whom are children—in 6 months, after top Israeli officials… pic.twitter.com/50cznisMxn
— Rachel Blevins (@RachBlevins) April 9, 2024
Austin's remarks followed reports that U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) told constituents that Israel's war on Gaza—which has killed and wounded more than 116,000 Palestinians including people believed dead and buried beneath rubble while displacing around 90% of the population and causing mass starvation—meets the legal definition of genocide.
"If you want to do it as an application of law, I believe that they'll find that it is genocide, and they have ample evidence to do so," Warren—a former law professor with three decades of experience—told an audience Friday at the Islamic Center of Boston in Wayland, Massachusetts.
In January, the International Court of Justice in The Hague
issued a preliminary ruling in a case brought by South Africa and supported by over 30 other nations that found Israel is plausibly committing genocide in Gaza. The ICJ ordered Israel to prevent genocidal acts—a directive that numerous international human rights experts say is being ignored.
A March draft report by the United Nations Human Rights Council found "reasonable grounds to believe" Israel is perpetrating genocide against Palestinians.
At least hundreds of legal scholars around the world have accused Israel of genocide. So have some Israelis, including Raz Segal, one of the country's preeminent Holocaust scholars, who in October said that Israel is perpetrating "a textbook case of genocide" in Gaza.
Progressive U.S. lawmakers including Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.)—the only Palestinian American member of Congress—Cori Bush (D-Mo.), Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) have also accused Israel of genocide.
“We have to re-humanise the people whose death has been normalised.”
Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez discussed her decision to use the term "genocide" in Congress when describing Israel's actions in Gaza during an interview on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert pic.twitter.com/tKAJQTD0XT
— Middle East Eye (@MiddleEastEye) April 9, 2024
Meanwhile, President Joe Biden and members of his administration have been called genocide deniers for dismissing the assessments of legal experts on the matter, including a federal judge in California who—while absolving the United States of complicity—found that South Africa's ICJ allegations are "plausible."
In late October, Biden publicly cast doubt on Gaza casualty figures provided by Hamas-run agencies, even though Israeli and international media, human rights groups, and his own administration have relied upon those same sources—which have held up under scrutiny—for years.
In February, Austin acknowledged that "over 25,000" Palestinian women and children had been killed by Israeli forces at that point in the war, although the Pentagon subsequently attempted to walk back the defense secretary's remarks.
Biden—who early in the war declared his "unwavering, rock-solid" support for Israel—is seeking an additional $14.3 billion in armed assistance for Israel atop the nearly $4 billion it already receives from Washington. The president has also repeatedly sidestepped Congress in order to fast-track emergency military aid to the key Middle Eastern ally.
The Biden administration has approved more than 100 arms transfers to Israel during the war, including shipments of 2,000-pound bombs that can wipe out entire city blocks and have been used in some of Israel's deadliest strikes, including the October 31 bombing of the Jabalia refugee camp that killed more than 120 civilians.
Biden now wants to sell Israel $18 billion worth of F-15 fighter jets, even after the president acknowledged Israel's "indiscriminate bombing" of Gaza. In addition to progressive members of Congress—who have long opposed unconditional U.S. military aid to Israel—a growing number of centrist Democrats, including former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who recently called on the FBI to investigate peace activists demanding a Gaza cease-fire, are now urging Biden to halt arms transfers to Israel.
The United States—which committed genocide against the Indigenous peoples of North America—has a long history of supporting genocidal regimes. Since the end of World War II, the U.S. has provided military, financial, and diplomatic support for the perpetrators of genocides in Guatemala, Paraguay, Bangladesh, Kurdistan, and East Timor.
The U.S. has also been accused of turning a blind eye to genocides in countries from Nazi Germany to Rwanda, which on Sunday marked the 30th anniversary of the mass murder of around 800,000 people, most of them ethnic Tutsis, in a campaign of state-sanctioned slaughter.
During her speech, Warren said that responses to Gaza should transcend a "labels argument."
"For me, it is far more important to say what Israel is doing is wrong. And it is wrong," she said. "It is wrong to starve children within a civilian population in order to try to bend to your will. It is wrong to drop 2,000-pound bombs in densely populated civilian areas."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular