Copyright Salon
President Donald Trump has been lobbying for the Nobel Peace Prize since at least 2018 when his administration managed the release of three Americans from North Korea, modestly proclaiming “everyone thinks I should win the Nobel Peace Prize — but I would never say it.” Of course he did say it, over and over again, repeating his litany of all the wars he’s allegedly ended. He was sorely disappointed when the committee awarded the prize to Venezuelan democracy activist Maria Corina Machado instead. But there’s always next year. None of this talk of peace is to say that Trump hasn’t been issuing violent threats to a variety of targets. He’s always loved to warn people that he’s prepared to unleash fire and fury if they don’t immediately bend to his will. Before their famous bromance, he even explicitly threatened nuclear war with North Korea, tweeting to Kim Jong Un, “I too have a Nuclear Button, but it is a much bigger & more powerful one than his, and my Button works!” Since he returned to office in January, Trump has been talking about actually invading or annexing countries, whether it’s Greenland, Canada or, more recently, to “go in and kill Hamas” in Gaza. He bombed Iran’s nuclear facilities with unknown results, and in the last couple of months he’s initiated a murder spree on the high seas in the Caribbean and the eastern Pacific, ostensibly to defend against “narco-terrorists” who are “attacking” the United States by allegedly selling drugs to eager American consumers. He has been publicly denying that he plans to order an attack on the Venezuelan mainland, but it’s very hard to imagine why the Pentagon would need to amass a large flotilla, including an aircraft carrier, off the country’s coast for any other reason. There’s been a lot of speculation that Trump is following some version of the Monroe Doctrine and asserting his dominance over “his” hemisphere. But Iran and Gaza don’t fit that concept, and over the weekend he made yet another threat, this time against Africa’s most populous — and oil-rich — country. Seemingly out of nowhere he published a bizarre post on Truth Social: If the Nigerian Government continues to allow the killing of Christians, the U.S.A. will immediately stop all aid and assistance to Nigeria, and may very well go into that now disgraced country, “guns-a-blazing,” to completely wipe out the Islamic Terrorists who are committing these horrible atrocities. I am hereby instructing our Department of War to prepare for possible action. If we attack, it will be fast, vicious, and sweet, just like the terrorist thugs attack our CHERISHED Christians! WARNING: THE NIGERIAN GOVERNMENT BETTER MOVE FAST! “If we attack, it will be fast, vicious, and sweet?” That Nobel Peace Prize is definitely in the bag now, especially after he followed up with another post on Saturday that warned, “If we attack, it will be fast, vicious and sweet.” He also added Nigeria to the government’s religious freedom watch list. Secretary of Defense — who now bills himself as “Secretary of War” — Pete Hegseth immediately responded to Trump’s order. “Yes sir. The Department of War is preparing for action. Either the Nigerian Government protects Christians, or we will kill the Islamic Terrorists who are committing these horrible atrocities.” As Trump returned to Washington, D.C., from Florida on Sunday, he was asked if there was a possibility that he would order American boots on the ground and he replied, “Could be.” According to CNN, this was yet another case of the president seeing a segment on Fox News. He was heading down to Florida for his “Let Them Eat Cake” Halloween party and got “very angry”” But this has been a subject of interest among the far right Christian contingent for a while now. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Tx., has called for America to stop what he erroneously characterizes as “Christian mass murder.” Influencer-gadfly and conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer has been posting about the issue as recently as Friday before Trump made his announcement. A highly respected member of Trump’s informal coterie of outside advisers, it’s entirely possible that Fox News got their heads up from her since she is now credentialed to cover the Pentagon. Want more sharp takes on politics? Sign up for our free newsletter, Standing Room Only, written by Amanda Marcotte, now also a weekly show on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. Whatever the case, this appears to be based upon misinformation. Nigeria is dealing with the Boko Haram extremist group, which does target Christians. But it also threatens Muslims who don’t accept its radical form of Islam, as well as those who are sympathetic to the Nigerian government. Most experts and analysts reject the assertion that this is some kind of Christian genocide. Trump may have wanted to give a little something to his “cherished Christians,” as he sometimes refers to his evangelical supporters, but Hegseth is a much more interesting case. This is, after all, a man who wrote a book called “American Crusade,” which the Guardian described as “depicting Islam as a natural, historic enemy of the west; presents distorted versions of Muslim doctrine in ‘great replacement’-style racist conspiracy theories; treats leftists and Muslims as bound together in their efforts to subvert the U.S.; and idolises medieval crusaders.” In fact, Hegseth literally wears his love for the crusaders on his body — and believes that he has been persecuted for it. As scholars Annika Brockschmidt and Thomas Lecaque wrote in the Bulwark, the defense secretary complained that the Jerusalem Cross on his chest got him booted from guard duty during President Joe Biden’s inauguration in January 2021 because it made him a potential threat. He says he was discriminated against because of his religion. But that symbol is a highly politicized part of the far-right’s obsession with the Templar myths, and Hegseth knows that. We need your help to stay independent He sports a sword embedded in a cross on his forearm, which symbolizes the verse in which Christ says, “I came not to send peace, but a sword.” Hegseth also prominently displays the words “Deus Vult” on his chest, the battle cry of the first crusade. In his book, he makes his belief clear that those words mean for “followers of Christ to take up the sword in defense of their faith, their families, and their freedom.” Hegseth is also a member of an extreme far-right sect called the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches that also believes in militant Christianity. It’s heavily influenced by Reconstructionism, a theology that religion scholar Julie Ingersoll describes as believing “it’s the job of Christians to exercise dominion over the whole world.” In short, Hegseth is a serious Christian nationalist, and there could be nothing more satisfying for him than to muster a fighting force to wage war against Muslims in a foreign land in the name of Jesus Christ. It sounds medieval and it is, but Hegseth is the “secretary of war,” and if Loomer were to persuade the addled president to give the go-ahead, it’s likely he would not hesitate to execute the strategy.
