By Samuel Clench
Copyright news
What a strange and fun week it has been. One in which Robert Irwin literally ripped off his shirt on television, causing an unsettling level of excitement among people who have watched him since he was but a wee child.
And one in which the TV host Donald Trump picked to run the US military shed his own clothing on stage, metaphorically this time (thank God), but no less jaw-droppingly.
A warm welcome back to those of you who immediately clicked on the Irwin link, got distracted, and then spent minutes admiring young Robert’s pecs. Sickos. Consider yourselves seen and judged. Thank you for coming back though.
Anyway, US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth’s speech to a room full of America’s top generals and admirals, who were summoned to Washington D.C. and torn away from their actually quite important jobs to attend a political rally for no apparent reason, got overshadowed by President Trump’s own words.
Wait, sorry, Pete’s the War Secretary now. They changed the name because “war” sounds cooler than “defence”. And I keep forgetting, because of how palpably juvenile it is.
“War” is more intimidating though, you see, with bigger biceps, a sharper jawline, and other things you worry about when you’re definitely confident in your own masculinity and are not posturing to make yourself feel tougher. It exudes BDE. No one in this situation is compensating for anything.
Many words have already been pissed against the wall dissecting Mr Trump’s speech, and not without reason, but Mr Hegseth’s deserves an equally potent stream of scrutiny.
There’s very little policy meat in there. It’s a burger bun with no patty. A Sunday roast with nothing but soggy figs and carrots. But as an example of where we currently are in the culture wars, Mr Hegseth’s speech was much more illustrative than anything the President said.
The Defence Secretary – apologies, but given I still insist on calling it “Twitter”, the rebranding here is unlikely to stick – spoke about returning the US military to the “highest male standard only”.
Mr Hegseth promised to “unleash overwhelming and punishing violence”. He derided the “stupid rules of engagement” that have underpinned international law for decades. A surprising amount of time was spent lecturing military officers for being too fat.
“Frankly, it’s tiring to look out at combat formations, or really any formation, and see fat troops. Likewise, it’s completely unacceptable to see fat general and admirals in the halls of the Pentagon,” he said.
“It’s a bad look. It is bad, and it’s not who we are.”
Not who we are? Someone should link him the global obesity statistics. I mean, if it really wants to be representative of the people it serves, then if anything the US military needs to get even fatter.
Have you tasted American-style ribs? Have you eaten at Five Guys? No reasonable person who has treated their senses to these experiences would begrudge the Americans for being a little pudgy, soldiers or not.
I thought it was interesting that brocaster-in-chief Joe Rogan, whose support for Mr Trump was so crucial in last year’s election, and whose criticism of him recently has been so striking, very much returned to the fold today.
“You saw what the f*** was going on over the last four years. You got guys in dresses talking about how it’s really important to have inclusiveness. It’s the most important thing in the military, is inclusivity,” Mr Rogan said on his podcast. Note the sarcasm.
I believe he was alluding to a former official at the Energy Department, Sam Brinton, who was sacked under the Biden administration after being caught stealing people’s luggage. Quite a bizarre story.
“That guy was in charge of like, f***in’ nuclear waste. And he’s going around stealing people’s underwear. With lipstick and a bald head,” said Mr Rogan.
He said the military needed to have “no more identity politics and bulls***”.
At the risk of sounding like a purple-haired PhD student with leopard-print glasses and polkadots on every item of clothing, specialising in ancient Mayan anthropology or whatever, I must say: this whole conversation reeks of male insecurity.
“Identity politics and bulls***”, against which the Rogans of the world rail so enthusiastically, could have been the title of Mr Hegseth’s speech. Those two things are practically all we have gotten from him since he left his gig as a professional TV bloviator to cosplay as someone deserving of serious responsibility. Together they form the bulk of his personality.
This is the guy who oversaw the scrubbing of recognition for black and female veterans in the name of fighting “DEI”. Who talks endlessly about the military being too female, too gay, too trans, too inclusive, too … insert whichever conservative bogeyman you like, really.
He is all for identity politics. The only difference between Mr Hegseth and left-wingers he decries is which type of identity he glorifies, and which type he wants to squash.
Some quotes here, from his speech.
“I don’t want my son serving alongside troops who are out of shape, or in a combat unit with females who can’t meet the same combat arms, physical standards as men.”
“Simply put, if you do not meet the male-level physical standards for combat positions, can’t pass a PT test, or don’t want to shave and look professional, it’s time for a new position or a new profession.”
(Does having a beard somehow make you a less effective soldier? I ask as someone doomed to shave in perpetuity, as my cuckservative soy boy face – insert any other 4chan-level insult here – refuses to grow a proper one.)
“An entire generation of generals and admirals were told that they must parrot the insane fallacy that ‘our diversity is our strength’. Of course, we know our unity is our strength. They had to put out dizzying DEI and LGBTQI+ statements. They were told females and males are the same thing, or that males who think they’re females, totally normal.”
“At my direction, each service will ensure that every requirement for every combat MOS, for every designated Combat Arms position, returns to the highest male standard only.”
Guys like Mr Rogan feast on this stuff like pigs at a trough. Because it speaks to their own sense of identity. White, male, works out a lot, male, has a heap of unresolved insecurities that manifest as weird opinions, male, strangely fixated on supplements, male, believes in outdated, quite strict gender roles, male. Have I mentioned male yet?
A politician pandering to those things, elevating those traits, never counts in the backlash against identity politics. It only ever counts as identity politics when the identity in question is foreign to them. If it’s a woman, or a black guy, or a gay guy, or a trans woman, or an immigrant, etc, etc, etc.
These lads talk about combat like they’re living in Sparta, circa 480BC. But actually, the American military is not defending Thermopylae with spears and shields. It doesn’t need every soldier to be Leonidas. A six-pack doesn’t help you pilot a drone, any more than having pink hair, or progressive political opinions, or – gasp! – a vagina impedes you.
There’s absolutely still a place for sheer physical fitness in a modern military, but when technology is the decisive factor, warfare becomes a touch more nuanced. You need competent engineers and technicians to keep all that sophisticated equipment running. You need folks who can use the technology well. You need brains as well as brawn.
That is why the United States’ military has been focusing on diversity, you utter, ignorant twits. It’s been trying to expand its talent pool. To tell, as a hypothetical, a 20-year-old black woman with a talent for physics that she’s welcome in the Navy. That who she is, that factors beyond her control, will not lead to her being shunned. That the military isn’t a glorified frat house for meatheads.
Mr Hegseth, at the age of 45, still behaves like a frat boy. He’s one of those men who, sadly, never quite managed to grow up. And now he’s in charge.
Every signal he’s sent since he became Defence Secretary conveys the least helpful message imaginable. He’s creating a culture in the US military that is actively hostile to diversity, and that is going to make his country weaker. It is imbecilic self-sabotage.
A few years back, at a more naive time, when controversies in US politics occurred tri-weekly instead of daily, America’s Republicans latched onto a recruitment ad for the Russian army.
The ad featured topless men doing pushups, among other things. The American politicians compared it, favourably, to a recruitment ad for their own military, which told the story of a recruit with lesbian parents. They felt their own ad was embarrassing.
How has the Russian army performed in its invasion of Ukraine? That war was supposed to be over in three days, with Kyiv taken and a puppet government installed. Here we are three-and-a-half years later, and Vladimir Putin’s forces have made barely any progress. The Russian army has, to put it crudely, fallen on its dumb f***ing face.
Turns out there is quite a bit more to modern warfare than being able to do a bunch of pushups. Yet here we are. The head of America’s military speaks of war with the same degree of sophistication as a 10-year-old playing with toy soldiers.
That is embarrassing.
What else, here, is embarrassing? The head of the military publicly, often quite viciously telling people who have served their country, selflessly, that they’re unfit to keep doing so because he doesn’t like their gender identity. Or even the sex they were born with.
How dare someone like Pete Hegseth – a veteran, yes, but without senior rank, who rose to fame by talking crap on television – lecture his country’s most decorated officers on how to win wars? How dare his boss, Mr Trump, who by all appearances and logic dodged the Vietnam draft, punish soldiers who put themselves forward for service?
What a cruel little irony of life it is that people with imposter syndrome are almost always extremely competent. And that people who are constantly high on their own supply, like Mr Hegseth, tend to fail upwards.
(I’m already aware that I fall into the latter category, so hold fire on your emails, though if any bosses are reading this, a little more upward movement would be appreciated.)
Loath as I am to quote politicians approvingly – the opportunity presents itself so rarely – Democratic Senator Tammy Duckworth did sum it up fairly well.
“For a guy who’s not qualified for his own job, it’s pretty discriminatory to talk about women who are qualified to do their jobs,” she said.
“Discriminatory” isn’t quite the right word, actually. Far ruder ones spring to mind. Contrary to Mr Hegseth’s opinion, we could do with fewer puffed-up, incompetent men strutting about as though the world is their primary school playground.
Twitter: @SamClench
