SecDef Pete Hegseth testified to the House Armed Service Committee today. Some in the GOP predictably used their time to polish Petey Boy’s (and Trump’s) lying butt but he did face some scrutiny. And Democrats let him have it but good. None more so than West Point Graduate and combat veteran Pat Ryan who honed in on the drone attack Iran made at a U.S. installation in Kuwait that resulted in six dead American soldiers. Petey Boy and the DOD put out (of course!) a false narrative and statements correcting it got lost in the noise. Ryan put the spotlight squarely on it, and in the process called out self-professed ‘Alpha Warrior’ Hegseth as a liar. He would go on to kick Hegseth in his steroid shriveled balls.
On March 1 as the war was barely underway Iran launched missile and drone strikes on U.S. bases/assets in the region. The Pentagon and the administration can and has lied about the level of damage Iran has inflicted. However they couldn’t sweep the sight of flag draped coffins coming home to Dover Air Force Base. As Raw Story reports the dead and injured should never have been exposed the way they were. Ryan came well prepared and raked Hegseth over the coals:
“Before the war started, there was clear intelligence that was high on Iran’s target list,” Ryan said. “Internal analysis that said the site was indefensible from aerial attack and should not be used. Yet you sent our soldiers from 103rd sustainment command there anyway. Is that true or false? True or false? Straightforward question.”
Hegseth got defensive with Ryan over the question.
Well of COURSE Hegseth got defensive. This whole stupid war was ill thought out and incompetently managed from the get-go. Those commanding the ships and the people carrying out the missions they’re ordered to carry out have done well but there’s never been a real strategy – clearly established objectives and a plan to meet them. Worse, logistics were an afterthought. We’ve used up an alarming (and costly) amount of precision guided munitions and by extending the deployment of the Ford (about to set a record for length of deployment) have created maintenance issues. (Remember that fire that sent the ship to port for a week of repairs?) But getting back on point the whole thing was rushed and those who died and were wounded in Yemen are the victims of NO planning or paying attention to intelligence. Or taking even the most basic steps to protect them.
Hegseth tried to deflect with claims Ryan was playing gotcha games and not allowing him to answer (Petey spouted bullshit because the truth was something he couldn’t admit without Trump firing him) but Ryan wasn’t having any of it:
Ryan continued and pressed Hegseth to respond to him.
“Let’s talk about what defenses they had prior to the attack,” Ryan said. “Officers on the ground knew our troops were vulnerable. In fact, they requested additional force protection. Did they receive it?”
Hegseth said the soldiers did have additional security resources — Ryan said they did not.
“In fact, when asked to describe the base’s defense, one survivor who’s come forward from the unit said, ‘I mean, I would put it in the none category from a drone defense capability. None,'” Ryan said.
Ryan went on to list what was NOT available to protect those troops. He pointed out there were no counter-drone capabilities, no counter-rocket systems, no counter-mortar or counter-artillery. He even noted in what I take as a not subtle dig “not even the basic overhead protection that you and I had 20 years ago in Iraq.” For the record, ‘Warrior Pete’ never fought in combat. No being a platoon leader out there forward deployed. His first stint in a ‘war zone’ was as a public affairs officer working on a base. His second was training foreign troops to fight in combat – something he’d never done.
I felt lucky as hell over four decades ago in my initial months of infantry training in the Marines that the bulk of our troop handlers (instructors) had combat experience in Vietnam. Thinking about an asshat wannabe ‘rah rah’ ‘warrior’ like Pete makes me think it’s small wonder the army we trained up in Afghanistan failed in the end. But I digress. The point here is that Ryan kept his foot on the gas running over Hegseth again and again. Ryan pointed out six soldiers died in an attack that shouldn’t have died, and confronted Hegseth on the next day saying a “squirter” drone somehow got through the defenses.
Again, Ryan wasn’t putting up with that kind of unmitigated bullshit. He noted how one survivor told CBSÂ that ‘painting a picture that one squeaked through is a falsehood.’ Ryan went on to note another said the unit was ‘unprepared to provide any defense for itself. It was not a fortified position.’ For good measure Ryan cited yet another survivor who said the building’s protection was about as weak as one gets. Ryan came to the hearing prepared with receipts and he piled them on Hegseth’s gelled hair head. Petey Boy I guess tried to put on a brave front but you just know he wanted to be just about anywhere than where he was – getting his posing ass handed to him live and on TV.
However Pete the Pretend Warrior was frozen in place. He probably knew Ryan’s bio and had sense enough not to try and match actual ‘war fighting’ resumes with an actual professional. He was at a point where he just had to sit there and take his whipping. Then Ryan fired the kill shot:
Secretary Hegseth, that is obviously in direct contradiction to what you said from the Pentagon podium the next day. So are you saying that these soldiers, our soldiers who survived this horrific attack, are lying?
As I said starting out given how much effort Hegseth has put into cosplaying ‘Warrior’ THAT hurt him in a way few can truly understand. What could he do? Call troops lucky to survive the attack liars or just sit there in shame? Here’s perhaps the best part. Morale is said to be low in the ranks and if this starts making the rounds it will drop even more. I for one think troops have come to learn Hegseth, for all his posing never heard a shot fired in anger, much less had to live days on end in actual front line situations where combat could break out at any second. Worse, during his time in war zones HE was actually in fortified areas! Places with serious defenses, and places to go when “incoming” alarms might sound. Those who died and were wounded in Kuwait were as defenseless as someone in a mobile home park with a tornado bearing down on them.
We rushed into the war so quickly that they didn’t even have time to dig some trenches (much less bunkers) or lay some cinder block blast walls. THAT is how inept this war has been from the start. But Pete’s nutsack is hurting tonight and bigly. For all his Trumpian ‘look at ME – I’m a WARRIOR’ bullshit he just got called out by a real one and worse, reminded the troops he left so exposed are braver than he is. Telling the truth on him is braver than anything Petey Boy (or Trump) has done in his life. Best of all it was televised!
I hope like hell the exchange gets played for Trump. It makes Trump look bad too and who knows? It might be the final straw. Keep an eye on this. Hegseth got humiliated and if Trump gets to thinking it might rub off on HIM Petey Boy will be out on his ass.
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Looking at those tatoo’s, those I think are maybe the MOST painful thing that has EVER happened to the idiot!