Trump, Pentagon attack UN and NATO and urge US to ignore Geneva conventions | Trump administration

Pete Hegseth, Trump's nominee for secretary of defense, attacked several key US alliances such as NATO, allied countries like Turkey and international institutions such as the United Nations in two recent books, and said that American troops should not be bound by the Geneva Conventions.

At the same time, the man who would lead the gigantic American military has tied American foreign policy almost entirely to the priority of Israel, a country of which he says: if you love America, you should love Israel.

Elsewhere, Hegseth appears to argue that the U.S. military should ignore the Geneva Conventions and all international laws governing the conduct of war, and instead unleash them to become a ruthless, uncompromising, and extremely deadly force intended to win our wars according to our own rules.

Hegseth's policy preferences could raise concerns about the future of NATO, escalating tensions with Israel's archenemy Iran, and impunity for U.S. war criminals, such as those whom Hegseth persuaded Trump to pardon during his first term.

Tom Hill, executive director of the Center for Peace and Diplomacy (CPD), told the Guardian that Hegseth's appointment reflected the fact that for Donald Trump, one of the bases of support he has is the nationalist evangelical movement Christian.

In Hegseth, what he is proposing is an Israeli policy and foreign policy distortion around Israel as payback to this Christian nationalist base, Hill said.

Europe has already allowed itself to be invaded

While in the more distant past Hegseth was a foreign policy hawk aligned with neoconservatism, since what he calls his conversion to Trump he has written scathingly about multilateral institutions.

In American Crusade (AC), published in 2020, Hegseth asks bluntly: why are we funding the anti-American UN? Why is Islamist Turkey a member of NATO?

Elsewhere in this book, Hegseth disparages the International Security Assistance Force, the UN Security Council peacekeeping force sent to Afghanistan in 2006, with claims based on his own service in Afghanistan: On my camouflage uniform, I wore an American flag on one shoulder and an Isaf patch on the other, he wrote, adding: The running joke among American troops in Afghanistan was that the Isaf patch actually meant I Saw Americans Fighting.

Like Trump, Hegseth describes NATO allies as not paying their dues: NATO is not an alliance; it is a defense agreement for Europe, financed and underwritten by the United States.

It also incorporates criticism of NATO into Great Replacement-style apocalyptic narratives about European immigration. Hegseth writes at one point in AC: Europe has already allowed itself to be invaded. They chose not to rebuild their armed forces, happily settling for America's willingness to fight and win wars.

Hegseth is particularly angered by Turkey's inclusion in NATO. He claims that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoan openly dreams of restoring the Ottoman Empire and is an Islamist with Islamist visions for the Middle East.

The defense of Europe is not our problem; Been there, done that, twice, Hegseth writes, adding: NATO is a relic and should be abandoned and remade for freedom to be truly defended.

This is what Trump is fighting for, he concludes.

The UN, meanwhile, is characterized as a fully globalist organization that aggressively advances an anti-American, anti-Israel, and anti-freedom agenda. Here is one set of rules for the United States and Israel, another for everyone else.

On Hegseth's characterization of Turkey as Islamist, the same descriptor he uses for non-state militant actors such as Isis Hill says: His extremist rhetoric attempts to literally portray treaty allies as illegitimate actors.

If you love America, you should love Israel

Hegseth's belief in the UN's bias against Israel reflects his apparent deepest commitments: any vision of international cooperation is rooted in his support for Israel, which he sometimes frames in religious terms.

In a striking passage from AC, he presents his support for Israel as a revival of the medieval crusades.

Our current times are very much like those of the 11th century, he writes in AC, adding: We do not want to fight, but, like our Christian brothers a thousand years ago, we must. We need an American crusade.

He adds: We Christians, alongside our Jewish friends and their remarkable army in Israel, must pick up the sword of unapologetic Americanism and defend ourselves.

Hegseth continues: For us, as American Crusaders, Israel embodies the soul of our American Crusade, from the why to the what.

Hegseth concludes: Faith, family, liberty and free enterprise; if you love them, learn to love the State of Israel. And then find an arena in which to fight for her.

Hill said Hegseth's Christian nationalism, rooted in fundamentalist Christianity, is essential to understanding his perspective on Israel.

He centers Israel in everything because of theology, he said. There is an eschatology and prophetic interpretation of the Book of Revelation, the Second Coming, Armageddon, the return of Jesus that is really important, and Israel is at the center of that eschatology.

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The Guardian previously reported that Hegseth, who bears a tattoo of the crusader motto Deus vult, had also presented the fight against internal or domestic enemies as a crusade or holy war.

In AC, he explicitly connects this domestic crusade to his support for Israel, writing that we have domestic enemies and international allies, it is time to reach out to people who value the same principles, relearn from them, and bond stronger bonds.

Hegseth writes in AC that Israel, along with the European far right and Brexit, is one of the foreign reservoirs of American values.

Americanism is alive in Israel, where Benjamin Netanyahu boldly opposes international anti-Semitism and Islamism, he writes.

Hegseth continues: Americanism is alive in the hearts of Brexiters in the UK who yearn for national sovereignty. Americanism is alive in countries like Poland, which reject the globalist visions of the left-wing bureaucrats of old Europe.

Israel, for its part, continues to defeat its Islamist enemies thanks to the big, beautiful wall and the big, beautiful army it has built, he writes.

Earlier this week, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Benjamin Netanyahu for the conduct of Israel's war on Gaza.

We'll rip your arms off and feed them to the pigs

In The War on Warriors of 2024, Hegseth argues at length that U.S. forces should ignore the Geneva Conventions and other elements of international law governing the conduct of war.

In the book, Hegseth asks: The key question of our generation of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is much more complicated: What do you do if your enemy does not respect the Geneva conventions?

We never got a response. Only more war. No more victims. And no victory.

Hegseth's response is that conventions should be ignored.

What if we treated the enemy as he treated us? he asks. Wouldn't that encourage the other side to reconsider their barbarity? Hey, Al Qaeda: if you surrender, we might spare your life. If you don't, we'll tear off your arms and feed them to the pigs.

He then writes: We simply fight with one hand behind our back and the enemy knows it. If our warriors are forced to follow rules arbitrarily and asked to sacrifice more lives to make international tribunals feel better about themselves, aren't we just better off winning? wars according to our own rules?!

He continues: Who cares what other countries think?

Hill said Hegseth's rhetoric blamed liberal ideas for the military defeat, in a way that resembled the narratives that far-right movements have historically used to scapegoat their political opponents in conflicts. military defeats.

Hegseth concluded the discussion by writing: If we were to send our boys to fight and it should be boys, we must release them to win. He adds: They need them to be the most ruthless. The most uncompromising. The deadliest possible.

We must break the will of the enemy.

Hegseth, who in 2019 persuaded Trump to pardon American soldiers accused or convicted of war crimes, then writes: Our troops will make mistakes, and when they do, they should be given the overwhelming benefit of the doubt.

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