The US president, Donald Trump, has taken advantage of an unusual meeting of all the country’s generals, convened by the Pentagon, to warn the military controls about “the internal invasion” in the United States. “We are under an invasion from within. It is not different from that of an external enemy, but more difficult, in many ways, because they do not carry uniforms,” said the president in his harangue to the heads of the Armed Forces in the military base of Quantico (Virginia).
The act at the Academy of Marine Infantry, for which all the high -American commanders were summoned, regardless of where they were destined (anywhere in the world), it was intended that Trump and his secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth presented his idea of how the US armed forces should be: an army composed of “warriors” and not “defenders” where the beards and Melenas will be prohibited, in which efforts will end to encourage diversity, political correction will be prohibited and in which women will have to achieve male standards to deploy in combat posts, according to the head of the Pentagon.
Trump took the opportunity to defend his deployment of the armed forces in cities governed by the Democratic opposition, for which he argues that these cities are dominated by violence, although the official figures point out otherwise. “We should use some of these dangerous cities as training posts for our military,” said the president.
Under the command of Hegseth, the Pentagon has given the approval of Donald Trump to deploy National Guard troops, or even marine infantry, in cities governed by the Democratic opposition, claiming that the levels of violence in them require that extreme step. First, Los Angeles, then Washington, Memphis and, as announced this weekend, now Portland in Oregon. “The next will be Chicago,” Trump promised in his intervention in Quantico, repeating what he has been saying for weeks.
According to him, now “Washington is now a safe city. It is perfect. In fact, I have come to dinner with my people, and before I would not have done it,” he used, in a speech in which he was oscillating from one theme to another without apparent thread, from the need to get a meeting between the presidents of Russia and Ukraine, Vladimir Putin and Volodimir Zelenski, to the tariff “My fifth favorite word.”
“This is for no enemy to threaten us and US forces remain as the most lethal and dominant entity on the planet, not only for a few years, but for the decades and generations of the future for centuries. We must be so powerful that no enemy dares to threaten us, and so capable that no adversary can even hit us,” Trump argued.
“Capacity, character, strength and good form”
The president said that “merit” must be the only criterion that guides his government and US forces. Trump, who alleged buses to avoid being sent to the Vietnam War, said they hire “people who are going to do the best job.” “It is the way this country rose … we are going to recover the priorities of capacity, character, strength and be fit. The US army is not to protect anyone’s feelings, but to protect our country, and we will not be politically correct at the time of defending American freedom. ”
In a covered amphitheater, on a black stage full of flags – the American and those of the five armies of the US armed forces (army of land, navy, air force, marine infantry and coastguards) -, the Secretary of Defense, until last year presenter of the Fox News television chain, pronounced his speech as if it were a ted talk side to the other of the stage, before hundreds of the most decorated military and with constellations of stars in their charters.
His harangue listed the army he has in mind, and that he aspires to put into practice: “irresponsible political leaders headed us in the bad direction and we got lost. We became the ‘Woke department,” said the head of the Pentagon. “But not anymore.” “The era of political correction has ended. Or you do the work disciplined, you are trained and fit, or you leave.” According to Hegesh, he is “fed up” to “see combat formations or any other formation and see fat soldiers.” “It is also completely unacceptable to see general and rolled admirals in the pentagon halls,” he added.
“If what I am saying depresses them, then they should opt for the honorable way and resign,” he said. “But I know that the vast majority of you feel exactly the opposite and feel released by my words.”
The appointment had caused a huge confusion within the ranks of the Pentagon. It is not usual or recommended for security reasons a meeting of such dimensions of military leaders in a single place. The mode of the call has also caused surprise, loaded with secrecy until Trump announced that the event would be added. Initially, the Pentagon had limited himself to summoning his generals, without indicating what the reason for the meeting was.
The appointment is the most recent initiative in a series of Hegseth steps to transform the pentagon into an institution to the image and likeness of the Donald Trump’s military concept. A few steps that took last month to alter the name of the department that heads. Although “Department of Defense” remains valid – a complete change would require the approval of Congress -, the preferred denomination of this administration is now the war department. Trump has justified that decision because, according to him, the new name – which recovers the current appeal until the end of World War II – is more in line with the image of “lethality” that he wants to convey.
Before that rhetorical change, other reforms of much greater draft had arrived, which may have consequences during generations in the most powerful army composition in the world. Upon arrival, Hegseth, who had written against women could take combat posts, immediately prohibited trans people could be enrolled in the Armed Forces.
In his first weeks of command, the former television presenter and war veteran ceased several of the highest military commanders, including the Chief of the General Staff. General CQ Brown, the first African -American who came to that position, had been appointed Chief of Staff of the Army of Terra by Trump himself during his first term. But Hegseth considered that his positions were too progressive. Other cessations also included women in high command positions, such as Lisa Franchetti, head of the bodyguard.
Hegseth also ceased the heads of the legal departments of the different branches of the Armed Forces, a step that civil rights organizations consider especially alarming: those professionals are responsible for advising those responsible for the Pentagon on the legality of military acts. Such as, for example, the sinking with Venezuelan boat missiles in international waters in the Caribbean, with the argument that they transport drugs for distribution in the United States.
This weekend Democratic senators Tammy Duckworth and Mazie Hirono, both members of the Armed Services Committee of the Upper House, sent a letter to the head of the Pentagon in which they asked for transparency around the Quantico event and asked that the administration explain their plans in case some type of security incident occurred.
“For an obsessed administration with eliminating waste, it is absurd to convene this sudden and intensive meeting in the use of time and resources so that our highest military controls, all of which have earned their positions through an outstanding performance over decades of service, so that they supposedly have to hear you, the less qualified secretary of defense of which you have memory, give them lessons about military standards and combat,” the two senators wrote.
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