Pete Hegseth was considered an internal threat. But Trump wants to make the "modern crusader" Secretary of Defense

Neue Zürcher Zeitung Germany Pete Hegseth was considered an internal threat. But Trump wants to make the "modern crusader" Secretary of Defense Christian Weisflog, Washington • 2 hours • 5 minutes reading time Pete Hegseth was a convinced neoconservative back on September 11, 2001, when Islamist terrorists attacked the USA with hijacked passenger planes. President George W. Bush and his neoconservative advisors then overthrew the Taliban in Afghanistan and Saddam Hussein in Iraq with the help of the American military. They believed that they could transform these tyrannical regimes into flourishing democracies, just like Japan or Germany after the Second World War. But this idea turned out to be a painful mistake for Hegseth, which he has not yet completely overcome. He therefore describes himself as a "recovering neocon". Growing up in a small town in Minnesota, Hegseth graduated from high school at the top of his class. At the turn of the millennium, he studied politics at the elite Princeton University in New Jersey. Before the terrorist attacks, he enrolled in the army's training program for young officers. At the same time, he was the editor of the conservative student magazine "The Princeton Tory." There, he saw his mission as defending "the pillars of Western civilization." He and other editors wrote against same-sex marriage, which they considered "bestiality." Hegseth described homosexuality as an "immoral lifestyle." Lobbyist for more troops in Iraq In a column in 2003, Hegseth defended the American invasion of Iraq. It showed that "conservative ideas worked, still work and will work." He was soon to be confronted with the reality of this idea. After graduating, Hegseth worked briefly for an investment bank on Wall Street before being deployed to Guantánamo as an officer in the National Guard in 2004. In the prison in Cuba, he and his unit guarded around 600 terror suspects. After Guantánamo, Hegseth was back on the trading floor on Wall Street in 2005. The screens there often showed reports from Iraq, where American troops were increasingly losing control. "I'm a capable, trained lieutenant. What in the world am I doing here?" asked the then 25-year-old. "I have to find a way to be a part of it." A few months later, Hegseth was flying in helicopters on nighttime surprise attacks and house searches in Iraq. His infantry platoon belonged to Charlie Company, which some soldiers also called the "Kill Company" because of its aggressive methods. Some of his comrades killed civilians, executed prisoners and tried to cover up war crimes. Hegseth was not one of them, even if he himself questioned certain rules. Hegseth thought it was absurd that they were only allowed to shoot at an insurgent when he pointed his weapon at them. However, he condemned the offenses in his company as inexcusable "atrocities." He was awarded a Bronze Star for his meritorious service in Iraq. His experiences did not make Hegseth an opponent of the war. Quite the opposite: Back in the USA, he took over the leadership of the veterans group Vets for Freedom, which campaigned for an increase in troops in Iraq and continued to believe in victory. In 2011, he went to Afghanistan as an instructor "optimistically." At the same time, he enrolled at the renowned Harvard Kennedy School of Government to gain another degree at an elite university. With this background, Hegseth felt ready to run for the Senate in Minnesota in 2012. But he withdrew early from the primary. "I misjudged the terrain," says Hegseth looking back. The anti-elitist Tea Party movement - a precursor to Trumpism - had taken over the Republican base. "The last thing they wanted was a nice guy in a tie from the elite universities," he said recently in a podcast. This seemed to be the moment when his neoconservative worldview collapsed. While his generation was busy with wars abroad, his country was changing, Hegseth explained in the podcast. It took him a moment to understand this: "We were infiltrated from within, our institutions were taken over, and our fight is now here to save them." Advocate for alleged war criminals Hegseth took over the management of Concerned Veterans. The organization, financed by the conservative Koch billionaires, primarily denounced the state health services for former soldiers. When the media reported in 2014 about veterans who had died in Phoenix because they had not received medical treatment in time, Hegseth suddenly became a sought-after interview partner on the conservative television channel Fox News. Donald Trump also enjoyed watching his telegenic appearances. He liked Hegseth so much that in 2016 he even considered making him Minister of Veterans Affairs. Hegseth did not get the job. His extramarital affairs and the alleged embezzlement of donations are said to have played a role. Instead, Hegseth rose to become a popular presenter on Fox News' breakfast television. There he used his role to campaign for the pardon of convicted or prosecuted war criminals. They included Mathew Golsteyn, who had shot a prisoner in Afghanistan, Clint Lorance, who had ordered his subordinates to shoot unarmed Afghans on a motorcycle, and Edward Gallagher, who had posed for a photo in front of corpses, among other things. Hegseth now saw these soldiers as war heroes who had been betrayed by a left-wing and woke military leadership. This also convinced Trump, who pardoned the three veterans in 2019: "We train our boys to be killing machines, then we punish them when they kill," the president justified his decision. Hegseth often wears a tie. But he doesn't want to be just a nice guy. Two years ago he demonstratively sent his Harvard diploma "back to the sender" in front of the camera. Such left-wing educational institutions would "poison" the minds of American children, he warned. The left should be "completely" destroyed His own mother says of Hegseth: "For me, Pete is a modern crusader. He finds the problems that mean a lot to him and then he goes after them." In recent years, Hegseth has set out his world view in three books. The left has banished God from the rooms of public schools, he says with conviction. This is how children are being raised to be "cultural Marxists." Hegseth and his third wife have therefore moved to conservative Tennessee to send their seven children from different marriages to a Christian school there. The left must be defeated with the aim of "complete destruction," Hegseth wrote in his book "American Crusade," otherwise the USA could not survive. Hegseth also sees the American military as weakened by the left-wing zeitgeist. He criticizes, among other things, the admission of women to combat units under President Barack Obama in 2013 and the service of transgender people. In his most recent book, "The War on Warriors," Hegseth calls for the dismissal of every general who contributed to the "extraconstitutional transformation" of the military under Obama and Joe Biden. "We should be in panic mode. Almost desperate. Ready to do anything to end the war against our warriors." Meanwhile, Hegseth no longer wants to know anything about international law of war: "These rules were written so that we would lose." Now Donald Trump wants to make him Secretary of Defense. But his confirmation in the Senate could fail due to resistance from moderate Republicans. There are two main stumbling blocks: Firstly, a married woman accused the sanctimonious TV presenter of sexual assault in 2017. Her statements were contradictory, but Hegseth paid her hush money. He himself was going through a divorce at the time because he had impregnated his producer at Fox News and later his third wife. On the other hand, critics suspect Hegseth of being a right-wing extremist Christian nationalist. He has had the most important symbols and phrases of his faith tattooed into his skin. On his chest he wears a large Jerusalem cross, on his biceps is written "Deus Vult" - "God wills it". Christians are said to have gone on the first crusade with this Latin battle cry. Because the motto is also popular with right-wing extremists, Hegseth, as a reservist in the National Guard in 2021, was not called up to guard Joe Biden's inauguration in Washington. His commander considered him an "insider threat" - an internal danger.