The ‘War Crimes’ Hoax Was Always About Taking Out Hegseth

It’s a day that ends in “-y,” which means that America’s propaganda media have further discredited themselves by perpetuating yet another bogus hoax about Republicans.

Throughout the past week, these so-called “defenders of democracy” and their Democrat allies have been salivating at an anonymously sourced Washington Post hit piece against War Secretary Pete Hegseth. As The Federalist’s Brianna Lyman summarized, the gist of this little hatchet job is that Hegseth supposedly “’gave a spoken directive’ to ‘kill everybody’ after a Sept. 2 strike left two smugglers ‘clinging to the smoldering wreck’” in the Caribbean.

The implication, of course, is that Hegseth is guilty of wrongdoing and alleged “war crimes” — a term Democrats quickly latched onto to (once again) call for the war secretary’s resignation. (The Post’s article conveniently came days after several Democrat lawmakers fomented fears about the Pentagon giving “illegal orders” to U.S. service members.)

But as Americans have come to learn in the days since the Post’s “bombshell” dropped, all signs point to the hit piece being — wait for it — complete garbage.

In a surprise move, The New York Times — yes that hoax-peddling New York Times — published a story contradicting the Post’s central reported claim that Hegseth ordered military officials to “kill everybody” aboard the suspected drug-smuggling vessel. According to five U.S. officials who spoke with the outlet, while Hegseth ordered the strike on the boat, his “directive did not specifically address what should happen if a first missile turned out not to fully accomplish all of those things” and “was not a response to surveillance footage showing that at least two people on the boat survived the first blast.”

The Post’s shoddy “reporting” took yet another hit when ABC News’ Martha “Do You Hear Yourself?” Raddatz dropped this pretty significant nugget of information on Wednesday evening:

And tonight, new information: According to a source familiar with the incident, the two survivors climbed back on to the boat after the initial strike. They were believed to be potentially in communication with others, and salvaging some of the drugs. Because of that, it was determined they were still in the fight and valid targets. A JAG officer was also giving legal advice.

So, what Americans appear to have here is The Washington Post — which has peddled pretty much every major hoax under the sun in recent years (Russiagate, Kavanaugh rape smears, etc.) — running yet another baseless info op to tarnish one of its political opponents. Shocker!

But what’s particularly notable about the Post’s participation in this latest hoax is that it’s part of a now-longstanding pattern of targeted smear campaigns specifically aimed at taking out Hegseth.

Not long after then-President-elect Trump tapped him to lead the Pentagon, Hegseth was bombarded with media-run anonymous allegations of wrongdoing during his time at Fox News and running a veterans-focused organization. Many of these bad actors also willingly partook in smears of his Christian faith and hit jobs about his personal life.

While these efforts failed to prevent Hegseth from being confirmed as war secretary, that didn’t stop the media and other Democrats from reusing this strategy to try and remove him from the position. On top of the “war crimes” hoax, these leftists have relentlessly pushed the Signalgate dud, the manufactured “constitutional crisis” about a Pentagon-led prayer service, and elevated the (oftentimes anonymous) voices of disgruntled officers upset that the failed status quo has been shown the door.

The reason behind this seemingly coordinated smear campaign is the same as it was the first day Hegseth was tapped to lead the Pentagon. That is, unlike many of his predecessors, he’s a change agent who actually cares about reforming the broken system that’s responsible for overseeing the U.S. military’s decades-long decay.

After one year under Hegseth’s leadership, the Pentagon has made efforts to gut racist DEI and affirmative action policies from the military and its academies, restore “sex neutral” standards to combat roles, reinstate service members booted over President Biden’s “unlawful” Covid shot mandate, ax radical “trans” accommodations, remove pro-DEI officers, and reverse the military’s Biden-era recruiting crisis, to name a few. Combine these with Hegseth’s willingness to train with and hear from the rank-and-file troops and call out high-ranking officers’ incompetence, and it’s no wonder the establishment have been working so hard to get rid of him.

Like any public official, Hegseth is not beyond criticism or error. But the ongoing Democrat-media op to take him down is not based on that simple reality. It’s based upon a desire to return the Pentagon to the status quo, in which the military-industrial complex prospers while the overall condition of America’s armed forces and its personnel wither away into irrelevancy.

Everything Hegseth is doing is aimed at reversing that decline, and it is for that reason alone why the D.C. establishment will do everything in its power to destroy him.

Shawn Fleetwood is a staff writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He previously served as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClearHealth, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood