In the eyes of Pete Hegseth, having a beard while serving in the American military doesn’t just make you look “woke”, it makes you un-American.
The latest tantrum from the US “Secretary of War” relates to the lack of adherence to his dictum in September that all serving members of the military be clean-shaven. No matter that America and Iran are exchanging daily fire amid a crumbling ceasefire, or that Russia and Ukraine are bombarding each other with drone attacks. Instead, the top priority for America’s most senior military official is… too much facial hair on the front line.
After a visit to a Navy ship by the Defence Secretary, a Pentagon official warned colleagues that Hegseth was “paying close attention to the progress” regarding beards and is keen to “move faster”, CNN reported on Friday.
That the length of soldiers’ beards is Hegseth’s chief preoccupation reveals volumes about his priorities while in office. But it’s also a sign of how incompetent he is and how much he is floundering.
Hegseth is a man who can only communicate in superlatives: he claimed in April that the US had achieved “total victory” against Iran after just a few days of bombing. The war against Iran itself is known as “Operation Epic Fury”, which late-night comedian Jon Stewart has joked sounds as if influencer Jake Paul had launched an energy drink.
