Dangerous Incompetence
2024
2024-11-25 In Pete Hegseth’s book The War on Warriors, he argues that the US should disregard the Geneva Convention constraints and abide by our “own rules”.
2025 February
2025-02-27 The Trump administration targeted legal oversight of military lawyers, stating their enforcement of law were potential “roadblocks” to Trump’s orders.
https://www.cnn.com/2025/10/15/politics/pentagon-lawyers-sidelined-jags
https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/are-military-lawyers-being-sidelined
https://thehill.com/policy/defense/5162069-pentagon-officers-fired/
https://www.execfunctions.org/p/the-decaying-legal-culture-in-the
https://apnews.com/article/pentagon-hegseth-firing-chairman-lawyers-6bead3346b1210e45e77648e6cbc3599
https://www.newsweek.com/how-pete-hegseths-cull-of-military-lawyers-could-hurt-us-soldiers-10819597
2025 March
2025-03-01 Pete Hegseth initiated the dismantling of the Civilian Mitigation and Response Action Plan, which was designed to build a blueprint for avoiding civilian war casualties. The agency had the important task of maintaining a “no-strike” list so we wouldn’t bomb places like schools, hospitals, apartment buildings, et cetera. Hegseth even pitched the idea of changing the name to Center for Precision Warfare so the mission wouldn’t sound so “woke”, but the Trump administration inevitably scrapped it just before they started a war in Iran and bombed a school for girls, killing nearly 200 children in the first day of the war.
https://www.theatlantic.com/national-security/2026/03/us-civilian-casualties-iran/686292/
https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-defense-department-iran-hegseth-civilian-casualties
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/04/us/politics/hegseth-pentagon-civilian-harm.html
2025-03-11 Pete Hegseth used an unapproved unauthorized Signal chat platform to discuss classified plans of military strikes in Yemen. He also invited officials who were not supposed to be part of the communications including his wife. Two months after Signalgate, Mike Walz resigned. On December 4th of the same year, the Pentagon Inspector General released a report stating Hegseth endangered the lives of American servicemembers when he shared classified details of Yemen strikes on the unauthorized commercial app Signal Chat.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/jeffrey-goldberg-the-atlantic-trump-officials-group-chat-signal/
https://www.wired.com/story/heres-what-happened-to-those-signalgate-messages/
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/hegseths-signal-chat-pentagon-inspector-general-report/
https://www.cnn.com/2025/12/04/politics/unclassified-ig-report-hegseth-signal
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx2ej74pxdro
2026 February
2026-02-17 Kristi Noem diverted resources away from a search and rescue mission with the Coast Guard to find a missing service member so she could send them to enforce immigration.
2026 March
2026-03-06 Trump stated on Fox that ships were safe to go through the Strait of Hormuz while Iran laid out mines. He stated to Brian Kilmeade, “There’s nothing to be afraid of” and quipped that the oil tanker crews should “show some guts”. Six tankers were struck, and media posted video of fuel tankers burning near Al Faw Port of Basra, Iraq on March 12.
https://thehill.com/business/5774913-donald-trump-oil-tankers-strait-hormuz/
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a70726144/trump-pep-talk-straits-of-hormuz/
https://www.reuters.com/world/cargo-ship-hit-by-projectile-strait-hormuz-crew-evacuates-2026-03-11/
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/03/11/cargo-ship-struck-strait-of-hormuz-uk-iran-war.html
2026-03-26 Mysterious trading patterns emerged on the PolyMarket trading app (whose investors include a venture capital firm owned by Donald Trump Jr), causing people to suspect insider-trading within Trump’s ranks. As one YouTuber puts it: this type of concern is being reported on in major news outlets, meaning opposing nations could identify insider accounts and infer US battle plans since they are already making huge bets on world events and then cashing out. That puts American servicemembers’ lives at risk.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/polymarket-insider-trading-rules-iran-war-venezuela/
https://www.nbcnews.com/business/consumer/insider-trading-prediction-markets-trump-rules-rcna265452
https://www.axios.com/2026/03/25/trump-iran-oil-insider-trading
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNBRgrndNoE&list=WL&index=1
2026 April
2026-04-04 Hegseth ordered base commanders to allow troops to carry personal firearms. This was originally banned by George Bush in the 90’s to prevent accidents and suicides.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5u7wrYxLUg&list=WL&index=5
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/hegseth-troops-personal-firearms-military-bases/