Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth appeared to acknowledge that the Pentagon has developed plans to take over Greenland and Panama by force if necessary but refused to answer repeated questions during a hotly combative congressional hearing Thursday about his use of Signal chats to discuss military operations.
Democratic members of the House Armed Services Committee repeatedly got into heated exchanges with Hegseth, with some of the toughest lines of questioning coming from military veterans as many demanded yes or no answers and he tried to avoid direct responses about his actions as Pentagon chief.
In one back-and-forth, Hegseth did provide an eyebrow-raising answer. Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., asked whether the Pentagon has plans to take Greenland or Panama by force if necessary.
To be clear, the Pentagon has dusty filing cabinets full of playbooks and wargaming scenarios ranging from plausible to outrageous that various think tanks have cooked up over the years. There is almost certainly a plan to fight an extraterrestrial invasion. I recall one being made about a zombie outbreak during that pop culture craze. We’ve had plans to invade Canada and Mexico wholesale for decades at least. Their existence doesn’t inherently mean that anyone at the Pentagon takes the possibility of the scenario seriously. They’re thought exercises as much as they are preparation for the unlikely.
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Machiavelli had some useful points.
like the whole, “if you rule through fear to keep people in line, they’ll take your head off the moment you’re weak” observation.
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oh. he was a total asshole. But even he respected the need for representation and to constrain the elites from doing shit. At least, he was later on. (See Discourse on Livy)
I’m just saying, assholes like trump being all Machiavellian seem to forget the whole “we know how behead” aspect of being an assholish monarch.
Was he an asshole? Or was he writing a commission with malicious compliance? For a historically verified asshole?
Not to be too pedantic, but “The Prince” was intended as a sincere operating manual for governing (not a satire in any way).
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Prince
The shocking lack of morality in the book is what made it rather infamous. It was not a joke at all.
This part’s interesting
Mary Dietz, in her essay “Trapping The Prince”, writes that Machiavelli’s agenda was not to be satirical, as Rousseau had argued, but instead was “offering carefully crafted advice (such as arming the people) designed to undo the ruler if taken seriously and followed.”[83] By this account, the aim was to reestablish the republic in Florence. She focuses on three categories in which Machiavelli gives paradoxical advice:
He discourages liberality and favors deceit to guarantee support from the people. Yet Machiavelli is keenly aware of the fact that an earlier pro-republican coup had been thwarted by the people’s inaction that itself stemmed from the prince’s liberality.
He supports arming the people despite the fact that he knows the Florentines are decidedly pro-democratic and would oppose the prince.
He encourages the prince to live in the city he conquers. This opposes the Medici’s habitual policy of living outside the city. It also makes it easier for rebels or a civilian militia to attack and overthrow the prince.
The Pentagon has contingency plans for every situation they can imagine. This is not news so much as it’s just another example of Hesgeth being a fucking moron. They have plans to invade everywhere, they have contingency plans to counterattack against a Canadian invasion for fuck sake. They have these plans because if a situation arises, you don’t have the time to be cooking up new plans. Hesgeth acting like this is actually a plan that’s being considered it just another example of why he’s not fit to manage a godamn Mcdonalds, much less anything important.
If we invade Greenland, I vow to do what I can to not die an American citizen.
I’d be ashamed to be buried here at this point already.
I mean, I definitely get your point, but I wouldn’t be ashamed to be buried here or to die as an American citizen, even in such an instance or worse, as long as I died doing all that I could to resist.
That’s the (original) American spirit!
Buried? Ok, moneybags.
Has he forwarded the plans to the signal group chat yet?
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“Contingent” on what, Kegsbreath?
Greenland making fun of Trump?
Denmark still refusing to “sell” it?
Trumpy needing yet another distraction from some stupid shit he’s doing he wants to hide?
You getting cranky from the DTs?
If necessary.
We expecting Greenland to launch nukes or something?
What the fuck?!? Why do these nazi’s have such a hard on for Greenland?
I mean I understand that with the melting ice, there are strategic shipping lanes and some rare elements that you’d get with Greenland but for fucks sake we can’t just take it because it’s the new hotness.
It all ALWAYS just boils down to MONEY and resources.
Capitalism requires constant, unnecessary growth. Maybe Greenland has resources that could support US’s unregulated, unrestrained capitalism.
And control of Panama controls trade routes and hidden offshore money laundering.
That’s it. That’s why. Money. The ultra elite wealthy NEED THIS.
The billionaires want the island of Greenland for their climate change bunkers
It’s big. That’s all. HitlerPig wants it because it’s big.
It’s noise, junk to get attention away from other things.
And I’m sure the EU has plans to defend it, next question.
I’m waiting for more ingo on that on Signal. We should get more info from these idiots any moment now…
This is decades old policy. Contingency plans for every crazy unlikely scenario you can dream up
They literally hire people just to make up these scenarios to hire more people to make up contingency plans for them. I feel like once a year an article comes out that’s like “the US has a contingency plan in case Sweden falls to communism and arms itself with nuclear weapons” and it’s like: yeah, ok.
KFC has become self aware and has taken over several archipelagos including the Florida keys and Aleutian islands.
The 261st joint task force: “alright boys, this is the moment we’ve trained for our entire lives”
“If necessary”
Seriously? Invade Greenland? Who’s going to even allow that. The Whitehouse can’t just declare war without provocation.
It would literally take an act of congress to ratify such an act.
Did you miss the news? The US is a kingdom again. Trump can do whatever he wants.
Maybe he’ll be gored by a walrus.
