No One Knows Anything, Especially Pete Hegseth
Trump's disastrous war in Iran is an endless series of questions with no answers. And still, we fight on.
While America’s Secretary of Men’s Grooming/War focuses on using testosterone shots and dangerous military flyovers to “improve morale” at the DoD (nothing says esprit de corps like a jet engine sending a beach chair flying into the face of a small child), the rest of the country has been wondering whether the Trump administration has any kind of handle on this war. (I know, it’s a question that answers itself.)
Clearly, Hegseth and his minions—focused like a laser on testicular atrophy (sorry, someone had to say it)—either cannot or will not answer the most basic questions regarding this disastrous and seemingly unending conflict in Iran: How many soldiers have been hurt? What is this all costing us? Is there a fucking plan?
On Monday night, before Hegseth went to the Hill to beg Congress for a cool $80 billion dollars in supplemental war funding, the Pentagon dropped this bombshell:
The Pentagon said Monday that nearly 100 U.S. troops have been injured in the war with Iran over the last two weeks
[Pentagon spokesperson, Sean] Parnell, said further updates would be posted to an online Pentagon database that was stagnant for days if not weeks, showing 14 troops dead and 427 troops injured since the beginning of the war on Feb. 28.
On Monday evening, those figures were briefly updated to reflect that 18 service members have died and 447 have been injured since the beginning of the war on Feb. 28….
But with no explanation from the Pentagon, the database later reverted Monday night to the earlier numbers.
If the figure Parnell disclosed on Monday is accurate, the number of service members injured in the conflict since February could easily exceed 500.
I had to re-read this several times to understand the folly here: the Pentagon spokesperson announced that 100 American soldiers were injured in the fighting of the last two weeks—counter to all Trump’s current (!) claims that America won the war and Iran’s military has been “decimated.” And then the Pentagon database updated its outdated numbers to reflect those recent, 100 injuries. But then, the database—which, again, is run by the Pentagon!—reverted back to the older, out-of-date numbers…. because the Pentagon did not actually confirm the numbers that were used by… the Pentagon spokesperson. Are you following this?
The incompetence on display in that one instance is exemplary of the broader obfuscation/confusion/dim wittedness that characterizes the department under Hegseth’s leadership and Trump’s watch. As the president demands billions more to defeat a country that, in his estimation, has already been beaten, the people who are funding this war (us) have no intelligible information on how much money this is all costing, nor can anyone point to a coherent strategy by which this money has all been spent/will be spent.
Case in point: as reporting makes clear that America is facing an extraordinary shortage of precision weapons, the Pentagon refuses to explain to Congress how much money this has all cost:
"When Hegseth testified before the House panel in April, [Senate Appropriations] committee leaders urged him to provide information on the war’s costs as soon as possible. The Pentagon later missed the panel’s deadline and has since failed to share requested details for weeks."
OMB Sadist Director Russell Vought says the Iran war has cost the US $30 billion, a figure that is so deflated as to be useless, in part because it doesn’t account for the cost of rebuilding U.S. bases in the Middle East damaged by Iranian strikes, which is a lot like trying to estimate the tip on a restaurant bill that doesn’t include the cost of any of the food.
Meanwhile, the Department of Defense is essentially robbing Peter to pay Paul, as the unending costs of the war drag on and military budgets are stretched thin.
The conflict has put unexpected stress on the Navy and Air Force, which have deployed aircraft and warships to the Middle East. Parts of the 2026 budget covering ongoing military operations for both services are on track to run out by the end of this month….
To bridge the gap until the 2027 fiscal year begins on Oct. 1, the Pentagon is already moving money around. Military exercises and trainings that help keep units prepared for combat are being limited or canceled…. The budget for equipment and facility and maintenance is also being drained to cover the shortfalls
In his appearance at the Senate on Tuesday, Hegseth’s gave a new—almost certainly deflated—number for the war: $37.5 million dollars. His explanation as to why the Pentagon needed even more money—on top of its one trillion dollar budget—was, essentially, We need this money from Congress because Joe Biden.
“I don’t know what [Biden Secretary of Defense] Lloyd Austin did for four years,” Hegseth said. “I really don’t. The amount of neglect, the amount of stale thinking and bureaucracy was staggering when we took over.”
The Trump administration’s de facto position that every (bad) thing that has ever happened is all Joe Biden’s fault has now reached comic proportions, and no sentient person will ever believe that the extraordinary cost of this war, dreamed up exclusively by Donald Trump, is somehow a result of Lloyd Austin and Joe Biden not spending enough money on the budgetary K-hole that is the Department of Defense. Good luck on that one, bro.
In the meantime, more US soldiers will be maimed and killed, and it will take weeks to find out out who and what and when. Trump and Hegseth will continue to beclown themselves and ruin what is left of America’s good name. Gas prices will still suck. I suppose the light at the end of the tunnel here is that there’s an election in three and a half months, and at that point, the voters will get to decide how much more of this dangerous idiocy they can stomach. November 3rd can’t come fast enough.
"(W)hich is a lot like trying to estimate the tip on a restaurant bill that doesn’t include the cost of any of the food."
Funniest line of the week. Thanks, Alex.
Seriously, this administration is so fabulously stupid and incompetent, that you can't keep up. It's not just Hegseth. It's the entire administration. People are fed up with this shit. Whether or not it translates to a different-looking Congress or not is another matter.
Well said. The defense spending is so out of control that it's sickening. Not to steal your title, but really, how the hell did we get to this point? I've lost so much faith in our country and the voters who put these clowns in office.