Barry Duke, the Angry Atheist

Pointing and laughing at religious lunacy for more than half-a-century

American Christian nationalism v theocratic Iran: a recipe for utter disaster

UNTIL September 24 last year the US had a Secretary of Defense in the form of Christian nationalist and “Holy War” advocate Pete Hegseth, above, who, during a decade as a Fox News guest, contributor and host, exhibited “a consistent pattern of advocating belligerence towards Iran.“

On September 25 he was named Secretary of War, and we all know what followed.

If he were alive today, Kevin Price Phillips, an American writer and commentator on politics, economics, and history who died in October 2023, would not be in the least surprised by current events.

In his book American Theocracy (2006) he wrote:

The erring Republican majority presents a nightmarish vision of ideological extremism, catastrophic fiscal irresponsibility, rampant greed and dangerous shortsightedness.

Violence, misogyny, and Islamophobia appear to be in Hegseth’s blood.

His Wiki entry refers to an incident in 2015, in which he threw an axe during a Flag Day event in New York City, accidentally hitting a drummer from the United States Military Academy.

Wiki also reports that In November 2024, Vanity Fair reported that Hegseth had allegedly sexually assaulted a woman in October 2017 at the Hyatt Regency Monterey Hotel and Spa on Del Monte Golf Course in Monterey, California.

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According to the Monterey Police Department, he was investigated in connection with two incidents of sexual assault that occurred shortly before midnight and 7 am the following morning. He was not criminally charged.

Also in November 2024, The New York Times obtained a 2018 email from Hegseth’s mother, Penny, accusing her son of having mistreated women for years.

More recently, in a spiteful, homophobic move, Hegseth ordered the Navy to strike the name of pioneering gay rights activist Harvey Milk from one of its ships, orchestrating the change as Pride month celebrations were taking place in June.

To all his other failings, one can add the sort of vanity the petulant man-child Trump exhibits in spades. Note: Hegseth’s Big Book of Balony — the Bible — associates vanity with excessive pride and conceit. In March this year Hegseth’s department barred press photographers from briefings on the ongoing US-Israeli military conflict with Iran after they published photos of the lunatic that his staff considered “unflattering.”

America’s war on press freedom

A great many news outlets and organisations in the US appear not to have the balls to criticise the increasingly unstable Trump and his cronies who have brought chaos to the Middle East without a clear objective or any idea how all this madness will end.

But those that do have been threatened by the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) that they could lose their broadcasters’ licences after the Orange Horror criticised their coverage of the US-Israel war with Iran.

Yesterday — the day on which the threat was reported — Melina Cohen, Director of Strategic Communications & Policy Engagement sent out an email that dealt with the religious aspect of the war. She wrote:

As the United States and Israel continue warring with Iran, political leaders are increasingly invoking religious rhetoric. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu referred to Iran as ‘Amalek,’ an enemy with which the Torah commands confrontation. Mike Huckabee, the U.S. Ambassador to Israel, is a prominent Christian Zionist whose support for Israel is based largely on his — and millions of evangelical Christians’ — apocalyptic hope that bloodshed in the Middle East will trigger Christ’s return. And Speaker of the House Mike Johnson refused to condemn anti-Muslim comments from Reps. Andy Ogles and Randy Fine. Sen. Lindsey Graham characterized the conflict as a ‘religious war.’

And she pointed out:

In his 2020 book American Crusade Hegseth wrote: ‘Jesus did tell us to turn the other cheek, but I’m pretty sure he wasn’t advising a secretary of defense at the time.’ It was always a disturbing diatribe. Now that he controls the most powerful military on earth, Hegseth’s crusade is no longer fantasy. It’s foreign policy.

She added:

By entangling their theology with state power and military might, Christian nationalists sure resemble the religious regimes they oppose. As Martin Luther King, Jr., warned: ‘The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it.’

Note: My recently published memoir, available in ebook and paperback formats, are available here.

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