Sec Def Peter Hegseth Jokes About Afghanistan Allies

I am old enough to remember when, across multiple occasions, Republicans made a lot of noise about how moving a bust of Churchill demonstrated that Obama, and later Biden, disrespected our British allies. I wonder how those same Republicans will handle this “joke” Secretary of Defense Peter Hegseth made during a tense Senate hearing yesterday:

Sorting by the highest number of casualties per country, here are the top 6 nations that lost soldiers and staff during the Afghan war:

Country	Deaths	Population (2010)	Deaths per million
USA	2,461*	309 million	7.96
UK	457	63 million	7.25
Canada	159*	34 million	4.68
France	90	63 million	1.43
Germany	62	82 million	0.76
Italy	53	60 million	0.88

All in all, 32 coalition countries lost people during that war. And while, without a doubt, the highest number of casualties were from the US, it’s also worth noting that we are a significantly larger country than any other coalition member. When controlled for population, it is notable that the overall rate of the UK’s sacrifice of its blood and treasure closely matched that of the US.

But hey, what are facts and shared sacrifice in the face of an American exceptionalism joke? And what really matters in the US/UK relationship is that the Churchill Bust is back in the West Wing.

Here are some added “highlights” from Hegseth’s time in front of the Senate yesterday:

For example, Hegseth refused to disclose any details about the cost of retrofitting the plane being donated by the Qatari government to become a new Air Force One:

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth  refused to answer questions from Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) regarding President Trump’s luxury jet from the Qatari government, including the cost of refurbishing it to become Air Force One and how long it would take.

“You have signed a contract with a company to reconfigure the Qatari aircraft. What is the price of that contract?” Reed asked Hegseth at a Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee hearing.  

Hegseth replied that the information “cannot be revealed in this setting,” prompting Reed to fire back. 

“Why can’t it be revealed? This is the appropriation committee of the United States Senate. We appropriate the money that you will spend . . . and you cannot tell us how much the contract is for,” Reed said.

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/trump-the-next-100-days/5343919-live-updates-trump-newsom-los-angeles-china-trade-deal

And Mitch McConnell doesn’t seem to trust that the President and the Secretary of Defense are not about to abandon our allies in Ukraine:

Gee Mitch, if only there was something you could have done in 2021 to prevent all this…