US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth again suggested on Friday that the international community should show gratitude for President Donald Trump’s illegal war with Iran, which has led to a oil supply shock and created the potential for food shortages in the coming months.
Speaking to reporters at The PentagonHegseth defended the president’s decision to launch a war of choice with Iran that has so far cost American taxpayers a evaluated 60 billion dollars.
“It’s a daring and dangerous mission,” Hegseth said. “A gift to the world. Historic. Courtesy of a bold and historic president.”
Hegseth also chided the US allied for non-involvement in the war, which Trump and the Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu started at the end of February without any consultation or coordination with Europe.
“America and the free world deserve allies who are capable, loyal, and who understand that being an ally is not a one-way street,” he said. “We’re not counting on Europe, but they need the Strait of Hormuz a lot more than we do, and they might want to start talking less and having less fancy conferences in Europe and get on a boat. This is much more their fight than ours.”
Is there reason for the world to feel gratitude to the US and Israel for the war?
like reported from Barron’s on Friday, the war has created a global shortage of jet fuel that has led to airlines canceling flights, with Europe particularly hard hit.
German airline Lufthansa, for example, has announced it will cut 20,000 flights by October, and even US airlines such as Delta have announced cuts to save money, blaming rising jet fuel prices.
South China Morning Post reported on Wednesday that Asian nations are bracing for food shortages as the Iran War has led to shortages of fertilizer for crops during the planting season in much of the world.
In addition to mentioning the effects of the Iran War on global food supplies, the paper noted scientists’ warnings of a “super El Niño” that could lead to below-average rainfall.
“It is very worrying because this year is supposed to be a super El Niño and you are entering the planting season,” Gnanasekar Thiagarajan, founder of India-based financial research and advisory firm Commtrendz Research, told the South China Morning Post. “This will be widespread across South and Southeast Asia. There will be dryness everywhere.”
Jorge Moreira da Silva, executive director of United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS), warned on Tuesday that there is a real risk of a global food crisis if the Strait of Hormuz remains closed to garbage shipments.
“The planting season has already started in most countries Africa it will end in May,” the UN official explained. “So if we don’t get a solution right away, the crisis will be very significant and severe, especially for the poorest countries and the poorest citizens.”
Lecture for journalists
Hegseth dropped his latest threat against the US press during the briefing on Friday, telling reporters to “think twice” about publishing stories containing classified information – a common journalistic practice which has brought to light mass surveillance, war crimesand other government abuses.
Hegseth said the Pentagon takes the leak “very seriously here” and criticized reports based on leaks containing classified information as “grossly irresponsible and unpatriotic.” He went on to “encourage members of the press to think twice about the lives they are affecting when they publish things in their publications like New York Times.”
Hegseth’s Pentagon and The Trump administration more broadly have been aggressive in trying to limit press freedoms, especially amid the US war in Iran. President Donald Trump said Earlier this month, his administration would seek to jail journalists who reported on leaks about a recently downed US warplane in Iran.
Last month, the Pentagon temporarily barred press photographers from media briefings on the war because Hegseth’s staff was reportedly unhappy with “not flattering” Photos of the Pentagon chief.
The Pentagon also has tried to force journalists promise not to publish or even solicit information that the department has not specifically authorized for publication – with violators forced to hand over their press cards. A federal judge has trapped that policy and scolded Pentagon earlier this month for trying to reimpose the policy with non-substantive changes.
Seth Stern, chief counsel at the Freedom of the Press Foundation, noted in a recent column to The Intercept that “the Pentagon’s legal pronouncements mean that journalists who don’t follow the rules risk more than their press passes.”
“The government argued that although reporters may lawfully ask questions of “authorized” Pentagon personnel, “a reporter is soliciting the commission of a criminal act and that the request is not protected by The First Amendmentwhen he or she seeks … nonpublic information from individuals who are legally bound not to disclose that information,” Stern wrote. “The government’s argument would have turned countless Pulitzer-winning national security reporters into criminals.”
“The Trump administration is walking through the door The Biden administration left open, when, despite warnings from First Amendment advocates, she extracted a plea deal from the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange on Espionage Act charges of obtaining and publishing government records, including ca The Iraq War crimes,” Stern added.
