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 at 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 developed plans to take Greenland or Panama by force if necessary.

  • RBWells@lemmy.world
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    8 hours ago

    It’s not necessary to take Greenland at all, so there’s no need for a contingency plan. “if necessary” makes no sense.

    • HellsBelle@sh.itjust.worksOP
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      18 hours ago

      If you look close at his bottom lip there’s a matching red mark. It almost looks like he was in a fight and took a shot to the mouth.

      • altphoto@lemmy.today
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        17 hours ago

        Yeah, that’s what I’m talking about. To me it looks like stuff sticking out of his lip I’ve seen it before. A manager at a previously loved company used to have one. More like this:

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        13 hours ago

        As long as you’re counting location as a resource. Ex. Cuba was an advantageous location for the Soviet Union during the cold war.

      • TranscendentalEmpire@lemmy.today
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        1 day ago

        Idk, the gdp of Greenland is only 3b a year and it’s mostly from fishing. There’s really nothing the US could extract from Greenland that would be worth the cost of invading it. There’s some potential for mining, but you’d have to build an entire infrastructure to do it, and we don’t even want to invest in building infrastructure in the US.

        Realistically the only thing that makes Greenland strategically important would be controlling the shipping lanes up north. However, the only strategically significant rival we have that utilizes those shopping lanes are Russia, whom the administration wants to buddy up too.

        I think it’s just meat they throw out to the media anytime they want to distract from their failures, and of course our pathetic press just gobbles it up every time.

        • plyth@feddit.org
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          13 hours ago

          However, the only strategically significant rival we have that utilizes those shopping lanes are Russia, whom the administration wants to buddy up too.

          If that doesn’t play out, Putin will be dropped like Saddam.

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          19 hours ago

          It’s because of climate change. Rich Americans+that pretend climate change isn’t real) want to go there to bug out.

        • Guy Ingonito@reddthat.com
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          1 day ago

          Lots of great reasons that aren’t the actual reason.

          Greenland is very big on the map, and if it was apart of the United States then the US would look so big on the map.

          Everyone says Trajan was the best roman emperor because the roman empire had the largest amount of territory under him, ergo if Greenland or Canada became part of the US then everyone would say the same thing about Trump.

          That is the only reasoning behind this obsession.

    • Lembot_0003@lemmy.zip
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      1 day ago

      Ask Putin. He is a big specialist in a related mental gymnastics. He’ll tell you how Anglo-Saksonians forced him to invade Ukraine.

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    1 day ago

    This by no means diminishes this guy’s level of evil stupidity, but I’m entirely certain the pentagon had developed plans for all kinds of batshit insane shenanigans, including (but not limited to) invasions of probably most other countries in the world.

    • jj4211@lemmy.world
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      17 hours ago

      I find that a credible thought, though one would imagine an answer to say that they try to have plans for any concevaiable scenario, no matter how unlikely, and have done so for years.

      One would imagine if he was good at this politics thing, he would have found an answer to distance such plans from the current contentious situation.

      And upon reading, he said precisely that…

      • DominusOfMegadeus@sh.itjust.works
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        18 hours ago

        Or not even mention them at all, because what possible beneficial purpose could there be to divulging anything related to your military strategy or planning beforehand?

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      1 day ago

      These people are too stupid and incompetent to realize we already have plans for everything.

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        1 day ago

        Hegseth: You there! Jackson! I want plans on how to invade Greenland on my desk by the end of the week!

        Johnson: [Looks at filing cabinet full of plans for invading every other country] Oh, yeah, sure thing, sir. Gonna be a few all-nighters, though. Me and the boys are gonna need some pizzas and a few bottles of Mountain Dew and some cinnamon dipperz.

        Hegseth: No problem! Just take it out of the Preventing Kids From Being Thrown Into The Orphan Crushing Machine fund! You’re a good man Jackson!

        Johnson: Sir, yes sir.

        Hegseth: [takes enormous swig out of family-sized plastic bottle of bourbon]

      • DominusOfMegadeus@sh.itjust.works
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        Frankly, good planning is the key to success at just about anything in life. The concept of having plans is not evil at all. And certainlynot in a military sense. What if Greenland got taken over by vampires? You don’t know. In that event, it would be good to have this plan on the books. Probably in no other circumstance besides that one but hey, there’s not anything wrong with having a plan.

    • ricecake@sh.itjust.works
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      We stopped maintaining a handful of them, but waay later than you would expect. At some point we decided we didn’t need a plan to deal with an invasion by the British empire kept up to date at all times.

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    1 day ago

    A quick search shows Greenlands population is 56,865. In what world would 56 thousand people, half of which are likely incapable of fighting due to age or sickness, be of any meaningful threat that we would need ‘contingency’ plans against them. Even if all 56 thousand could fight it would be a non war lasting hours against the military. That gigantic country has a similar population of my home COUNTY.

    This shit is dumber than invading the middle east over oil. Is their hard on for… minerals and err… resources? Im not entirely sure why they want Greenland so much. This is stupid.

    • LilB0kChoy@midwest.social
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      22 hours ago

      The contingency plan probably isn’t about the people at all. It’s likely the government has had a plan for a long time, maybe since WWII, about any number of countries including Greenland. Strategic points to either destroy or control. How to repel an invading force as well as how to invade against a repelling force.

      That’s who the US has become over the last 80 years.

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        21 hours ago

        So wait, your saying it’s about the golden dome or trumps anti nuke wall or whatever i gods name he was talking about.

        I stand by the “this is stupid” comment.

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          20 hours ago

          No, it has nothing to do with the “Golden Dome” nonsense.

          The US did all sorts of war game scenarios and plan making during and directly after WWII and they’ve never stopped.

          There’s actually probably a lot of countries who have done the same, though I’m not sure to the extent the US has.

          The fact that the US has a plan like this by itself isn’t newsworthy. Who it’s coming from makes it noteworthy because, while the plan may have been created decades ago, it’s a very unsubtle threat against another nation.

          I agree that this is stupid, but understanding is important because this is how they weasel out of things. If confronted or challenged they’ll say, “Oh, that plan was put together decades ago.” Everything they do is done with cover because not only are they fascists, they’re cowards too.

    • michaelmrose@lemmy.world
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      14 hours ago

      Denmark is a NATO country and Greenland is part of it. As soon as we attack all of NATO is obligated to attack us. They can start non violet by stopping all trade and dumping the dollar crashing our economy.

      Even just to the Greenlanders could be a real problem.

      People sabatogue blow up poison and casually murder you after giving in.

      We can’t murder everyone and the us has been shown to be very intolerant to a few thousand troop deaths not to mention civilian deaths on their side live on TV

      It would absolutely be a cluster fuck worse than Iraq

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        13 hours ago

        NATO members can’t interfere in conflicts between NATO members, only in conflicts between NATO and non-NATO. NATO is a cold war relic designed to be used against the Warsaw Pact countries, not some universal defense and peace instrument. Right now it’s either useless or a tool for western imperialism.

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    1 day ago

    I wonder if Denmark regrets this yet (arc)

    With 94 votes in favor and only 11 against, the Danish parliament last night (June 11) passed a new defense agreement granting the United States extended access to military bases in three Danish cities: Karup, Skrydstrup, and Aalborg. The deal allows the US military to operate from these sites, store military equipment, conduct maintenance, exercises, and station personnel. The US forces will also have autonomous legal jurisdiction over their own military, relieving them from compliance with Danish law in the first degree.

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    Well, there are “plans” and then there are plans. I’m certain Canada has a “plan” for military operations against the US should that be necessary, but we aren’t planning it.

  • TachyonTele@lemm.ee
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    1 day ago

    Have they said why they’re so obsessed over Greenland? I don’t mean why you think they want it, i mean has any of them ever said why?