After obliterating an elementary school, Pete Hegseth insists ‘there is no country on Earth that takes more measures to minimize civilian harm than us’

Pete Hegseth appeared before Congress yesterday in a futile attempt to justify Trump’s disastrous war with Iran. As you can probably predict, the hearing was entirely unproductive.

Hegseth, looking and sounding crazier than normal, delivered spittle-flecked responses to some very reasonable questions, most of which were along the lines of, “Why are you lying to us, you lying liar?” But so what if he does lie? It’s not like he’s going to suffer any consequences for it.

But there was one particularly shameless display that stood out. At the very beginning of Trump’s war, the United States obliterated a girl’s elementary school, killing 120 little girls and 36 staff. At the time Hegseth did his best to duck responsibility as the horrible truth emerged that America was to blame for this atrocity, but he has now tacitly acknowledged responsibility.

So it was somewhat galling that, in response to a question from Rep. Tokuda, he asserted that “There is no country on Earth that takes more measures to minimize civilian harm than us”:

REP. TOKUDA: Do you think we took every effort to make sure that innocent civilians did not die in this attack?

HEGSETH: There is no country on Earth that takes more measures to minimize civilian harm than us.

TOKUDA: You eliminated the DOD's civilian harm reduction staff. pic.twitter.com/yn3nvNEBwk

— First To Hear It (@firsttohearit) April 29, 2026

Tokudo then archly pointed out that Hegseth “eliminated the DOD’s civilian harm reduction staff.”

How to minimize civilian harm, one weird trick, USA hates it

I can easily think of many countries that do a much better job at minimizing civilian harm than the United States. It’s a simple trick – you just don’t launch billions of dollars of high explosives at civilians. No, really, it’s as straightforward as that, and pretty much every other country in the world manages it.

But, for Hegseth, that stack of exploded schoolgirls had it coming. I guess they should have known better than to try to get an education while attending a school that was on his “definitely bomb this building” list.

Stuff like this makes it easy to understand why America is popularly known as the “Great Satan”. Is there anything more demonic and evil than an unaccountable power located thousands of miles across an ocean deleting your local elementary school

And then you have to turn on the news to see the palpably deranged man responsible frothing and gnashing his teeth as he demands yet more bloodshed? Hegseth would probably rather we all just forget about those dead kids, but we can only hope that his bravado is just an act and he lies awake at night unable to stop imagining their screams of terror as his missile tears apart their tiny bodies.