Late last month, during the first Christian worship service at the Pentagon since the Iran war began, the secretary of defense cast the conflict as essentially religious and spiritual in nature. The focus of his remarks was less the righteousness of our side of the war than the necessity of mercilessly inflicting vengeance and pain on the other. Hegseth invoked Psalm 18, in which King David says he did not turn back until his enemies were 'consumed.' His enemies 'cried for help, but there was none to save them.' Hegseth read passages in which David exults that he 'beat them fine as dust before the wind' and 'cast them out like the mire of the streets.' Hegseth also read a prayer composed by a chaplain'relying on imprecatory psalms, including 35, 58, and 144'requesting God's 'overwhelming violence of action against those who deserve no mercy.' Hegseth prayed that 'every round find its mark against the enemies of righteousness.' He requested that God 'break the teeth of the ungodly.'...
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