MIRANDA DEVINE: Pete Hegseth’s D-Day speech gave Europe a spot-on warning – be smart or be invaded.
War Secretary Pete Hegseth gave a great speech on D-Day in Normandy.
He told the Europeans they were committing civilizational suicide by allowing themselves to be “invaded” by unassimilable migrants.
It was the kind of warning you give to a friend who you see is making a terrible mistake.
“Sadly, today different European beaches are stormed by different dangerous ideologies,” he said in northwestern France during commemorations for the 82nd anniversary of the June 6, 1944, landings of American and other Allied troops on the beaches of Normandy to liberate Europe from Hitler’s dangerous ideology.
On “beaches in Spain and Italy and Greece and Bulgaria, boats and men arrive …
“When will European capitals do something about that invasion? Or is it too late?”
Naturally, he was pilloried by out-of-touch elitists on both sides of the Atlantic.
But Hegseth was absolutely right, and his weekend comments echo earlier, ever more forceful warnings from Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio that Europe’s greatest challenges are self-inflicted — existential civilizational decline caused by unprecedented mass migration and a coinciding loss of confidence in Western values, or what Vance calls “self-hatred.”
Two terrible murders currently dominating UK news effectively demonstrate the points being made by these American statesmen.
Brad Essex writes that “Hegseth Brings Uncomfortable Truths to Normandy:” “Nations that cannot control who enters their territory lose the ability to define and defend their own character. Eighty-two years on, the rows of graves at Colleville-sur-Mer still speak clearly. The men who lie there did not fight for abstract ideals alone. They fought for concrete realities: secure homelands, accountable governments, and the right of free peoples to chart their own course. Honoring them means recognizing that vigilance remains necessary, whether the threat arrives by landing craft or small boat. Hegseth’s remarks cut through polite evasion. They reminded the audience that freedom, once secured, must still be earned.”