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Albert Pike was a Confederate leader who fought to protect slavery, and according to some critics, he even joined the Ku Klux Klan after the Civil War. When Black Lives Matter protests broke out in the nation’s capital in 2020, a statue honoring Pike was torn down and set on fire......

A day later, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth made a related announcement. The Washington Post reported:

A Confederate memorial removed from Arlington National Cemetery in 2023 will be reinstalled, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced Tuesday. The sculpture had been removed as part of a congressionally mandated effort to rid military bases and sites of Confederate names and images.

The beleaguered Pentagon chief described the Confederate memorial as “The Reconciliation Monument,” adding that this is part of some kind of ideological campaign. “Unlike the Left, we don’t believe in erasing American history — we honor it,” Hegseth said, apparently indifferent to the fact that he’s in a powerful position that’s supposed to serve everyone, including “the Left.”.....

Asked about Hegseth’s latest move, Seidule told the Post, “The idea of putting that monument back up is just wrong. This is not some woke thing, it’s the will of the American people that Secretary Hegseth is going against.”

The monument, Seidule added, “is the cruelest I’ve ever seen because it’s a pro-slavery, pro-segregation, anti-United States monument. It’s not a reconciliation monument. It’s a Confederate monument and it’s meant to say that the white South was right and the United States of America was wrong.”

Let’s not overlook the inconvenient fact that the defense secretary’s effort will cost roughly $10 million, to be paid for by American taxpayers, not private donations......

How do these efforts advance the nation’s national security goals? They don’t.

And therein lies the point: Hegseth might claim to be “laser-focused” on fighting wars, but his record suggests he’s far more interested in fighting culture wars.