Pete Hegseth and the Very Porny Military Operations

Welcome back to Monday Barf Bag.

In the latest episode of fallen Fox News anchor Pete Hegseth’s army rebrand that absolutely no one asked for, the secretary of “war” has announced three new military operations—and all of them sound very, very porny. 

“OPERATION ROUGH RIDER = Freedom of Navigation for U.S. ships,” Hegseth tweeted on Friday. “OPERATION MIDNIGHT HAMMER = Obliteration of Iranian nuclear sites,” and “OPERATION SOUTHERN SPEAR = Destroy Narco-Terrorists killing Americans.” I’d giggle… if he wasn’t such a horrible person.

According to a Center for Strategic and International Studies advisor who spoke to NPR, these names were deliberately chosen by Hegseth to “project a message.” And that “message is lethality.”

Well, message not delivered, because the internet received them as hilariously bawdy—and had a field day with the memes.

I think Pete Hegseth names military operations by copying the names of different varieties of condoms in the men’s room dispenser

[image or embed]

— Jonathan Douglas PhD CPsych (@jonathanconp.bsky.social) November 17, 2025 at 3:29 AM

Coming soon:

OPERATION HUSKY FARMBOY

OPERATION THROBBING MEMBER

OPERATION STRAPPING MANSERVANT

OPERATION MORNING WOOD https://t.co/16bjNpQWzN

— Daniel W. Drezner (@dandrezner) November 16, 2025

And because Hegseth can’t just be accidentally funny without his actions having deeply harmful consequences, the new military operations are chillingly awful. Operation Southern Spear puts an official name to the ongoing boat strikes across the Caribbean and East Pacific Ocean that have, so far, killed 80 Venezuelans, none of whom were the “narco-terrorists” Donald Trump claimed them to be. (One of the victims was a fisherman who made just $100 a month to feed his four children, and who was saving up for a new boat.) So far, Trump has ordered 20 strikes and sunk 21 boats. None of the attacks have been approved by Congress.

According to a report by Amnesty International, Operation Rough Rider refers to an airstrike on a migrant detention center in Yemen in April, which killed and injured dozens of vulnerable African migrants—and one that the organization says warrants a war crime.

During his tenure as secretary of defense, Hegseth has been unnaturally obsessed with building an anti-gay (and anti-women and anti-people-of-color) army. After he was nominated for the position in December, he said allowing gay troops to serve reflects a “Marxist agenda.” In June, he ordered the U.S. Navy to remove a boat’s title because it was named after Harvey Milk. And in October, the Pentagon criticized Netflix’s Boots as “woke garbage.”

But as of September, he’s done little more than spend more than $1 billion on the department’s rebrand, which has seemed to really just result in him unscrewing old plaques and putting up new ones.

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More barf:

• Meanwhile, the Department of Homeland Security is calling its operations in Charlotte, North Carolina, “Operation Charlotte’s Web” and E.B. White‘s granddaughter is not happy about it. (CNN)
• A firm tied to Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem has reportedly pocketed $220 million from ad contracts with the DHS. (ProPublica)
• Trump defended Tucker Carlson, a known piece of shit, after he interviewed Nick Fuentes, a white supremacist who once called Hitler “awesome.” Awesome! (New York Times)
• Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) fell out even more with Trump over the weekend. She says she’s since been getting fake pizza deliveries and fake bomb threats. (CBS News)
• Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.) was photographed looking at naked ladies on his iPad. He’s blaming the X.com algorithm. (Daily Beast)
• Trump has agreed to cut tariffs on goods from Switzerland, after Swiss business leaders gave him a gold Rolex and a literal gold bar. Nothing to see here!!!! [BBC]