COMMENTARY: By Mark Naglazas
Trying to get my head around Pete Hegseth’s bonkers, deeply offensive D-Day memorial speech in which the US Secretary of War drew an equivalence between the Allies storming the beaches of Normandy — the largest seaborne invasion in history — with illegal immigrants seeking refuge in Europe.
“Sadly, today, different European beaches are stormed by different, dangerous ideologies — beaches in Spain, Italy, Greece and Bulgaria,” Hegseth told those gathered at the American military cemetery in Colleville-sur-Mer, France.
“Boats and men arrive. When will European capitals do something about that invasion, or is it too late? I pray not, and I believe not,” he said.
“The men who fought and died here restored freedom to Europe. That freedom must be maintained by this generation of leaders and war fighters, or what they fought for was merely temporary.”
Most of the blowback against this speech has been in Hegseth’s staining the memory of a noble sacrifice of the Allies with a contemporary political reference.
But what is truly appalling and completely nuts is the comparison of illegal immigrants to Nazis.
Hegseth says that America saved Western civilisation, which has some truth,
But Nazism didn’t come from outsiders: it came from the belly of Western civilisation.
Crowning glories but . . .
Germany was one of the crowning glories of the West yet it murdered six million Jews and waged a war that killed many more.
The Allies were saving Europe from itself.
Ironically, while Hegseth was shooting his big fat mouth off in France over in Germany a member of a neo-Nazi party so far to the right that even the booming extremist Alternative for Germany have condemned them has narrowly lost a mayoral election Saxony.
Soon we won’t be laughing at Mel Brooks’ famous song “Spingtime for Hitler”. It’s happening in Germany now (even Chancellor Merz is worried)
All over the world — in the UK, in the United States, in Australia — we are blaming immigrants for our ills when we need to look inside our own countries for the heart of darkness that gave us the Holocaust and is threatening to unleash demonic forces again.
Mark Naglazas is a West Australian journalist specialising in Perth culture and the arts. Republished from his FB page with permission.
Hegseth compared migrants to a ‘dangerous invasion’ at the graves of D-Day soldiers.
Here’s the reaction
pic.twitter.com/WX7Pkq2wta
— The Daily Britain (@dailybritainonx) June 7, 2026
This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.
APR editor | Radio Free (2026-06-10T02:00:14+00:00) Mark Naglazas: Blaming immigrants when we need to look inside for our heart of darkness. Retrieved from https://www.radiofree.org/2026/06/10/mark-naglazas-blaming-immigrants-when-we-need-to-look-inside-for-our-heart-of-darkness-2/
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