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An official U.S. military<\/span> social media account on Monday shared a photo collage that included a symbol long affiliated with extremist groups \u2014 and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth.<\/p>\n In a post on X trumpeting the deployment of troops to the Caribbean, U.S. Southern Command, or SOUTHCOM, shared an image that prominently displayed a so-called Jerusalem cross on the helmet of a masked commando.<\/p>\n The Jerusalem cross, also dubbed the \u201cCrusader cross\u201d for its roots in Medieval Christians\u2019 holy wars in the Middle East, is not inherently a symbol of extremism. It has, however, become popular on the right to symbolize the march of Christian civilization, with anti-Muslim roots that made it into something of a logo for the U.S. war on terror.<\/p>\n Tattoos of the cross, a squared-off symbol with a pattern of repeating crosses, have appeared on the bodies of people ranging from mercenaries hired by the<\/a> Gaza Humanitarian Foundation<\/a> to Hegseth himself.<\/p>\n Now, the symbol has reared its head again to advertise President Donald Trump\u2019s military buildup against Venezuela \u2014 an overwhelmingly Catholic country \u2014 and boat strikes in the Caribbean.<\/p>\n \u201cAs with all things Trump, it\u2019s a continuation, with some escalation, and then a transformation into spectacle,\u201d said Yale University historian Greg Grandin, whose work focuses on U.S. empire in Latin America<\/a>.<\/p>\n The social media post came amid rising controversy over a series of strikes on boats allegedly carrying drugs off the coast of Venezuela, dubbed Operation Southern Spear.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n