Murder He Wrote

The strangest thing happened over the last number of days. A few Republicans joined Democrats in condemning the killing of  two Venezuelan men clinging to a flaming wreckage of a boat. They demanded to see the video of the event and are interested in conducting an investigation. Each day there is more noise from the party of acquiescence. I guess hell sometimes does freeze over. 

I’m glad some Republicans are perturbed by this, but it took discovery that two men were killed while clinging to a boat to wake them up? Killing over 80 people on boats prior to this discovery wasn’t enough to rouse them from their sycophantic slumber? 

According to the video, the two men were waving their arms to either surrender or signaling for help and still trigger happy Pete Hegseth saw them as terrorists still capable of harming America. Killing them was equivalent to someone raising their hands to surrender and shooting them anyway. That’s just plain old MURDER! The killing of all the others is just plain old execution style MURDER. 

Law professor Ryan Goodman had this to say: “Even under a law of armed conflict (which it is not), they were all civilians, and we are not actually in armed conflict. Either way, it was all murder.”

The pretext that these deaths were justifiable because those murdered are part of a terrorist group at war with America is just another made up story; it’s part of the same mindset that allows Stephen Miller to enact his illegal, racist and inhuman deportation plan. By turning immigrants into dangerous terrorists the government can justify its actions. Think back too the “Haitians are eating dogs” narrative. 

According to congressman Adam Smith, “It looks like two classically shipwrecked people. However, in the briefing, lawmakers were told that “it was judged that these two people were capable of returning to the fight,” Smith called it a “highly questionable decision that these two people on that obviously incapacitated vessel were still in any kind of fight or could continue on their mission of transmitting those drugs.” (And there is no proof that there were any drugs!)

Rumor has it that a Pentagon spokesperson responded that their research showed that these men were part of a specially trained aquatics team and were some of the best swimmers in the world. These men were “beasts of the sea.” There was also a rumor that these men could speak whale language and could summon whales to help them deliver the drugs.

Megyn Kelly, the conservative podcaster, won some points with the administration when she licked her lips and said, “I’d really like to see them suffer. I would like Trump and Hegseth to make it last a long time so they lose a limb and bleed out.”

In a move that is beyond irony (whatever that is), The Don pardoned an ex-president from Honduras who was at the center of what the authorities had characterized  “one of the largest and most violent drug-trafficking conspiracies in the world”. I wonder how much money The Don got for that. And guess what? As soon as he was released, the government of Honduras put out a warrant for his arrest!

None of what is happening should surprise us with Pete Hegseth at the helm.

In 2005, as a platoon commander, Hegseth stated he countermanded legal advice from a Judge Advocate General (JAG) representative regarding the rules of engagement. The JAG advised soldiers not to shoot an Iraqi unless he raised his weapon to fire. Hegseth told his platoon to ignore this, reportedly saying: “If you see an enemy who you believe is a threat, you engage and destroy the threat”. 

In President Donald Trump’s first term, Hegseth successfully convinced Trump to pardon soldiers accused or convicted of war crimes. 

On September 30 of this year Hegseth said at a meeting of military big military wigs: “We unleash overwhelming and punishing violence on the enemy. We also don’t fight with stupid rules of engagement. We untie the hands of our warfighters to intimidate, demoralize, hunt, and kill the enemies of our country. No more politically correct and overbearing rules of engagement. The military will “kill people and break things for a living.”

Hegseth even posted a cartoon in the style of a children’s book depicting a turtle in a helicopter shooting a rocket-propelled grenade at a boat carrying drugs and “narcoterrorists.”

Franklin the Turtle, was so offended that he posted a photo of Hegseth next to Dr. Seuss’ s Yertle the Turtle, who was considered a symbol of fascism, particularly of Hitler.

In a move that was beyond irony (again?) the State Department renamed the former Institute of Peace the Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace. The White House confirmed on Wednesday evening that the institute had been renamed for the president “as a powerful reminder of what strong leadership can accomplish for global stability.” Rumor had it that Pete Hegseth championed spelling peace, piece, to reflect all the pieces of flotsam floating in the Caribbean from blowing up boats.  

The absurdity continued as Gianni Infantino, president of FIFA, awarded The Don the 1st ever FIFA Peace Prize. What? He also told The Don that he could run rings around Lionel Messi. Rumor has it that The Don told Infantino that if he didn’t create the prize and award the prize to him, that soccer players from shithole countries wouldn’t be allowed in the country.

Remember when The Don, during his first campaign in 2015 said “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters, OK? It’s, like, incredible.” That’s called murder. And that’s what he and his sniveling Pete Hegseth are doing. Ignoring international law. Defying basic principles of engagement. In that world they are criminals. They live in a world of moral turpitude that is attempting to erode our sense of decency, inure us to violence so it seems normal. In doing so, they give others permission to do the same. How many more people need to be killed for the Republicans to unite and exhibit some moral fortitude? The fact that I can’t answer that terrifies me.