Killing Us All

It’s reported that, by direct order of Secretary of Indefensible Pete Hegseth, two men who survived bombing of their allegedly drug-bearing boat, clinging to wreckage, were murdered by a second flight. “Kill them all,” he’s said to have said. By any definition, that’s a war crime, and it was done in our name.

It tracks directly to Trump, who chose for SecDef an unqualified, weekend Fox “news” host with a history of alcohol and other kinds of abuse. Hegseth, whose expectation at Fox was to lie as per their business model, now a member of an administration headed by a pathological liar and filled from there down with no one deserving of trust, denies the claim.

Something, something, Brooklyn Bridge.

When two survivors of another attack were captured, they were sent home immediately. At that time, some wondered if it was because victims aren’t the “narco-terrorists” Trump claims, and he wants no one to find out. We must wonder the same in this case, where survivors were silenced at sea. Will we ever find out? Senators Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) and Jack Reed (D-R.I.), of the Senate Armed Forces Committee, said they “will be conducting vigorous oversight to determine the facts ...” Senator Susan Collins is, no doubt, “disturbed.”

“Vigorous oversight.” Probably a strongly-worded letter to someone, too. What should happen is impeachment and removal, passing unanimously, followed by a trip to The Hague, care of the International Criminal Court. In times long past, when the Republican Party hadn’t yet given over to Trump and the people orchestrating his anti-constitutional authoritarianism, it might have.

Just following orders, Admiral Frank M. “Mitch” Bradley was the one who aye-ayed the second strike. True to no-responsibility form, Trump and Hegseth are pretending he acted alone, surely a disgusting lie. No admiral would have ordered that on his own. “I stand behind his decision,” Hegseth back-stabbed. Military officers now understand the cowardly amorality of their leaders and how deeply at risk that puts them.

For the pilot who executed the order (and the survivors), down the chain, on a limb, one might manage some sympathy. Given the squelching, by Trumpseth, of generals and admirals of conscience, he might have felt that if he refused he’d be incarcerated and never heard from again. Maybe not, though. Serving Hegseth, he might be that special warrior, the buff, obedient, beardless, not fat gay or trans, MAGA-loving, cold-blooded soldier the preening, posturing, publicity-seeking Hegseth demands.

When six members of Congress, who’d served in the military or intelligence services, produced a video reminding service members that not only were they not required to follow illegal orders, they were obligated by law to refuse, no specifics were mentioned. Maybe they’d heard what was coming. Doesn’t matter. What they said was independently true, part of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Like all truth, their video was met with outrage by Trump, his servile media, and MAGA mouthpieces everywhere. “Sedition,” he called it, punishable by death. In his receding mind, any disagreement with His Majesty is sedition. Weaponized by Trump like Bondi’s DOJ and Patel’s FBI, Hegseth’s DOD announced an investigation into military hero Senator Mark Kelley, one of the Scrupulous Six, threatening court-martial. For stating the obvious, for upholding the law. For saying what Hegseth, himself, said nine years earlier. How loathsome can they go?

Sedition means inciting action against one’s country. When its leaders neither obey nor acknowledge its own laws, the meaning inverts. In the American Revolution, there were patriots and loyalists. Now, by continuing to support Trump’s manifest corruption and criminality, loyalty becomes sedition. Silence compounds it.

It's not only war crimes. Trump just granted clemency (out of kinship?) to a billion-dollar fraudster who’d served only a few days of a seven-year sentence. Worse, he pardoned former Honduran “president” Hernandez, serving 45 years in an American prison for trafficking 400 tons of cocaine into our country. (Wasn’t trafficking Trump’s justification for assassinating Venezuelans?) Having turned the White House into bribe-acquisition central, he must be expecting bounteous payoffs. The only question is, “How much?”

Which is also the question for residual MAGAs: How much more of Trump’s lawless governance can you stand? How much before you return to reality and rejoin our democratic, constitutional republic?

Like Putin’s Russia, Trump’s America has become a murderous kleptocracy in which law means nothing and family Trump and their favored billionaires amass even more wealth. According to the Wall Street Journal, Trump’s “peace” plan for Ukraine hands its illegally-seized land to Russia and its minerals to Putin and the US, while Trump-friendly Russian and American oligarchs further enrich themselves rebuilding the country. 

Meanwhile, Trump, making unfulfilled promises and giving himself opposite-day names, all but laughing at the needs of unwealthy Americans while lifting a middle finger to them, decorates the White House like a brothel and replaces its East Wing with a garish, tastelessly massive, gilded-age ballroom.

Don’t worry about inflation or healthcare. If you have the money, you can dance there.