While I wholeheartedly agree that the alleged order by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth to “double-tap” a suspected drug boat into fatal oblivion amounts to a war crime, we ought to use this opportunity to reflect on other reprehensible acts committed by American leaders.
Don’t get me wrong – I’m not defending Hegseth. He’s a loathsome, liquor-soaked toad barely passing as a sentient human being.
His alleged order of a second strike on a defenseless, suspected drug boat that had two people clinging to the wreckage after being blown up would be a war crime if true.
And if it is so proven, may he face real and lasting consequences, the kind that haunt his dreams and make his waking life a living nightmare.
[Let’s be honest: We all should get comfortable with the notion that Trump will eventually pardon Hegseth and that he’ll likely spend his post-Pentagon years making a mint podcasting and selling off-brand boner pills.]
However, Hegseth is hardly the first American official to be guilty of a war crime.
Nor would his alleged “second strike” order be among the most deadly atrocities committed by American leaders in recent history.
Here are just a few examples:
Former National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger oversaw the 1969 secret bombing of Cambodia, which killed an estimated 100,000 to 150,000 civilians.
Kissinger also supported numerous military coups in Latin America during the 1970s against democratically elected leaders, as well as other deplorable acts of oppression and state-sponsored murder across the globe that left countless dead and more tortured.
And for his crimes, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
Sometimes the world has a really sick sense of humor.
But I digress. Let’s move on to examples I can speak to from personal experience.
In my humble estimation, based on seeing it up close and personal for several years, the entire Iraq War was a goddamn war crime.
President George W. Bush was led by his unwitting nose to commit said war crime by the likes of the actual architects of this terror, Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. I could throw a few more Bush administration officials into the blame mix, but I’ll stop with these two for now.
Based on wholly fabricated (i.e., complete bullshit) evidence of so-called Iraqi “weapons of mass destruction,” the United States invaded Iraq and killed upwards of half a million people – and maybe more.
America committed mass murder and mutilated an entire populace for no reason, a crime that also left more than 4,000 American service members dead and tens of thousands more injured.
Let that sink in good and deep.
And before you accuse me of partisan finger-pointing, I also think a case can be made for war crime accusations against President Barack Obama, aka “The Drone Ranger,” for his overuse of unmanned aerial vehicles to target al Qaida and other terror groups in the Middle East and Africa, as some of those drone strikes killed US citizens and far too many innocents.
Obama also received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009, though, to be fair, he got his before the former president’s drone-strike obsession kicked into overdrive.
No wonder Trump thinks he deserves his own prize and campaigns for one like a wannabe homecoming queen plastering the cafeteria with fliers promoting her election.
Which brings us back to Hegseth, who is as thirsty for attention as any preening teen, and his alleged war crimes.
His crimes may not be as bad as Kissinger’s, the Bush administration’s, or Obama’s, but as someone back in 2016 said:
“I do think there have to be consequences for abject war crimes. If you are doing something that is completely unlawful and ruthless, then there is a consequence for that.”
I agree with the person who said that, which just so happened to be Pete Hegseth during one of his seemingly more sober moments.
He should face consequences if, in fact, it’s proven that he committed war crimes.
But so should others who commit them.
We cannot be a country that cries foul over the terror and violence committed by others against us when we overlook, hell, sometimes even celebrate, our own.
