Hegseth, Rotten to the Core

First, you should know that there was not one mention of Hegseth or the boat bombings in all the New York Times headlines yesterday morning. How low have the mighty fallen. The Opinion Editor did have a two-minute video that offered nothing new. So much for “the paper of record.”

Much of the media has been engaged in the September 2 bombings—with what actually happened, the legal and moral implications, the administration’s behavior and world-wide reactions. The Washington Post was first to break the “kill them all” story before November 28. Admiral Frank Bradley subsequently denied that Hegseth gave the order for the second strike. Each has lied; they both should share a cell on Riker’s Island.

CBS reported he “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.’” The book’s publisher was not amused. Today it was revealed that the boat was not headed to the United States but to rendezvous with another boat bound for Suriname.

As others have pointed out, the entire Caribbean campaign is Trump’s idea of a sick stunt to captivate the warlike arm of MAGA, another of his infantile deceptions―in other words, a false flag. Since most all drugs come to the U.S. from Mexico via the Pacific, we have another typical Trump charade to talk tough and act stupidly. Some 87 people have now died, 11 on the boat in question.

Hegseth, king of the carnage, shows no sign of being fired. On the contrary, Trump praises him. When he came into office, I had a little fun with him, but his command at Defense, if he remains in charge, could lead finally to impeachment. Yes, that’s a longshot possibility but one well deserved.

The Times to its credit did run a story by Phil Klay, a novelist and Marine Corps vet. It’s very much worth a read because it deals in part with the sick soul of America.

Amid the swirl of horrors, scandals and accusations, then, it’s worth considering what President Trump and his administration are doing to the soul of the nation — what sort of “fit companions” they’d like to make us.

. . . Since the president’s boat strike campaign has continued well past 60 days, the strikes support no war, and the entire campaign is unauthorized. Adil Haque, an executive editor at Just Security and an international law professor at Rutgers University, put it on X: “There is no armed conflict, so there are no legitimate targets. Not the people. Not the boats. Not the drugs. It’s murder whether Bradley was aiming at the people or aiming at the drugs knowing the people would die.”

. . . I suspect the question the administration cares about is not “is this legal,” “is this a war crime,” “is this murder” or even “is this good for America,” but rather, “isn’t this violence delightful?”

. . . “I really do kind of not only want to see them killed in the water, whether they’re on the boat or in the water,” Megyn Kelly, the conservative podcaster, said, “but 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.”