About one year ago, on December 9, 2024, I wrote a letter to President Biden. It was apparent to me that he was exhibiting senility and had lost his fighting spirit. I’m much older than he and haven’t lost my fighting spirit, nor my sense of loyalty to my country. My letter suggested that before Mr. Biden left office he declare an annual National Holiday on January 6th called “Oath Day.” On this day each year the entire military of the United States would renew its oath to the CONSTITION, NOT to any one individual, and to ONLY CARRY OUT LAWFUL ORDERS. Those are the exact words that I used. My letter said, “This might be accompanied with a $500 raise for every serviceman and woman AS WELL AS A DECLARATION THAT THE ARMED FORCES WILL NEVER BE USED AS AN INTERNAL POLICE FORCE TO QUELL PROTESTS OR TO ARREST IMMIGRANTS.” There was no response from the White House.
I was 94 years old at the time of that letter. Here we are one year later and in September of 2025 Pete Hegseth the Secretary of Defense brings in all the generals and admirals of the entire military and tells them that he wants them to be more aggressive and that he wants less restrictive rules of engagement. Then at President’s Trump’s orders he starts destroying small foreign speedboats in international waters, killing the occupants and if the charges are correct, allowing the survivors of an attack who were clinging to the wreckage after the bombing to be executed with a subsequent bomb. The justification is that these are drug smuggling boats and a terrorist threat to the United States. The President denies any knowledge of the survivor incident and says that the attacks are justified because drugs kill so many Americans every year. Yet Mr. Trump just pardoned Juan Orlando Hernandez the former President of Honduras who was, after a three-week trial, convicted of drug smuggling over four hundred tons of cocaine into the United States over a period of eighteen years and sentenced by an American court to forty-five years in jail. Four hundred tons equals over four and one half million doses of cocaine. His brother was already serving a life sentence for drug smuggling. President Trump said that he pardoned Hernandez because he was treated “very harshly and unfairly.” (I think that these are similar words that he used to describe the convicted sex trafficker, Ghislaine Maxwell.) Hernandez is a convicted drug dealer. Using Mr. Trump’s own reasoning, how can Mr. Trump justify executing the speedboat smugglers involved with far less drugs and condone the murder of the survivors and in the same breath pardon a major convicted drug smuggler, Mr. Hernandez? It appears that the Hernandez pardon was obtained through the efforts of Matt Gaetz and Roger Stone, two of Mr. Trump’s controversial buddies whose ethics are very, very questionable and who claim that they received no benefit for doing it. Who is everybody kidding? What a stench!
Secretary Hegseth says that he didn’t know of the second bomb used to murder the survivors but doesn’t think that it was wrong. He had to know that there might be survivors. Surely, he had a plan for handling any survivors who would be no different than unarmed prisoners. Mr. Trump and Hegseth both blame Admiral Frank Bradley who probably will say that he was just “following orders.” In any event President Trump will undoubtedly pardon Hegseth and the admiral if they are found responsible for committing war crimes. Of course, this would be non-pardonable as an international crime and there exists The International Court of Criminal Justice located at the Hague in Holland. They step in when national courts are unwilling to prosecute serious crimes including genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and crimes of aggression when any of these crimes is committed by individuals.
Another thought- Why didn’t our strong navy just capture these small outboard motorboats- just the way the Coast Guard has been doing so well for years?
In my humble opinion these bombing executions of unconvicted persons and the follow-up “take no prisoners” behavior is murder and the orders relating to them are illegal. Where are the military legal JAG (Judge Advocate General) Officers? Did Hegseth or Admiral Bradley seek a ruling from them before or even after they started killing the drug smugglers? Where are the military lawyers in JAG now? Where does it say that drug smugglers get the death sentence without a trial? Has Congress declared a war with all individual drug smugglers of all nationalities, without naming them? Why were the top JAG officers fired by President Trump early on, as were the Inspectors General as was the Inspectors General Council? Didn’t Admiral Bradley take a military law class when he was at Officer’s training at Annapolis? He knew the law. He had to know about the law established in the Nuremberg trials after World Ward II. He had to know about the Geneva Convention. He had to know that we don’t execute unarmed prisoners under the Rules of War assuming President Trump’s decision that we are at war.
“Just following Orders” is not a defense. Recently a Russian soldier in Ukraine was accused of killing a Ukrainian civilian at gunpoint. He said that unless he pulled the trigger his superior would have killed him on the spot and thus, he had no choice. He was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison.
If Peter Hegseth pleads ignorance of the law, he should look back at the law established in the Nuremberg trials. My wife reminds me that few people know much about the trials held at Nuremberg in 1946. After the American, British and Russian (Allies) victory over the Axis powers, (Germany, Italy and Japan) in World War II the civilized world cried out for justice and the punishment of the persons responsible for their atrocities including the Holocaust. The Allies decided that there would be a public trial. The picturesque town of Nuremberg was chosen for the trial because it was the former site of the huge German, Nazi outdoor rallies involving hundreds of thousands of participants, famous for their military pageantry with torchlight parades, bonfires, and military music showcasing the Nazi power and control over Germany. The German High Command Generals were charged with crimes against humanity. In that famous case it was determined that individuals are responsible for their actions, even when following orders. The leaders were found to be not above the law even under the principles of national sovereignty. Further, it was decided that individuals cannot use ignorance of the order’s illegality as a defense. Ten of the generals were hanged in October of 1946. One, Hermann Goring, the head of the Luftwaffe, committed suicide and one died before he could be executed. This law set the precedent and applies to this day.
I personally do not believe that President Trump, Admiral Bradley and particularly Peter Hegseth are really ignorant, although it’s possible.
GOD BLESS OUR WAR HEROES AND GOD BLESS AMERICA!