Stupid rules he said
Hegseth says it’s stupid to have rules of engagement. Yeah, man! Let’s bring back war crimes! We miss those! Remember My Lai? We laughed ourselves sick! Pass the doobie!
Pentagon Secretary Pete Hegseth’s dismissal on Monday of what he called “stupid rules of engagement” in the illegal war against Iran amounted to an invitation for American and allied forces to commit war crimes, human rights organizations and other critics warned.
Hegseth’s remarks came during a press conference alongside the top US general, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Dan Caine. The Pentagon chief boasted that the US is “unleashing the most lethal and precise air power campaign in history,” “all on our terms with maximum authorities,” unbound by “stupid rules of engagement,” and undeterred by “what so-called international institutions say”.
Right. Let’s have 2, 4, eleventy seven Babi Yars.
Hegseth, an accused war criminal who successfully lobbied President Donald Trump to pardon alleged or convicted war criminals during his first White House term, also praised Israel for its willingness to dispense with rules of engagement, “unlike so many of our traditional allies who wring their hands and clutch their pearls, hemming and hawing about the use of force.”
Seriously, isn’t it just so wimpy and boring and politically correct to refrain from massacring civilians in their thousands? Get in there and show them who’s boss! Donald Trump, that’s who!
Hegseth has previously derided limitations on US troops’ conduct overseas as “stupid.” During remarks to hundreds of generals last year, the Pentagon chief declared that we “untie the hands of our warfighters to intimidate, demoralize, hunt, and kill the enemies of our country.”
“We unleash overwhelming and punishing violence on the enemy,” Hegseth said at the time. “No more politically correct and overbearing rules of engagement.”
Clear enough yet? He wants mass murder. He can’t wait to slaughter civilians.
I hope Hegseth is happy being a war criminal and being subject to arrest, prosecution, and imprisonment, for the rest of his life.
I suppose the plan is to win, so there will be no one to charge him with war crimes.
But if he ever leaves the United States, after he’s done being Secretary of War, after Trump is in his grave, who will protect him? He’s not smart enough to think he’ll always have to be watching over his shoulder. Forever. Pity. I belive there is no statute of limitations on war crimes (of which he was already one following the high-seas murder of those alleged Colombian drug runners, so he’ll be fair game for decades, if he doesn’t drink himself to death first).
None of these idiots ever thinks that among the potential beneficiaries of the laws of war are American service men and women. What happens to them if they are captured? This is just yet another instantiation of the Trump junta’s contempt for the rule of law. Laws are for other people, not for them. They will refuse to be held to the standards they will never hesitate impose on anyone else. Brute power is what they believe gives them the right to do this. Of course the clothe this in the language of American exceptionalism and moral superiority to everyone else in the world, but at this present moment, it’s really Trumpian exceptionalism and narcissistic megalomania.
Ironic that at the Nuremburg Trials, these thugs would have rooted for the Nazis. We can only hope that in future trials, they will themselves follow the Nazis to the prisoners’ box.