Ya can’t make it up.
Here’s the headline from Fox News: “Rep Seth Moulton says Hegseth is ‘guilty’ of war crimes, links him to Nazis tried during World War II,” with the subtitle, “The Dem lawmaker grilled the Pentagon chief about the strikes on suspected Venezuelan drug boats.”
The story reported:
Rep. Seth Moulton, D-Mass., leveled heavy accusations against Secretary of War Pete Hegseth on Wednesday, linking his actions to Nazis during World War II.
During Hegseth’s testimony before the House Armed Services Committee, Moulton pressed him on the Trump administration’s strikes on suspected drug boats in the Caribbean, telling him it’s a “war crime” under the Geneva Conventions to order the “murder” of remaining survivors on the boats.
Got that? According to the congressman, Hegseth, it’s a “‘war crime’ to order the ‘murder’ of remaining survivors on the boats.” And, he added, “Nazi submarine captains who did this in WWII… got executed.”
Okaayyyyy.
I’ll take the congressman’s word for it.
Having done that, it should now be expected that, late as it may be, he will be charging a Democrat favorite — the former and late President Harry S. Truman — with war crimes. Charging and getting that charge on the historical record.
Truman, it should be recalled, authorized the dropping of two nuclear bombs on Japan to end World War II.
As history records, two weeks after being sworn in as president to succeed the suddenly deceased President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Truman received a considerably critical report from Secretary of War Henry Stimson. Stimson began by saying: “Within four months, we shall in all probability have completed the most terrible weapon ever known in human history.”
Truman took this all in and finally gave his approval to use the bomb on not one but two Japanese cities in August of 1945. First on Hiroshima, then shortly afterward, Nagasaki. The Hiroshima atomic bomb killed some 70,000 people. The Nagasaki atomic bomb killed around 40,000.
All of which to say, the vast bulk of those killed were not soldiers. They were innocent civilians. Regardless, Truman’s order killed them anyway.
Now. With that as the record, and Congressman Moulton’s charge that Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has committed “war crimes” by killing “these survivors who were clinging to wreckage” of the drug runners’ boats? Moulton has unwittingly stirred up a hornet’s nest that his Democrat Party should have to revisit.
If Hegseth has, as Moulton charges, committed “war crimes” by killing “these survivors who were clinging to wreckage” of these drug-running boats? Then shouldn’t Moulton be reopening the issue of his fellow Democrat, the late President Harry Truman, killing those Japanese civilian survivors who were not military personnel but civilians merely living their everyday lives in Hiroshima and Nagasaki when Truman’s two nuclear bombs dropped and mass murdered, collectively between the two Japanese cities, over an estimated 110,000 civilians? Civilians, just like the survivors of those modern drug-running boats, whose survivors were clinging to the wreckage of the boats?
Presidential libraries, in this instance, the Truman Presidential Library, receive federal dollars through the National Archives and Records Administration. Which raises for Moulton the obvious question.
Moulton charges, that Secretary Hegseth is guilty of committing “war crimes” because
I mean, he’s clearly behind the operation to shoot all these boats in the Caribbean when it’s very unclear that we actually have any confirmation that these so-called “narco terrorists,” a term the administration invented to justify this action, are even on the books. I mean, in fact, there’s a lot of evidence that these are just fishermen, you know, getting jobs, piloting these boats, trying to feed their families. There’s been press reporting on some of these individuals who have been killed who are clearly not war criminals.
And on top of that, we then have the strike where they came back in and hit it again, a double tap, just purely to kill these survivors who were clinging to wreckage.
Got that? Per Congressman Moulton, Secretary Hegseth, the Senate-approved Secretary of War, has committed “war crimes” because his attacks on boats of narco-terrorists who are smuggling illegal and lethal drugs into the United States have also killed survivors of those attacks.
Which brings back the obvious when it comes to President Truman. Truman’s decision to drop not one but two nuclear bombs killed tens of thousands of innocent Japanese in two different cities. And today, Truman is not only honored for doing so, but, in addition to his library receiving federal funding, the headquarters building of the U.S. State Department in Washington is named in honor of Truman. Will Congressman Moulton now demand that Truman’s name be removed from the building? Don’t bet the ranch.
(And a personal note. My own late Dad, a World War Two veteran — and staunch Republican — who served in the Pacific, always made plain his admiration for Democrat Truman because, he said, had Truman not dropped the bombs, he, my Dad, would probably have wound up in an invasion of Japan and not surviving it. Meaning, he would point out, he would never have been around to marry my mom, and I would never have been born. Thanks, Mr. President!)
The essence here is that Congressman Moulton has not thought through the consequences of his attack on Secretary Hegseth. And apparently, he has no intention of applying the same standard on “war crimes” that he is applying to Secretary Hegseth to the late Democrat President whose library receives federal funding and whose name is attached to the headquarters building of the U.S. State Department.
Which is to say, in his attack on Secretary Hegseth for supposedly committing “war crimes,” Congressman Moulton is putting himself out there as a champion of a considerable double standard.
Shocking.
Not.
READ MORE from Jeffrey Lord:
Jimmy Kimmel and the ‘Left-Wing Culture of Hatred’
Alito: Mollie Hemingway’s Excellent Biography of the Supreme Court Justice
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