What decency requires

The Japanese ship Hiryū was one of six aircraft carriers involved in the attack on Pearl Harbor. Following that devastating assault, Hiryū sailed to Wake Island where it provided air cover for the assault that led American forces to surrender. The ship then sailed to Indonesia to support another Japanese victory. Then it sent its bombers to hit targets in Australia. Finally, Hiryū dashed into the Indian Ocean to sink two British cruisers and a long string of merchant ships before sailing back to Japan for supplies and repairs.

All of this happened in just four months.

By the time the Battle of Midway took place in June of 1942, Hiryū was one of the most feared ships in a desperately feared navy, and over two days of battle it lived up to its reputation. But eventually a reconnaissance aircraft spotted the Japanese carrier and dive bombers from the USS Enterprise crippled the giant ship. Late in the evening of June 5, a series of explosions racked Hiryū as the engines stopped. At 3:15 the next morning, unable to stop fires that raged through the vessel, the crew was ordered to abandon ship.

Two weeks later, a patrol plane spotted a small boat drifting in the area. The submarine tender USS Ballard responded. When it arrived, it found thirty-five survivors of the Hiryū, all that was left of the carrier’s 1,100 person crew.

Facing these men from one of the most hated and feared vessels in the midst of a brutal war that would continue for years, the Ballard’s crew did the hardest thing imaginable. They rescued them. They gave them blankets, food, and medical attention. When one of the Japanese sailors died from wounds and prolonged exposure, the ship held a funeral and conducted a burial at sea.

A few days earlier, the submarine USS Trout found two Japanese sailors floating in a field of debris. The Trout surfaced, brought the men on board, and carried them five days to a hospital in, of all places, Pearl Harbor.

The crews of the Ballard and Trout didn’t do these things because they were impossibly noble or saintly. They did them because this is how decent people behave; even when dealing with a hated enemy in the midst of the most vile circumstances. Both the Geneva Conventions and the United States Code of Military Conduct require that members of the military protect wounded enemy soldiers, and that includes rescuing survivors found at sea. They are not to be attacked and must be given any necessary medical attention.

How clearly wrong would it be to do anything else? So clear that this exact example is in the Defense Department's Law of War Manual.

Simply following such an order is illegal, much less giving the order.

All of this stands in stark and heart-wrenching contrast to the orders reportedly given by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth gave a spoken directive, according to two people with direct knowledge of the operation. “The order was to kill everybody,” one of them said. … As the smoke cleared, they got a jolt: Two survivors were clinging to the smoldering wreck.

The Special Operations commander … ordered a second strike to comply with Hegseth’s instructions, two people familiar with the matter said. The two men were blown apart in the water.

There is no circumstance under which this order is legal, and no world where it is remotely moral. Confronted about this report, Hegseth sneered at the idea of anything short of murder everyone.

"As we’ve said from the beginning, and in every statement, these highly effective strikes are specifically intended to be 'lethal, kinetic strikes,'" Hegseth said. "The declared intent is to stop lethal drugs, destroy narco-boats, and kill the narco-terrorists who are poisoning the American people. Every trafficker we kill is affiliated with a Designated Terrorist Organization.

The designated terrorist organizations include ”Cartel de los Soles,” an organization that simply does not exist. It’s a term that journalists made up to ridicule corrupt officials in Venezuela. It even less of a real terrorist organization than Antifa. But now Hegseth and Donald Trump are using this make believe cartel as an excuse not just to blow up small boats and drop a bomb on any survivors, but to plan an invasion of a nation that provides exactly 0.0% of the fentanyl that arrives in the United States.

President Donald Trump abruptly ordered the airspace closed above and around Venezuela on Saturday, further escalating tensions between the U.S. president and Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro, whom the White House accuses of working with narco-terrorist organizations to facilitate drug trafficking.

As might be expected, Trump announced this closure via a sophomoric post on his social media platform. Because this, like the fishermen he’s murdering, is very amusing to Trump. Nothing makes him feel more powerful than watching snuff films of people dying on his command.

Hegseth, drunk with his ability to demean generals and enchanted by his new Pentagon makeup facility, is happy to serve as Trump’s producer. Sunk into a perverse version of masculinity that equates cruelty and strength, there’s no line the “Secretary of War“ won’t cross.

The only hope for America is for both of them to be impeached, removed, and prosecuted. And that’s just a start. Trump’s corruption is tremendous. His treatment of immigrants is horrifying. The damage he’s done to every institution of American government is immense. But this is plain old murder for entertainment, fully as obscene as anything that was ever staged by Caligula.

It doesn’t take the greatest generation to save a drowning man. It only takes the bare minimum of human decency. But that’s a hurdle Trump and Hegseth will never clear.