Department of War?

Department of War?

“I love the smell of deportations in the morning … Chicago about to find out why it’s called the Department of WAR.”

Trump Social Media Post, September 6th.

“The President of the United States is threatening go to war with an American city… This is not a joke. This is not normal… Donald Trump isn't a strongman, he's a scared man. Illinois won’t be intimidated by a wannabe dictator.”

Illinois Governor JB Pritzker wrote on X in response.

“I said two months ago, we’re going to flood the zone and that’s exactly what we’re doing…

In Chicago, it’s coming. So, watch what happens in the very near future.”

Border Tsar Tom Homan at the September 5th National Conservatism Conference in Washington, DC.

"We should have won every war… We could have won every war, but we really chose to be a very politically correct—wokey. We never wanted to win." 

Donald Trump September 5th.

“The only one who should be worried is Nicolás Maduro, who is acting as the kingpin of a narco-state. Not actually elected and indicted for $50 million by the U.S. We know he’s involved in the kind of drug-running that has directly affected the American people.” 

DOD Secretary Pete Hegseth on Fox News, September 3rd.

Aside from the billion dollar+ cost of changing all those signs, printing all that new stationery and rewriting all the online mention of the “Department of Defense,” what’s the point? Trump and DOD Secretary, Army Major and ex-Fox News Host, Pete Hegseth, explained why the United States has not won any significant post-WWII military conflicts is because after that global conflict, our armed services went “woke.” A draft dodger and a less-than-senior-military-experienced cabinet officer said so… so it must be true. All those veterans who fought for us, those who died or were seriously injured, are/were “wokey”?! It’s that Trump-speak, woke, a pejorative for anything and everything Trump and friends don’t like. It describes culture, Democrats and everything they believe, stuff that’s not “manly,” and policies that contradict Trump, who is very wrong most of the time.

Trump’s vision includes unleashing federal troops on American citizens. An ICE swarm has descended on Boston, and the Operation Midway Blitz federal invasion of Chicago has begun. That’s a domestic violation of the Posse Comitatus Act, which precludes the use of our military against civilians except in the case of war or bona fide insurrection. But Mr. Machismo, who loves playing soldier, the self-appointed judge, jury and executioner, just following Trump’s orders, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, commanded the US two destroyers operating just outside Venezuela’s territorial waters to blow up the above pictured boat to kill suspected drug smugglers in ‘defense of the American people.’ And boom, it was done. “Hegseth was asked by a reporter on Thursday [9/4] what legal authority the Pentagon invoked when it conducted an airstrike in international waters against a boat that the Trump administration alleges was carrying 11 ‘narcoterrorists’ and members of the Venezuela-based crime group Tren de Aragua.

“He responded, ‘We have the absolute authority and complete authority to conduct that… First of all, just the defense of the American people alone. A hundred thousand Americans were killed each year under the previous administration because of an open border and open drug traffic flow. That is an assault on the American people… I’d say we smoked a drug boat, and there’s 11 narcoterrorists at the bottom of the ocean. And when other people try to do that, they’re gonna meet the same fate.’

“In a Wednesday [9/3] appearance on Fox & Friends, Hegseth said, ‘We knew exactly who was in that boat, we knew exactly what they were doing, and we knew exactly who they represented, and that was Tren de Aragua ... trying to poison our country with illicit drugs.’ He has thus far declined to reveal how the Pentagon identified the boat or those aboard as belonging to Tren de Aragua.” Catherine Bouris, The Daily Beast, September 5th. There’s never going to be evidence, presented to a judicial tribunal, to prove the government’s case. Just, “we said so.” Due process was simply too woke to matter. The normal drug runner intercept protocol, which the US Navy was most capable of implementing, would be to fire warning shots, board the boat (returning any fire directing at the boarding party), to verify the contents, perhaps taking the crew into custody.

But there is a catch: international law. Those manning that boat may have been criminals, but they were not combatants in a war with the United States. Venezuela protested fiercely, and legally speaking, they were correct to note that the US’ proclivity to shoot first and explain later does in fact violate international law. When faced with the possibility of US forces unilaterally crossing the border to take out cartels in Mexico, without Mexican approval, that would be tantamount to a US invasion of Mexico, according to Mexican President, Claudia Sheinbaum.

But international bully, the United States, today one of the most despised countries in the world, believes that military might makes right. “Secretary of State Marco Rubio said President Donald Trump gave the order to ‘blow up’ a vessel off Venezuela’s coast on Tuesday [9/2], instead of capturing it…. ‘Instead of interdicting it, on the president’s orders, we blew it up,’ Rubio said at a press conference in Mexico. ‘And it will happen again.’

“Before his trip, Rubio had already signaled that the Trump administration was preparing to ‘go on the offense’ against drug cartels… Trump, he said, is ‘going to use the full power of America and the full might of the U.S. to take on and eradicate these drug cartels, no matter where they operate from and no matter how long they’ve been able to act with impunity.’… Administration officials, including President Trump, have defended the attack and warned that more actions may follow. When asked Wednesday [9/3] in the Oval Office why the boat and its 11 passengers were destroyed instead of detained, Trump explained: ‘On the boat you have massive amounts of drugs. We have tapes of them talking about it. There are massive amounts of drugs coming into our country to kill a lot of people. You see bags of drugs all over the boat. A lot of other people won’t be doing it again after seeing that video.” Thomas Smith for Fort Worth LLC, September 6th.

I wonder how Trump would have reacted if a US-based civilian vessel, filled with legally purchased AR-15s and other similar arms – the vast majority of cartel arms are US-sourced – were blown out of the water by Mexico or another Latin American country, leaving the US heading for cartel buyer in points south.

I’m Peter Dekom, and if you look at the clown car of American leaders, unbounded by constitutional requirements or international law, that is ready to wage war without congressional approval, welcome to the new American dictatorship.