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GELFAND’S WORLD - I think we all understand that the Trump administration does a lot of things to distract us. And it often works – have you noticed how the Epstein files have disappeared from the front pages lately? But how do you justify murder in support of political distraction? Murder is the word to describe the cold blooded killing of the survivors of a damaged ship which has been attacked by your armed forces. We are talking about small craft traveling in the open ocean in the absence of a legally declared war.
The Trump administration claims that it is legitimately attacking boats carrying illegal drugs towards the United States. Anyone who has watched more than one episode of Columbo (or pick whatever other show you wish) understands that the logic of this claim is upside down. Notice that the U.S. is not inviting the boats to surrender so as to be boarded and searched, a practice that we have used lots of other times. The initial attacks were already over the line, but the execution of survivors is a war crime.
It was no secret. It’s so obvious that we are now seeing senators on both sides of the aisle commenting publicly about the problem. You can read one account here. By the way, you may have noticed that the administration is, all of a sudden, trying to walk back the publicity it has been getting over Defense Secretary Hegseth’s alleged order to “kill them all.”
There is one other characteristic of this administration that needs to be noticed by the major media: More and more, Donald Trump has been allowed to get away with pretended ignorance about some weighty subject. Did Trump know about Epstein and the underage females? The evidence is pretty strong, but lately, Trump simply pretends to having a poor and distant relationship with the man and his island.
At a more immediate level, we observe the attacks on foreign shipping not only targeted by, but bragged about by the American leadership. We’ve seen the video of a boat in international waters being targeted and destroyed by an American missile. But when asked about a Hegseth order to “kill them all,” Trump pretends ignorance.
Let’s think about the question for a moment. Isn’t it the president’s responsibility to know about and approve hostile acts towards foreign countries? Had it been Joe Biden or Secretary Hillary Clinton, the Republican answer would be a resounding “Yes.” (Remember that congressional hearing where Hillary was raked over the coals for a whole day over the attack on Benghazi?) But for some reason, the working press and their editors are not underlining this latest of Trump’s defenses. They should. Ignorance is no excuse, at least when you are the president.
Yet the mainstream media are allowing Trump to attack his predecessor as “sleepy Joe” while simulating the complete lack of knowledge about crimes committed in his name and by his administration.
Here’s a followup question for any reporter who gets the “I don’t know anything about that” answer: “Well, Mr. President, isn’t it your job to know? After all, this is a question of violence done by the armed forces of the United States. How could you not know in advance? Don’t you instruct your appointees to tell you? And if not, what does this say about you as a military leader?
Take home lessons
Trivially, we should be watching for the resignation of Pete Hegseth. He has been the lead man in the political and legal attack against a United States Senator, Mark Kelly. Perhaps I am over-speculating, but the Senate has traditionally been an old boys’ club which protects its own members and their prerogatives from the outside world. It’s true that the Republicans have pushed a lot of tradition aside, but there may be just enough sense of self-preservation left to stimulate a bipartisan response. After all, this is not something as small as stealing a Supreme Court nomination. It is an attack on the personal safety and reputation of their own membership. If Trump can go after Kelly, he could theoretically go after a Republican. He has gone after Republicans in the House over reelection, but a criminal indictment or court martial is an entirely different matter.
Admittedly, there will be a different point of view over in the White House, where Trump’s clear and obvious guilt on so many things is ignored. The Trump White House viewpoint is that any time you come after Trump, they will come after you, since everything is just transactional and ultimately just a big game. It’s a psychopathic idea, so perhaps some of the Republicans in the Senate will develop a more nuanced point of view.
The expected response ought to be that Republican leaders explain to Hegseth and to Trump’s people that Hegseth is toast, and he has to be out of town pretty quickly. We can reasonably expect that this is already going on. Most prior administrations would understand and give the Secretary his walking papers.
On the other hand, suppose that Hegseth and the president don’t follow this advice? It would tell us a lot about this administration’s beliefs about its own power. I’ve used the term “delusions of grandeur” before in regard to this president. It’s hard to imagine that ranking Republicans can’t see the same thing, since it has become so pathological.
We might pause for a moment to consider Trump’s high level appointments. What has become obvious is that the single requirement is that the appointee have absolute loyalty to Donald Trump himself. In practice, this means that the highest level people will be lying constantly, simply because the president himself is a habitual liar.
The other corollary is that such appointees will constantly be defending truly radical policies. The undeclared state of war against South American nations and the lethal assaults against their boats are behaviors that should result in refusals and resignations from those who are ordered to carry them out. What we’ve seen over the past few months is that the Attorney General, the director of the FBI, Hegseth, and others have joined in these crimes rather than engage in principled refusals.
What does an MRI have to do with this?
We hear that Trump had an MRI. For most of us, an MRI has to be scheduled well in advance (the machines are very expensive) but this obviously does not apply to the president. But the MRI procedure takes time and requires lying in a closed tube for a while – sometimes for an hour or more. So, it is customary for the doctor to explain the reason for the MRI. So when Trump claims that he doesn’t know the reason for the procedure, we can adopt either of two responses. The first is that Trump is lying, just as he seemed to be lying about previous medical results. Remember that first medical report which apparently was largely authored by Trump himself?
The other possible interpretation is that Trump really does not know why the MRI was performed. We have the right to presume that Trump was told the reason but just doesn’t remember. So what does that say about his current neurological state?
Addendum: the latest anti-vaccine move
The government is continuing its RFK Jr spawned attacks on vaccine usage and vaccine science. The latest is to claim that 10 children died as the result of Covid vaccination. As experts have pointed out, those who are making this claim are not providing data or arguments to support it. There is a counter-argument to the effect that use of the vaccine prevented thousands of cases of heart inflammation which would have come with a case of the Covid-19 itself, whereas the vaccine is known to have caused a few cases of this same inflammation, cases in which most of the children recovered quickly. Those who are making this claim should present real evidence, including case files, to those who have the expertise to evaluate the argument.
(Bob Gelfand writes on science, culture, and politics for CityWatch. He can be reached at [email protected])
