“Until the government offers evidence, the question remains: Were these narco-terrorists, or were they someone’s father going to work in the wrong place at the wrong time?” — Natural News
The news on Tuesday, October 27, reported that the US military had struck a boat in the eastern Pacific Ocean and killed five men on it. The justification for the incident was the same as it always has been since more than a year ago–it was a drug-running operation headed to the US and the action was necessary to protect the Homeland from harm.
Donald Trump took office January 20, 2025 and Pete Hegseth became his “attack dog” at the Pentagon shortly afterward. In just a few months, the destruction of small boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific began. To date, almost 250 men have been killed–all without any charges brought against them, without legal counsel, without recourse to a trial, without a jury of their peers, without Miranda rights read, without even knowing they were under attack until the moment the missile struck their boat and ended their lives. These are known as extra-judicial killings. 250 men, who might have been nothing more than fishermen trying to feed their families, deemed expendable in the eyes of the Trump administration. Might makes right, right? And never more so than in modern-day America where the Emperor-in-Chief reigns.
Were these men running drugs? Possibly, but we will never know whether that is true or not. That question is beside the point, however, since a conviction in an American court for “dealing”, in any way, NEVER carries the death penalty, merely incarceration for an indefinite time and, perhaps, not even that but only fines and probation. Apparently, though, the laws which made this country great don’t apply to everyone and are subject to the whims of those who are powerful enough to call the shots. (Pardon the pun, I had to do it.) There is the argument that America is at war with the drug cartels, so the killings are justified, but Congress, not the President, is solely authorized by the Constitution to declare war. Congress has not done so, therefore, the argument is a specious one.
Harry Truman famously said that responsibility for his administration landed on his desk. “The buck stops here.” By that metric of measurement, Donald Trump, as President, bears the final burden for the men who were killed. Others are guilty as well, from the chain of command at the Pentagon beginning with Hegseth, all the way down to the pilots of the planes who pulled the triggers (pushed the buttons?) to send the missiles on their fiery way.
Eventually, however, that responsibility filters down, down, down, to each individual person in American society who endorses, supports, encourages, applauds, and advocates for such actions. The actual circumstance is irrelevant. When we, as members of American society, put someone in power and give them authority to perform these acts but do or say nothing to prevent that abuse of authority, then we are also guilty to some degree. All of us are experiencing, in real time, the repercussions of a system built over decades and centuries which lifted power over others higher and higher, concentrating it into fewer and fewer hands, with less and less accountability required from every transfer. We are at the point now where the president can do virtually anything he wants to, as Trump himself stated, and receive no official sanction for it, although it is possible, only possible, that his aggressive attack on Iran eight months ago might, just might, come back to haunt him in the mid-term election next Tuesday.
But, then, we shouldn’t be surprised at all this. The murder of innocent people has been baked into American culture for a long, long time. Roe v. Wade, for instance, which legalized the killing of unborn children everywhere across the country, had an enormous impact on demeaning the value of human life to the point where someone like Lindsay Clancy can strangle her own children to the cheers and applause of a significant part of the country.
Which came first? The chicken or the egg? Is murder on the high seas as ordered by the highest office in the land a result of murder in the hearts of the individual members of society? Or is it the other way around? Do we act the way we do because we are conditioned and trained by those who see it as part of the routine, simply following their example?
Are these even the right questions to ask? It could be said that to ask them is an attempt to deflect responsibility toward someone else, to point fingers. Shouldn’t we instead be taking 1 Samuel 16:71 at its word and contemplating what this means for us personally? In the end, it all boils down to one thing, one question, which each of us should be paying attention to–is there murder in my own heart? And, if we find it, shouldn’t we be rooting that out instead of castigating others for what they have done? Isn’t the thought as weighty as the action? Didn’t Jesus say that a lustful thought toward a woman is the same as committing adultery with her?
It’s not enough, however, to withdraw into our own “monastery” away from the world to contemplate our own failings, because sooner or later we are called upon to address the “sins” which the outside society engages in. Failure to speak out makes us responsible for the consequences which happen as a result of those.
“But if the watchman sees the sword coming and does not blow the trumpet, and the people are not warned, and the sword comes and takes any person from among them, he is taken away in his iniquity; but his blood I will require at the watchman’s hand.” — Ezekiel 33:6
Where am I going with this? How can I prevent Donald Trump from ordering that any particular fishing boat be blown out of the water at any particular time for any particular reason? The short answer is that I can’t. I have no power to do that, but that reality does not give me permission to say nothing at all about his actions. Instead, I am all the more accountable if I know what he is doing and make no effort at all to stop him, even if I am only able to write this article which will be seen by only a few people who take the message to heart. Does it really matter that I am a “nobody”? How can I keep quiet when I know the truth of the matter? Or, as the prophet Jeremiah put it2,
For when I spoke, I cried out;
I shouted: "Violence and plunder!"
Because the word of the Lord was made to me
A reproach and a derision daily.
Then I said, "I will not make mention of Him,
Nor speak anymore in His name."
But His word was in my heart like a burning fire
Shut up in my bones;
I was weary of holding it back,
And I could not.
No, I cannot keep quiet, nor can I ignore that still, small voice deep within my own soul. Neither should you.
