Schumer and Hegseth’s Second Drug Boat Strike
Well, isn’t this interesting?
The Democrats’ Senate Leader, New York’s Chuck Schumer, is giving grief to Secretary of War Pete Hegseth for his launch of a second strike on a drug runner’s boat in the Caribbean. Schumer has been joined in this push by some Republicans.
USA Today reports:
The bipartisan push for more information about the incident follows concerns in recent weeks from lawmakers, even some Republicans, about the way the September strikes, which killed 11 people, were carried out.
Amid reports that the military proceeded to authorize lethal force even though there were survivors on board, several GOP lawmakers have publicly worried the operation could have violated international laws. Hegseth and other top government officials have stressed it was conducted within the bounds of the military’s authority.
Got that? The fact that “the military proceeded to authorize lethal force even though there were survivors on board” has upset both Democrat and Republican Senators. (RELATED: Trump and Hegseth Defending America From Drug Traffickers)
Hmmmm. They are suggesting here that Secretary Hegseth was wrong to order a second attack on this one boat of drug runners because there were “survivors” of the first round of attack on board? Really? Do any of these Senators read history? (RELATED: Hegseth War Crimes Charge By Dems: What About Obama?)
Let’s take a trip back in history to revisit one of the Democrats’ favorite presidents of their own party. That would be President Harry Truman.
The setting is the winding up of World War II. By August of 1945, the Germans had surrendered, and Hitler, locking himself in his Berlin bunker, had committed suicide months earlier.
But over on the Pacific side of the war, the Japanese enemy was still fighting it out. Truman, who had been president for mere months following the death of President Franklin Roosevelt, was faced with a startling decision. His advisers were telling him that the United States had invented a new, massively powerful weapon called the atomic bomb. Unless he authorized its use, Truman was told, the United States would be forced to invade Japan. While the Americans and allies would eventually win, he was told, the American casualties would be massive. After serious consideration, Truman made the decision, authorizing the dropping of the world’s first atomic bomb on the Japanese military and industrial city of Hiroshima.
The Hiroshima bombing took place on Aug. 6. The bomb devastated the city. Between the explosion itself, combined with the effects of radiation, it was estimated that close to 70,000 Japanese were killed, with thousands more injured.
President Truman then issued the following warning to and about the Japanese, saying:
If they do not now accept our terms, they may expect a rain of ruin from the air, the like of which has never been seen on this earth. Behind this air attack will follow sea and land forces in such numbers and power as they have not yet seen and with the fighting skill of which they are already well aware.
In other words, Truman was directly threatening the Japanese survivors of the first atomic attack that there would be a second strike with a second atomic bomb if the Japanese did not surrender immediately. They did not surrender; they kept fighting.
With that, Truman authorized a second atomic attack, this one on the Japanese city of Nagasaki. Nagasaki was, say the records, then one of the biggest seaports in southern Japan. The second attack took place on Aug. 9, a mere three days after the Hiroshima attack. It killed some 39,000 Japanese, wounding another 25,000. The Japanese, thoroughly war-weary and terrified, now surrendered. World War II was over.
All of this comes to mind as a chorus is heard from today’s Democrats going after President Trump for his own second attack — this one on that boat full of drug runners who had managed to escape the first attack. Indeed, one press report says: “Amid reports that the military proceeded to authorize lethal force even though there were survivors on board….”
But in effect, the Trump/Hegseth authorization on a second attack on the remaining crew of drug runners was a much less dramatic but still decided reminder of Truman’s second atomic attack on Japan. The second attack that finally ended World War II.
Will this second attack on that remaining drug runners crew have the same effect on the drug runners that Truman’s second atomic attack did on the Japanese? Too soon to tell. But without doubt it was Truman’s relentlessness with the second atomic bomb that ended World War II.
And it certainly seems logical that Trump and Hegseth’s second shot at ending the parade of drug runners killing thousands of Americans with their decidedly lethal drugs coming in via boats (and other ways) is very much like Truman’s decision to drop that second atomic bomb on Nagasaki when he didn’t get a surrender after dropping the first one.
And for whatever reason, it appears Senator Chuck Schumer has a distinct inability to learn from Truman’s conduct in ending World War II.
This is not just too bad. It is lethal for thousands of Americans.
Not good. Not good at all.
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