Trump and Hegseth: Two Soulless Men Devoid of Pity

Right at the launching of the US and Israeli war on Iran, itself a major war crime, the US fired a precision strike with a Tomahawk missile on an elementary school building. Some 160 girls aged 7-12 were killed, either by the powerful blast or by the collapse of the two-story concrete structure. Asked about the tragedy and slaughter of innocents, Commander-in-Chief Trump, after initially pleading innocence.  He later suggested it was the Iranians, whose missiles he claimed “are often inaccurate.”

When later videos appeared showing the distinct image of a Tomahawk missile striking, he slithered over to another lie, calling the Tomahawk a “generic missile that many countries have bought  and can buy.”

The truth? The Tomahawk is a US missile made in the US and is strictly controlled, and offered only to a few trusted allies like Britain and Australia.

Hegseth avoided Trump’s brazen lying by saying, “The Pentagon is investigating,” even as investigators said the gruesome slaughter was looking increasingly likely to have been the US’s fault. When that investigation finally concluded definitively that Pentagon targeters had been using eight-year-old maps that allegedly identified the building as an office for the Revolutionary Guard, though—whether true or not—neither “no mercy” Hegseth nor “no truth” Trump could not find it in themselves to express remorse or regret about the “mistake. ” Three weeks later, they still have not.

We saw the same callousness from both men in the case of the sinking of an Iranian Navy frigate by two torpedoes fired at the vessel off the southern tip of the island nation of SriLanka. As I wrote in an article on this site on March 7, the Dena was in an unusual situation: It was invited to participate in the MILAN Fleet Review, an annual event that brings together naval vessels, crews and officers of the navies of dozens of countries (this year there were 74 participating countries, including Iran and the US. At the time, the Dena set sail for and participated in joint exercises with vessels of other countries;  the two nations were not fighting each other. In fact, the US, which did not send a ship to the event, but did send an admiral, as well as a P-81 Poseidon, a sophisticated sea patrol aircraft equipped to spot and track vessels, including submarines, over wide areas of ocean. That aircraft actually conducted an exercise with the Dena, a ship that it almost certainly already was tasked to sink once the US and Israel concluded their all-out war on Iran, no doubt picking up all kinds of useful knowledge about the Iranian ship’s capabilities, its radar and communications systems, etc.

Once the Fleet Review event had ended and the US-Israel assault on Iran had been launched, the Poseidon followed and tracked the Dena as it sailed towards a planned stop at a port at the southern end of Sri Lanka where, unknown to the Dena,  a US nuclear fast attack sub, the Charlotte was waiting, submerged, with two huge torpedoes ready to sink the ship

The attack came without warning at 5:08 a.m. on May 4. No effort was made by the sub to notify the ship that it was a bout to be blown up, which the US sub could easily have done at a safe distance.

To make matters worse, after sinking the ship in two minutes with two torpedo hits, the US submarine left the scene of the attack.  87 sailors died in the attack, some certainly from the huge blasts, and some no doubt drowned while waiting two hours without flotation in the open ocean for rescue ships of the Sri Lankan Navy, moored 20 miles away,  to arrive. Only 32 of the crew survived the attack, with over a dozen missing and presumed dead. The attack has been criticized as a  “treacherous act,” given that the Dena was not in a war zone, had gone to an India-hosted event dedicated to “peace and friendship,” was likely not armed or only lightly armed because of an Indian stipulation that participating ships be unarmed, and because in any event there was no way the ship could have joined the battle with Iran’s military in the Persian Gulf, where US and Israeli air forces have total control of the air over Iran and the waters around it. The Dena would have had few choices but to remain in a safe harbor until that war ended (whenever that is!).

All Americans heard about this incident in their news reports on Dena’s destruction was Hegseth’s ugly boast: “This was never meant to be a fair fight, and it’s not a fair fight…We are punching them while they’re down, and that’s exactly how it should be.”

Except that abandoning injured enemy soldiers or sailors to die after a battle is over is a war crime.

It will be interesting to see what awards get handed out to the officers and crew of the Charlotte for this “heroic” naval engagement.