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To the editor:
Is there a difference between Lt. William Calley’s My Lai massacre of between 347 (the U.S. estimate) and 504 (Vietnam’s estimate) unarmed South Vietnamese and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s alleged order to “kill everybody” when two Venezuelan survivors of an American strike on a boat in the Caribbean killed everyone but the two men clinging to floating boat wreckage?
After Hegseth’s order, the two men were blown away. The number of those killed is the only real difference between the two instances of murder masquerading as the "fog of war.”
It is probably true that the killing of all of the Venezuelan boat people was murder since they posed no threat to the U.S.; there is no evidence that they were transporting any drugs to the U.S.; and there was no declaration of war or approval by Congress.
Trump’s justification is that the action is not part of an international armed conflict; it is against narco-terrorists and therefore he does not need congressional approval for war. Contrary to Trump’s stream of nonsense, it is a violation of U.S. and international law to kill people suspected of drug crimes without evidence and without legal justification.
As six members of Congress have correctly warned the military, troops cannot follow illegal and unconstitutional orders, and must refuse to obey such orders or they violate the Uniform Code of Military Justice (USMJ) and the U.S. Constitution.
Michael J. Gorman
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