To Kill or Be Killed — Is That a Question?
When Secretary of War Pete Segweth allegedly ordered his military to “kill them all,” in reference to survivors of a narco-boat strike, he was only following a long and bloody tradition. History is filled with leaders who, when faced with moral ambiguity, chose efficiency over conscience.
Queen Marie Antoinette is famously — if apocryphally — credited with ordering her soldiers to kill both Catholics and Protestants when they could not tell them apart, declaring, “Kill them all and let God sort them out.” Whether or not the quote is accurate, the sentiment has echoed through centuries of warfare.
Killing, after all, is the most foolproof way of ending a disagreement. No negotiations. No loose ends. No complications. Just remove the opponent and the problem disappears.
Throughout recorded and unrecorded history, killing has been the default solution for taking what someone has by force — or stopping someone from taking it from you. One can attempt civility, diplomacy, or peaceful resolution, but simply killing the other party has always been the most decisive way to “solve” the problem.
For some people, killing is unthinkable. The taking of a life is repulsive, morally wrong, and fundamentally against what they believe God intended for His creations.
But for others, it doesn’t even raise an eyebrow.
Just kill and be done with it.
This has been a particularly violent week — killings at Brown University, in Australia, narco-boat survivors, border patrol agents, the Reiners. Killings everywhere. Enough carnage to keep people glued to their televisions and devices, consuming horror as casually as entertainment.
But one has to wonder: is a killer’s soul altered by the act?
Did the people who ordered the atomic bombing of Japan lose any sleep over the instantaneous incineration of more than 100,000 innocent civilians?
Do those who kill remotely — from command centers, behind screens, through drones and missiles — feel anything at all?
Does a president or their team even blink when they authorize the killing of a car full of alleged terrorists viewed only through a drone camera thousands of miles away?
Some kill because they are ordered to.
Some kill out of hatred or passion.
Some kill for greed or revenge.
Some kill because they enjoy it.
Some kill by accident.
Some kill through medical mistakes.
But it takes a very particular kind of person to order long-distance killing — sanitized, abstract, and justified by language instead of blood.
Or to strap on a suicide vest.
Or to walk into a public place and commit mass murder.
Or for high school students to kill each other.
The Bible commands, “Thou shalt not kill.”
Yet Native Americans were wiped out by orders issued under the authority of Rome, empire, and conquest.
Animals kill for food.
Humans kill for ideology, territory, passion, hatred, fear, revenge, greed, and power.
That is what makes us different from the animal kingdom.
As long as there are people willing to kill to get what they want, there will be others willing to kill to stop them.
And so, war becomes eternal.
Get ready, world.
The best — or the worst — is yet to come.
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8 Comments
The Criminals that order the killing and start wars are soulless criminals and nothing more.
The soldiers who carry out the killing on behalf of those criminals are a mixed bag of war criminals who enjoy inflicting death and pain upon others and there are soldiers who believe their primary purpose is to save lives and take them only when absolutely necessary as in kill or be killed.
What constitutes a War Crime has been very clearly spelled out since the Nuremberg trials and advent of the Geneva Conventions which the US pushed for and is a signatory to. The UCMJ and MCM also clearly define what is a lawful order, what’s not and what is considered a lawful killing in cases of peace keeping and conflict.
Trump Inc. and our self anointed SECRETARY of War want to ignore these long standing rules, regulations and laws pertaining to lawful/unlawful orders, ROE’s or Rules of Engagement and completely ignore these International Laws our country signed onto in order to commit war crimes.
This is why Trump Inc. shut down VOA and RFL, withdrew from the ICC, attack our longstanding allies who are also signatories to the Geneva Conventions and Laws of Land Warfare. It is a clear stick in the eye of Democracy and the rule of law, just like most everything Trump Inc. does on a daily basis with immunity and impunity thanks to our very corrupt Trump Inc. SCOTUS judges who under oath promised they would not and yet have and continue to revoke laws with decades sometimes centuries old precedent!
But that’s why MAGA elected a convicted felon in the first place! They knew what he wanted to and would do if elected. And they relish in the pain and hatred inflicted upon their fellow Americans and innocent non combatants worldwide, just as was done to massacre hundreds of thousands of Gazan’s, the boat strikes and the masked and violent CIA style abductions of people of color who in many many cases have been unlawfully abducted and detained without any warrant, Miranda rights or right to legal counsel sometimes for multiple days or weeks. Then once released for having been unlawfully detained, racially profiled etc., there’s zero apology from anyone involved in the criminal treatment they were forced to endure.
This is NOT Patriotism! This isn’t not the American Way! And it does NOT make us “hot” or the envy of the world! It makes us a laughing stock for having done a complete about face on our Democracy and credibility at the hands of a deranged party of Racist, Fascist and Conspiracy Nutjobs!
“Some kill because they are ordered to.
Some kill out of hatred or passion.
Some kill for greed or revenge.
Some kill because they enjoy it.
Some kill by accident.
Some kill through medical mistakes”
Some kill because they have too. The battered and or sexually abused come to mind here. Soldiers who have an armed enemy actively attempting to kill them. The cop who gets called to an accident and end up violently ambushed by an armed assailant. The school student or staff that end up staring down the barrels of assault rifles intended to kill as many people as possible. And most recently the Muslim man who took down and disarmed one of the terrorist in the Bondi Beach shootings. In these cases and a few others represent instances where one would think that these victims would be well within their rights to kill those trying to kill them. We had a case during the so called “troubles” where the IRA/PIRA were lying to rest 3 of their comrades who were killed unarmed and hands up in Gibraltar. As prayers were being delivered an Ulster man began tossing fragmentation grenades into the crowd of mourners inside the cemetery. The Ulster man was brutally beaten and killed by unarmed IRA/PIRA families and friends as well as a smattering of active members. It was one of the many atrocities that all parties committed and finally ended with peace talks. Things remain tense back home between the two. And extreme violence against migrants has become commonplace. Imagine that!
That’s what happens when the leader of the free world declares all migrants in the US and overseas vermin, scum etc. What happened to you America? I’m desperate to discover how you can do a 180 from being the beacon of Democracy and Freedom to a country full of hate and led by a hater?
“The Bible commands, “Thou shalt not kill.”
Yet Native Americans were wiped out by orders issued under the authority of Rome, empire, and conquest “
They were systematically killed and or forced incarcerated and indoctrinated in the name of the Bible. The Mormon, being especially brutal. Hitler marveled at the way we did this to the rightful owners of the lands we now know as America. He designed much of his genocidal killing machine and mass grave techniques after the ones he learned from our own.
Just one of the many shameful periods of our history that is currently being erased and made criminal during another shameful period in our short history as a colonist nation built by migrants and even many Native American.
“Did the people who ordered the atomic bombing of Japan lose any sleep over the instantaneous incineration of more than 100,000 innocent civilians?”
Likely not just as the people who ordered the attack upon Pearl Harbor did not-
Pearl Harbor Casualties
Total Killed: 2,403
Civilians Killed: 68
Wounded: 1,178
Germany and Japan would’ve nuked us if they had developed “the bomb” first. And they were very darn close to having done so especially the Germans. So the despite Nuclear Weapons being abhorrent, indiscriminate and completely inhumane weapons of (complete) mass destruction we have them, many many other countries both rogue and allied have them and nobody is going to change that sickening fact until some jackass decides to use them again! They were designed by cowards in government who failed Diplomatically and would rather nuke an enemy than answer for the friendly deaths and atrocities caused by face to face ground wars and worried about their re-elections rather than humanity! Such is the nature of war and politics I guess?
All of the past arms reduction nonsense in the 80’s and early 90’s was just that- complete nonsense! Neither the US nor the Russians got rid of anything other than old trash that would’ve had to have been destroyed anyway. All of the good stuff was scurried away and hidden from inspectors of both sides. Same with our Chemical Weapons inventory, we destroyed old crap but still have plenty of viable chemical weapons (some leaking into the Toole Army Depot’s atmosphere and soil as most had been in bunkers in our bases around the world for decades leaking away! The Doomsday clock gets closer to midnight on a daily if not hourly basis for a reason. We have Authoritarian Fascist Nutjobs (leading numerous countries and more waiting in the winds to fill their disgusting shoes)threatening and attacking their neighbors, former allies, the rule of law and pounding the tables for more!
Q&A: How Did the U.S. Patrol the Caribbean for Drug Smuggling Before It Started Blowing Up Boats?
Coast Guard crews have seized about half a million pounds of drugs this year. But instead of killing ‘enemy combatants,’ they’re sending them back home.
December 18, 2025
SONNER KEHRT
https://thewarhorse.org/coast-guard-caribbean-airstrike-drug-boats/
There’s legal and ethical ways of doing things and there are criminal and immoral ways of doing them!
But alas Trump Inc. does as it pleases with immunity and impunity never granted to any other POTUS ever because everyone R or D agreed that our previously lawful checks and balances to work. MAGA decided they don’t want checks and balances anymore. Wait until a Democrat retakes the office! Hopefully they will impeach the MAGA loyalist SCOTUS judges, MAGA AG, MAGA FBI Director and Deputy, the MAGA Intell and CIA Chiefs etc. And pass laws banning racial, sexual and ethnic hatred, make legal precedent remain precedent once enacted for 10 years or more, make war crimes crimes again, the military apolitical like it should always be and pass laws banning Project 2025 and every illegal aspect of MAGA criminally prosecutable just like the Germans did the Nazi party and all Nazi paraphernalia.
Being a fascist nation may work for fascists but it will never stand for those in the nation that knows better! No matter how much King Nothing decries us as his enemies!
So USA can capture an oil tanker but they cannot capture a speedboat that no way will go down the coast for 1,000’s of miles and deliver drugs to Miami.
If USA thinks they have drugs 1) capture them and 2) try them in court.
Better yet, USA should go after its own citizens and bust them for using illegal drugs. If you STOP the DEMAND you STOP the source.
When President Harry Truman was asked if he had any second thoughts about ordering the dropping of the atomic bomb, he replied, “Absolutely not. I saved one million American lives.” The Japanese war council was more than willing to kill millions of its own people, rather than surrender to the Allies. Truman probably saved as many Japanese lives as American lives. Was it horrible? Of course. Would it have been better to let WW2 wage on for another year or more and kill more millions? Today, Hamas is not any different than the Japanese war council of 1945. They are willing to kill tens of thousands of their own people rather than accept peace with Israel. Evil in the world is not new. May I suggest reading “Confronting Evil” by best-selling author Bill O’Reilly? It well documents the most evil people of the last 2000 years.
O’Reilly? Really? A washed up fake news pro Israel pundit and accused sex offender-
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/oct/21/bill-oreilly-32m-harassment-claim-fox-news-deal
Hamas is a horrific Terror Organization no bout a doubt it but the current Israeli Government is led by war criminals who committed far more horrific and numerous atrocities upon hundreds of thousands of unarmed and innocent Gazan’s, than Hamas has committed upon their sworn enemies since their creation. Want every Hamas member dead? Do so without committing genocidal atrocities upon innocent civilians!
The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki’s city centers ended the war with Japan but did little damage to the Japanese military industrial complex which had to be bombed conveniently rather than being fought face to face albeit in the air, on the ground or on and under the sea. Nukes took what used to be considered chivalry (hand to hand/face to face combat) and made fighting wars obsolete but surviving them impossible.