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Before Trump, presidents had the sense to hide their war crimes
Donald Trump's administration gleefully shares footage that would have inspired scandals and court cases in other presidencies
Alex Galbraith
September 10, 2025
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The United States’ second invasion of Iraq aired live on CNN over a bed of seemingly endless pundit admiration. Their onscreen shock and awe, like the dulcet tones of country superstar Toby Keith gleefully promising a boot in the ass of the entire Middle East before them, laid down a soundtrack for an extremely regrettable period in American history.
Just seven years later, the American appetite for videos of overwhelming force had soured. Like Seymour Hersh’s reporting on the My Lai massacre, leaked footage of an aerial attack on civilians in Iraq’s capital pushed public opinion on an already unpopular boondoggle. The government had enough sense to be embarrassed by the dissemination of “Collateral Murder,” turning its attention on the Army analyst who leaked the video and the online activist who hosted it. Anyone who saw the video couldn’t feign surprise at the U.S. failing to set its sights on the right target.
The Global War on Terror retreated into the shadows even as President Barack Obama expanded the scope of attacks across the world. The final tally of his extrajudicial killings over eight years is somewhere near 4,000, with nearly 400 civilians in that number. There’s no need to hand it to the architect of the U.S. unmanned global murder machine, but he was self-aware enough to keep quiet about it.
Would it surprise you to learn that there’s no such reflection going on in the administration of Donald Trump? When they aren’t accidentally leaking illegal operations to the press, the president and his Cabinet have been fairly open about their foreign policy misdeeds. They’ve regularly shared videos of attacks on countries where we have no real business, with all the giddiness you’d expect from the cadre of immature goons pushing the “Department of War.”
Early in his second term, Trump shared a video of a bombing in Yemen. While the president claimed the strike was aimed at Houthi militants, critics countered that footage appeared to show a Yemeni tribal gathering being bombarded from the air. Constant escalation is a Trump trademark, so it was hard to be surprised when the president shared footage last week of an aerial strike that he openly admitted was carried out on civilians.
The president proudly offered up a video of a speedboat being bombed in the Caribbean. He alleged the boat was carrying drug traffickers and said there was "more where that came from." When the operation was rightfully called a war crime, Vice President JD Vance smugly shared that he “didn’t give a s**t” what his opponents called it.
No matter what the sadistic social media presences of America’s top officials might say, calling things what they are does matter. International law matters. The lives of the thousands of civilians who have been killed by America’s autonomous warbirds did matter and will continue to. The sneering simpletons have their sticky fingers on the levers of power, but their prideful posting will only make it easier to take them to task.
We don’t need to hope for archival footage in Ted Turner’s basement to prosecute this round of apocalyptic evangelicals for their obvious crimes against humanity. They’re more than happy to build the case for us.
What do you think? Will this ridiculous clusterf**k of totally uncool jokers ever see the inside of a jail cell? Is making The Hague great again too much to hope for? Click the speech bubble icon up top to sound off.
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