Defense Secretary's Fictional Turtle War Crimes Get Media Attention, Real Ones Don't
Pete Hegseth, the US Defense Secretary, is making headlines for sharing a meme depicting 'Franklin the Turtle' as a 'Narco Terrorist' killer. Publisher outrage notwithstanding, it's curious how much media oxygen this fictional transgression consumes versus, say, Hegseth's actual publicly recorded advice to US soldiers in Iraq to 'ignore legal advice on rules of engagement,' as the story itself
briefly notes. One might wonder why a children's book alteration sparks more 'disbelief and outrage' than an actual call to flout international law from a top defense official. It appears that the media's moral compass is exquisitely calibrated to detect the fictional misuse of animated characters while often glossing over the real-world implications of advocating for war crimes. The fury over a
Photoshohopped battle turtle seems almost performative when balanced against the consistent normalizing of US foreign policy that frequently results in civilian casualties—a topic rarely framed with such urgent moral outrage.