Trump Declares 'Kill People,' Mainstream Media Finds No Precedent
Donald Trump declared, “we’re just going to kill people” to address drug trafficking, coinciding with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announcing six more 'narco-terrorists' died in a 'drug boat' strike. The Independent notes 40 deaths since September from these extra-judicial operations. This casual embrace of state-sanctioned violence against alleged criminals, without due process or Congressional
oversight, raises immediate questions. How many 'drug boats' have to be blown up before journalists remember concepts like international law or the Fourth Amendment? While Trump’s rhetoric is uniquely blunt, the US has a long, bipartisan history of extrajudicial killings, from drone strikes under Obama (targeting figures like Anwar al-Awlaki, an American citizen, in 2011) to 'kill lists' under
Bush. The media often frames such actions as necessary 'counter-terrorism'—until a figure like Trump says the quiet part out loud. Suddenly, the 'kill people' declaration is newsworthy, rather than a symptom of a deeply entrenched, often-ignored US foreign policy reality. One might wonder if the concern is the deaths themselves, or simply who articulate those orders.