Monthly Archives: December 2025

punchdrunk villa

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When you have an infantile Secretary of Defense with an inferiority complex and a desperate need to prove his manhood (yes, I’m talking about Pete Hegseth here), you have to expect a lot…and I mean a lot…of performative macho bullshit. Like murdering alleged drug runners in small craft with MQ-9 Reaper drones firing Hellfire missiles. Like inventing military medals so he and Commander-in-Chief Comrade President Trump can hand them out on stage.

I’m talking about the Mexican Border Defense Medal. It’s basically the Temu version of the Mexican Border Service Medal issued in 1918. The Mexican Border Service Medal was issued to troops who weren’t eligible for the Mexican Service Medal, which was issued in 1917.

Okay, there’s a good chance you’re saying, “Wait…what?” right about now. Here’s what you need to know (okay, you don’t actually need to know this, but it’ll help if you want to understand all this). For about eight and a half years–from 1910 to 1919–the US was involved in a low intensity (punctuated by some serious, deadly skirmishes and battles) border war with Mexico. Mexico was engaged in a civil war at the time. On top of that, Mexico was also a potential ally of Germany in World War One. Really, it was a whole thing–Germany sent a secret, encoded telegram to Mexico saying if the US entered the war against Germany, Germany would help Mexico invade the US and recapture the states of New Mexico, Texas, and Arizona. So yeah, the US had troops at the Southern border. We even invaded a few times, and at one point occupied Veracruz for half a year.

Gen. John ‘Blackjack’ Pershing during the Mexican War

The thing is, there was a shooting war with Mexico and some Mexican paramilitary elements (like Pancho Villa), and even a few German soldiers. So the troops involved in that shooting war were given a medal. The Mexican Service Medal. Some of the serious Big Hat folks in World Wars 1 and 2 earned that medal. Like ‘Blackjack’ Pershing, and Douglas MacArthur, and George Patton, and John LeJeune.

A year later, troops who weren’t involved in the shooting part of the war–the troops who provided logistics and support (without which the combat troops would go into battle with rocks and sharpened sticks)–were awarded the the Mexican Border Service Medal. They also faced danger.

Now Pete Hegseth and Comrade Trump have issued the Mexican Border Defense Medal. You’re probably wondering how a service member earns this prestigious new medal. Well, I’ll tell you. They have to be assigned, attached, or detailed for at least 30 days to a unit deployed within 100 miles of the US-Mexico border (or 24 nautical miles in adjacent US waters) as part of a designated operation supporting the Customs and Border Protection Agency.

Pete Hegseth awards the Mexican Border Defense Medal (to a woman who could probably kick his ass).

Seriously. That’s it. You didn’t have to actually DO anything. Just be assigned to a unit near the border. It’s such light duty Pete Hegseth thinks even girls can do it. And hell, he’ll hand them a medal too. That’s the kind of guy he is. I’m sure he’d rather be giving the medal to the MQ-9 Reaper drone operators, but they’re sitting in air conditioned rooms in (probably) Yuma, Arizona, which is too far away for them to get the Mexican Border Defense Medal.

But what’s important is that the medal gives Hegseth and Comrade Trump a chance to stand around with men (and a token number of women) in uniform and hand them a medal. It makes them feel important. Competent. Maybe even manly. During the ceremony in which the first 13 medals were issued, Trump noted that the troops had “endured scorching heat and bitter cold, and had given up their holidays and weekends.”

Greater love hath no man (or, possibly, woman) than to give up holidays and weekends to…to…to stop families escaping poverty and violence from crossing the Southern border of the United States?

Jesus suffering fuck…these people, I declare.

caedite eos

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It’s been reported by both the Washington Post and CNN that Whiskey Pete Hegseth, the Secretary of Defense (not War) has committed either war crime or murder. Well, they didn’t come right out and say that, but they’re reporting he gave orders to “kill everybody” (‘everybody’ in this case refers to the 11 people aboard a civilian vessel allegedly carrying drugs).

Whether it was murder or a war crime depends on whether you 1) buy into the Trump administration’s bullshit argument that the folks on that boat were involved in a “non-international armed conflict” or 2) believe those 11 people were ordinary run-of-the-mill drug smugglers. If you go for Door Number 2, then killing them with a couple of rockets is plain old mass murder. You can’t just execute people you suspect are drug smugglers; you have to go through that whole ‘due process’ business guaranteed by the US Constitution. (Also? Eleven people? On a smuggling run? Them’s some really inefficient smugglers.)

If you buy Door Number 1, then it’s a war crime. It becomes a war crime because the initial rocket attack didn’t kill everybody. Two people survived the first explosion and were clinging to the wreckage when Hegseth (allegedly) ordered a second strike to kill them. The Geneva Conventions clearly state that people who are not capable of engaging in combat due to “sickness, wounds, detention, or any other cause” have to be “treated humanely.” Blowing up people clinging to the wreckage of a boat is pretty fucking far from humane.

Either way–murder or war crime–Pete Hegseth ought to be removed from office and…I don’t know, made to cling to some wreckage in the Caribbean.

Mr. P. Hegseth, Secretary of WTF

Hegseth, it seems, sees himself as some sort of modern-day crusader. He has a Jerusalem cross (also known as the crusader cross) tattooed on his chest and the words Deus Vult (God wants it) tattooed on his bicep. Both of that phrase and that symbol can be found on the coat of arms of the Order of the Holy Sepulcher of Jerusalem–a militant group of Christian warriors founded in 1099 during the First Crusade to protect Christians and Christian property.

It’s maybe instructive to remember (or learn for the first time) that not all of those famous crusades took place in what are called the holy lands. Nor were they all directed against Muslims. But they were all really really really fucking brutal. For example, the Albigensian Crusade (1209 to 1229) took place in southern France and northern Italy and its purpose was to eliminate the Cathars, a Christian sect considered by the Church (there was only the one recognized Christian church back then) to be heretics.

It was a popular crusade among the ruling classes of the early 13th century because 1) it was a LOT less fuss and expense to go kill people in Europe than to travel all the way to the Middle East, where they spoke different languages and ate strange food, 2) unlike the Muslims, the Cathars were pacifists, so killing them was less dangerous, and 3) you still got cred from the Church for being a Good Christian.

There was a big Cathar community in a town called Béziers on the Mediterranean coast. A crusader army under the command of Arnaud Amalric was sent to deal with them. There was an attempt to get the local Cathars to surrender themselves, but it failed. During the negotiations, a small skirmish got out of hand. Amalric was told that it was impossible to differentiate between the ‘good’ Christians and the Cathars, so he gave the order, “Caedite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius,” which is translated as “Slay them. The Lord knows those that are His.” In other words, kill them all and let God sort it out.

Amalric reported it to the Pope, writing “Our men spared no one, irrespective of rank, sex or age, and put to the sword almost 20,000 people. After this great slaughter the whole city was despoiled and burnt.”

Assuming the reporting is accurate (and given all we know about him, it certainly could be), Hegseth’s order to “Kill everyone” can be seen as a smaller, more modern version of the crusader order, “Caedite eos,” Slay them. If they’re not guilty, God will deal with it. So long as you’re doing God’s work, it’s okay. You can’t make an omelet, and all that.

Three years after the massacre at, Arnaud Amalric was made the archbishop of Narbonne. Three months after sinking that particular boat, Pete Hegseth is facing a Congressional investigation. With Comrade Trump as president, we may soon see Hegseth become an archbishop.