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US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth answers a reporter's question while meeting with UK Defense Secretary John Healey at the Pentagon with members of their respective teams on March 6, 2025 in Arlington, Virginia.
(Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)
Clinging to the Planetary Wreckage With Pete Hegseth
We don’t yet know how to be one planet, a collective whole that values every aspect of itself.
Dec 13, 2025
“Kill them all!”
You have a problem with that? What are you, some kind of unmanly wimp? Pete Hegseth spits in your face.
Let me catch my breath, calm myself, wipe my face. The cutting edge is raw. A hundred deaths, a thousand deaths, quickly turn into “collateral damage.” But the killing of two desperate men, clinging to the wreckage of their boat in the Caribbean—their boat that has just been bombed—rips open the abstraction of military public relations. They’re just ordinary human beings—like you, like me, like our parents and our children—rather than... uh, narco-terrorists. And suddenly this new war the Trump administration has launched is more than just a video game. Hey, Pete, this is not keeping us safe!
Indeed, as I write these words, I picture the so-called secretary of war clinging to the wreckage himself. Perhaps he’ll eventually realize that war always comes home, that what we do has consequences, that creating peace is a bit more complex than killing the bad guy (and thus preventing him from contradicting the official narrative).
Yeah, creating peace. I wish that process, rather than “winning” the war of the moment, were central to the mainstream media’s global political focus. I wish this nation’s trillion-dollar annual military budget would suddenly abandon the weapons contractors and begin embracing complex, actual human and planetary needs.
As George Cassidy Payne asks in his insightful essay:
What kind of country do we want to be?
The Caribbean strikes are more than tactical operations; they are a test of national character. When influence becomes the ultimate measure of safety, morality becomes the first casualty. Without public scrutiny and full transparency, legality, proportionality, and human cost become negotiable, reshaped to match strategic objectives.
War is slicing the planet into pieces. It’s also the ironic core of global governance. We don’t yet know how to be one planet, a collective whole that values every aspect of itself. Or do we? “I stroke the unknown...”
As I cling, myself, to the planetary wreckage—with Pete Hegseth next to me, as well as Donald Trump, Venezuelan fishermen, every living being who wants to survive—I feel tomorrow emerge from our collective soul. I don’t know how to put it into words. This poem, which I wrote several years ago—“The Gods Get in Touch with Their Feminine Side”—is the best I can do, for now:
I stroke the unknown,
the dark silence, the
soul of a mother. I
pray, if that’s what
prayer is: to stir the certainties of
pride and flag and brittle
God, to stir
the hollow lost.
I pray open
the big craters
and trenches of
obedience and manhood.
Now is the time
to cherish the apple,
to touch the wound and love even
the turned cheeks and bullet tips,
to swaddle anew
the helpless future
and know
and not know
what happens next
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Robert C. Koehler
Robert Koehler is an award-winning, Chicago-based journalist and nationally syndicated writer. Koehler has been the recipient of multiple awards for writing and journalism from organizations including the National Newspaper Association, Suburban Newspapers of America, and the Chicago Headline Club. He's a regular contributor to such high-profile websites as Common Dreams and the Huffington Post. Eschewing political labels, Koehler considers himself a "peace journalist. He has been an editor at Tribune Media Services and a reporter, columnist and copy desk chief at Lerner Newspapers, a chain of neighborhood and suburban newspapers in the Chicago area. Koehler launched his column in 1999. Born in Detroit and raised in suburban Dearborn, Koehler has lived in Chicago since 1976. He earned a master's degree in creative writing from Columbia College and has taught writing at both the college and high school levels. Koehler is a widower and single parent. He explores both conditions at great depth in his writing. His book, "Courage Grows Strong at the Wound" (2016). Contact him or visit his website at commonwonders.com.
“Kill them all!”
You have a problem with that? What are you, some kind of unmanly wimp? Pete Hegseth spits in your face.
Let me catch my breath, calm myself, wipe my face. The cutting edge is raw. A hundred deaths, a thousand deaths, quickly turn into “collateral damage.” But the killing of two desperate men, clinging to the wreckage of their boat in the Caribbean—their boat that has just been bombed—rips open the abstraction of military public relations. They’re just ordinary human beings—like you, like me, like our parents and our children—rather than... uh, narco-terrorists. And suddenly this new war the Trump administration has launched is more than just a video game. Hey, Pete, this is not keeping us safe!
Indeed, as I write these words, I picture the so-called secretary of war clinging to the wreckage himself. Perhaps he’ll eventually realize that war always comes home, that what we do has consequences, that creating peace is a bit more complex than killing the bad guy (and thus preventing him from contradicting the official narrative).
Yeah, creating peace. I wish that process, rather than “winning” the war of the moment, were central to the mainstream media’s global political focus. I wish this nation’s trillion-dollar annual military budget would suddenly abandon the weapons contractors and begin embracing complex, actual human and planetary needs.
As George Cassidy Payne asks in his insightful essay:
What kind of country do we want to be?
The Caribbean strikes are more than tactical operations; they are a test of national character. When influence becomes the ultimate measure of safety, morality becomes the first casualty. Without public scrutiny and full transparency, legality, proportionality, and human cost become negotiable, reshaped to match strategic objectives.
War is slicing the planet into pieces. It’s also the ironic core of global governance. We don’t yet know how to be one planet, a collective whole that values every aspect of itself. Or do we? “I stroke the unknown...”
As I cling, myself, to the planetary wreckage—with Pete Hegseth next to me, as well as Donald Trump, Venezuelan fishermen, every living being who wants to survive—I feel tomorrow emerge from our collective soul. I don’t know how to put it into words. This poem, which I wrote several years ago—“The Gods Get in Touch with Their Feminine Side”—is the best I can do, for now:
I stroke the unknown,
the dark silence, the
soul of a mother. I
pray, if that’s what
prayer is: to stir the certainties of
pride and flag and brittle
God, to stir
the hollow lost.
I pray open
the big craters
and trenches of
obedience and manhood.
Now is the time
to cherish the apple,
to touch the wound and love even
the turned cheeks and bullet tips,
to swaddle anew
the helpless future
and know
and not know
what happens next
From Your Site Articles
- The Caribbean Strikes and the Moral Collapse of American Power ›
- Retired General Says Hegseth Boat Strike on Shipwrecked Sailors Was a 'War Crime' ›
- Calls Grow for Impeachment of Hegseth for 'Murder,' Even as Jeffries Dumps Cold Water on the Idea ›
- 'Furious Backlash' Inside Pentagon as Hegseth Seeks to Avoid Blame for Deadly War Crimes ›
- Legal Experts Accuse Hegseth of 'War Crimes, Murder, or Both' After New Reporting on Boat Strike Order ›
Robert C. Koehler
Robert Koehler is an award-winning, Chicago-based journalist and nationally syndicated writer. Koehler has been the recipient of multiple awards for writing and journalism from organizations including the National Newspaper Association, Suburban Newspapers of America, and the Chicago Headline Club. He's a regular contributor to such high-profile websites as Common Dreams and the Huffington Post. Eschewing political labels, Koehler considers himself a "peace journalist. He has been an editor at Tribune Media Services and a reporter, columnist and copy desk chief at Lerner Newspapers, a chain of neighborhood and suburban newspapers in the Chicago area. Koehler launched his column in 1999. Born in Detroit and raised in suburban Dearborn, Koehler has lived in Chicago since 1976. He earned a master's degree in creative writing from Columbia College and has taught writing at both the college and high school levels. Koehler is a widower and single parent. He explores both conditions at great depth in his writing. His book, "Courage Grows Strong at the Wound" (2016). Contact him or visit his website at commonwonders.com.
“Kill them all!”
You have a problem with that? What are you, some kind of unmanly wimp? Pete Hegseth spits in your face.
Let me catch my breath, calm myself, wipe my face. The cutting edge is raw. A hundred deaths, a thousand deaths, quickly turn into “collateral damage.” But the killing of two desperate men, clinging to the wreckage of their boat in the Caribbean—their boat that has just been bombed—rips open the abstraction of military public relations. They’re just ordinary human beings—like you, like me, like our parents and our children—rather than... uh, narco-terrorists. And suddenly this new war the Trump administration has launched is more than just a video game. Hey, Pete, this is not keeping us safe!
Indeed, as I write these words, I picture the so-called secretary of war clinging to the wreckage himself. Perhaps he’ll eventually realize that war always comes home, that what we do has consequences, that creating peace is a bit more complex than killing the bad guy (and thus preventing him from contradicting the official narrative).
Yeah, creating peace. I wish that process, rather than “winning” the war of the moment, were central to the mainstream media’s global political focus. I wish this nation’s trillion-dollar annual military budget would suddenly abandon the weapons contractors and begin embracing complex, actual human and planetary needs.
As George Cassidy Payne asks in his insightful essay:
What kind of country do we want to be?
The Caribbean strikes are more than tactical operations; they are a test of national character. When influence becomes the ultimate measure of safety, morality becomes the first casualty. Without public scrutiny and full transparency, legality, proportionality, and human cost become negotiable, reshaped to match strategic objectives.
War is slicing the planet into pieces. It’s also the ironic core of global governance. We don’t yet know how to be one planet, a collective whole that values every aspect of itself. Or do we? “I stroke the unknown...”
As I cling, myself, to the planetary wreckage—with Pete Hegseth next to me, as well as Donald Trump, Venezuelan fishermen, every living being who wants to survive—I feel tomorrow emerge from our collective soul. I don’t know how to put it into words. This poem, which I wrote several years ago—“The Gods Get in Touch with Their Feminine Side”—is the best I can do, for now:
I stroke the unknown,
the dark silence, the
soul of a mother. I
pray, if that’s what
prayer is: to stir the certainties of
pride and flag and brittle
God, to stir
the hollow lost.
I pray open
the big craters
and trenches of
obedience and manhood.
Now is the time
to cherish the apple,
to touch the wound and love even
the turned cheeks and bullet tips,
to swaddle anew
the helpless future
and know
and not know
what happens next
From Your Site Articles
- The Caribbean Strikes and the Moral Collapse of American Power ›
- Retired General Says Hegseth Boat Strike on Shipwrecked Sailors Was a 'War Crime' ›
- Calls Grow for Impeachment of Hegseth for 'Murder,' Even as Jeffries Dumps Cold Water on the Idea ›
- 'Furious Backlash' Inside Pentagon as Hegseth Seeks to Avoid Blame for Deadly War Crimes ›
- Legal Experts Accuse Hegseth of 'War Crimes, Murder, or Both' After New Reporting on Boat Strike Order ›
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