Talk about the law of unintended consequences. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth is being targeted as follows by Democrats. Here’s a sample headline, this one from Politico: “Lawmakers warn Hegseth may have committed war crimes following second-strike report,” with the subtitle, “Democrats and even some Republicans said Hegseth’s orders may have been illegal if a report on his commands to kill survivors of a boat attack are true.” The story reports: Lawmakers from both parties raised alarms Sunday that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth may have committed a war crime following a report that he ordered a follow-on attack to kill survivors of a boat strike in September. The Washington Post reported last week that Hegseth authorized a highly unusual strike to kill all survivors of one of the Trump administration’s attacks in recent months on boats allegedly carrying drugs in international waters. POLITICO has not independently verified the Post’s reporting. Sens. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) and Tim Kaine (D-Va.) — both of whom sit on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee — said Sunday that, if accurate, such orders would rise to the level of war crimes. “If that reporting is true, it’s a clear violation of the DOD’s own laws of war, as well as international laws about the way you treat people who are in that circumstance. And so this rises to the level of a war crime if it’s true,” Kaine said in an interview with CBS’ Nancy Cordes on “Face the Nation.” Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) also said in a Sunday morning interview with CNN’s “State of the Union” that the order, if true, is “clearly not lawful.” And Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) responded to the article by writing on social media Saturday evening: “Pete Hegseth is a war criminal and should be fired immediately.” Well now. Talk about a lack of self-awareness. Not to mention historical ignorance. Again, the essence here is that as Secretary of War, Hegseth ordered a follow-up strike against enemies of the United States who were smuggling drugs into the U.S. (RELATED: Trump and Hegseth Defending America From Drug Traffickers) Drugs that kill Americans. Got that? Follow-up attacks on enemies conducting a war against the United States are “clearly not lawful,” and the person who orders such an attack “is a war criminal.” (RELATED: We Should Declare War on the Cancerous Cartel in Caracas) So. One of the first to understand the decided double standard on this issue was House Speaker Mike Johnson. The Hill headlined: “Johnson raises Obama drone strikes in response to Hegseth controversy.” The story reported: “I will say that, you know, it’s not an unprecedented thing,” Johnson said. “One of the things I was reminded of this morning is that under Barack Obama, President Obama, he had — I think there were 550 drone strikes on people who were targeted as enemies of the country, and nobody ever questioned it.” “Secondary strikes are not unusual,” Johnson said. “It has to happen if a mission is going to be completed.” The Harvard Political Review reported this in the day: These drone strikes make a strong case for categorizing Obama as an international war criminal. The 1949 Geneva Conventions, ratified by the United Nations, explicitly provides protections for not only the wounded, but also for medical and religious personnel, medical units, and medical transports. Article 8 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court states that “Intentionally directing attacks against personnel, installations, material, units or vehicles involved in a humanitarian assistance or peacekeeping mission in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations” is classified as a war crime. The law also states “intentionally launching an attack in the knowledge that such attack will cause incidental loss of life or injury to civilians” also constitutes war crimes for the guilty party. Through the drone strike program and double-tap attacks, there is no question that former President Obama and his administration violated international humanitarian law. Obama’s symbolic significance cannot outshine his relationship with the imperial endeavors of the American Empire. Notably, nothing — nothing! — happened to President Obama for having “violated international humanitarian law” and committed “war crimes.” And oh yes. History records a seriously famous double-attack on an American enemy at the order of a U.S. president. History recalls that on August 6, 1945, with World War II against the Japanese still raging, President Harry Truman ordered the dropping of the first atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Three days later, on Aug. 9, Truman ordered a second attack, this one on Nagasaki, Japan. Finally, the Japanese surrendered. So the obvious question? When will Senators Kelly, Kaine, and Markey demand — however late — the prosecution of former President Obama for the “war crime” of “the drone strike program and double-tap attacks…” as instituted by President Obama? And when will they sponsor a Senate resolution condemning the Truman attack on the Japanese survivors of the first attack? I’ll take a wild guess. The fact that these three Democrat Senators — with Kelly having a serious and honorable military record of his own — are silent as church mice about raising war crime charges against former President Obama for doing a bigger version of what Hegseth has done but are raising un-shirted H-E-double “L” about Secretary Hegseth tells you everything you need to know. The fact that they are silent as well about a Senate resolution condemning former President Truman for his second atomic attack on Japan, in the fashion of Hegseth’s second attack on the drug smugglers, tells observers everything you need to know. Which is to say these three Democrat Senators are playing games with the United States armed forces. Whether it is with the relatively recent Obama attacks or the long-ago history of the Truman second attack on Japan, what they are about is playing a partisan game. With Hegseth as the target. Do they care? Based on their Obama/Truman silence, the answer is obviously no. To them, the United States military is a political toy. Shocking. Not. And definitely shameful. READ MORE from Jeffrey Lord: Trump and Hegseth Defending America From Drug Traffickers Thanksgiving Is More Than Turkey Democrats for Sedition