By John Q. Hosedrinker 
The article describes Donald Trump’s past obsession with using extreme and often illegal measures to deter migrants, including proposing to shoot them or inflict physical harm. This behavior suggests a pattern of considering inhumane acts, as evidenced by his recent threats to bomb Iranian civilian infrastructure. The author argues that such actions constitute war crimes and, if carried out with impunity, would erode international law and Western moral authority. The piece concludes with a plea for allies to speak out against these potential war crimes, fearing that if they do not, the future of the Western world will be jeopardized.
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In private, Donald Trump has expressed desires for unspeakable violence, and this knowledge comes from direct personal accounts. There’s a profound horror in witnessing a powerful figure articulate, with disturbing clarity, intentions to inflict harm on innocent people, realizing that the only barrier between these fantasies and their potential execution lies with the aides desperately trying to remind him of legal and ethical boundaries. This was an experience shared during late 2018 and early 2019, when working within the Department of Homeland Security during his first term.
At that time, his focus was intensely fixed on the caravans of migrants making their slow journey towards the United States from Central America. His fixation was almost manic; he would call the leadership team late into the night, breathlessly relaying images he had seen on television. He was incensed that these individuals would dare to seek asylum in the U.S., viewing them not as people in need but as a hostile foreign army preparing an invasion, an enemy to be eliminated. These were, in reality, predominantly women and children, or young men seeking refuge for their families.
What ensued was a sustained campaign of derangement, unlike anything witnessed in years of public service. In Oval Office meetings, on Air Force One, and in Situation Room briefings, the President demanded actions that would have been unthinkable to any previous American president, or even considered rational by most sane individuals, to halt their arrival. Trump proposed violence, specifically advocating for the use of threats of physical harm and death as deterrents.
For instance, he sought to deploy soldiers for shows of force along the border with heavy weaponry, ordered the border wall be painted black to become searingly hot in the sun, potentially burning the hands of anyone who touched it, and demanded flesh-piercing spikes be installed at the top to visibly bloody those who attempted to climb, intending to send a message. Most bizarrely, he even toyed with the idea of digging a 2,000-mile moat along the southern border and filling it with deadly snakes and reptiles to target asylum seekers. Inquiries were also made about heat-ray devices to make migrants feel as though their skin was on fire.
While these ideas were indeed draconian, the President’s ultimate, simpler demand for deterring border crossings became more direct: to shoot them. On multiple occasions, Trump proposed that authorities open fire on the migrants, questioning what better deterrent there could be than to kill some of them. When informed that using deadly force against unarmed civilians was illegal, Trump became visibly agitated, as if their objections stemmed from weakness.
His response was often a dismissive “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” with the hope that he would never vocalize such ideas publicly. However, he did. While on a flight to New York, he publicly reacted to footage of migrants throwing rocks at border authorities, declaring that American soldiers would not hesitate to open fire, stating, “We’ll consider—and I told them—consider it a rifle.” The notion of rocks versus rifles prompted frantic calls to the Pentagon to reiterate rules of engagement and the illegality of shooting civilians.
Months later, in an Oval Office meeting ostensibly about opioids, Trump again became frustrated, complaining that border troops were ineffective because they couldn’t use deadly force. When reminded of the illegality of killing unarmed civilians, he proposed an alternative: “Then shoot them in the legs if you have to!” This outburst left the room in stunned silence. The expressions on his face, and those of his aides, conveyed that his intentions were clear and deeply disturbing. It wasn’t the last time this topic arose, and the President appeared aware he was venturing into dangerous territory. At one point, he eyed the author, who was taking notes, and snapped, “I don’t want any f\*\*king notes.”
Dutifully, the notebook was closed. The author understood that documentation was precisely what Trump wished to avoid – any record of his musings about harming civilians, or any evidence that his aides might attempt to prevent him from breaking the law. This sentiment was echoed by former Defense Secretary Mark Esper, who recalled Trump proposing shooting civilians during nationwide protests in 2020, later downscaling the demand to shooting them in the legs.
Therefore, it should not be surprising that the leader of the free world might be actively considering, or even eager to carry out, direct attacks on civilians or civilian infrastructure in Iran. This is fundamentally how he thinks and operates. And increasingly, he is surrounded by an obliging group of staff willing to indulge these brutal impulses.
One does not need to be a law of war expert to assess Trump’s threats. The deliberate targeting of civilian infrastructure, such as power plants and clean-water facilities, to inflict suffering on a population is unequivocally immoral and constitutes a war crime under international law. If such actions are carried out with impunity, the West risks losing its moral authority. The Geneva Conventions and the laws of armed conflict, designed to protect civilians, symbolize Western values and the restraint of internal demons. However, these principles are not self-enforcing. They have endured because Western nations, led by the United States, applied them to themselves first. When America begins to bomb desalination plants and label it diplomacy, it signals the death of these rules, a message that authoritarians in Moscow, Beijing, and Pyongyang will undoubtedly heed.
If successors in a potential second Trump administration are unwilling to restrain him, then America’s allies abroad must take note and speak out. To submit the future of the Western world to Donald Trump’s conscience is to begin writing its obituary. His own words underscore this disregard for established norms, stating, “I don’t need international law. I’m not looking to hurt people.” When asked about limits on his powers, he claimed, “My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.” This self-assessment, particularly in light of his past desire for the execution of the Central Park Five, even after their exoneration, reveals a profound lack of regard for the lives of others. The very nature of “unspeakable violence” suggests a capacity to dissolve the bonds of humanity for perpetrators, while simultaneously cementing the bonds within a perpetrator group through shared criminality. This instinctual understanding of how shared wrongdoing binds people to a regime, rather than to a nation or its institutions, seems to be at play.