Why Canada Has a Stake in Hegseth’s War Crimes

You may not be familiar with the HMHS Llandovery Castle, which sank off the coast of Ireland on June 27, 1918. It is an event, from over a century ago, that has resonance for Canada as the fallout grows from Pete Hegseth’s “kill them all” order against a Venezuelan boat.

HMHS (Hospital Ship) Llandovery Castle, 1918

On September 2, Hegseth gave the order to blow up a boat off the Latin American coast. It was then noticed that two injured survivors were still in the water. The US followed up with a second strike to kill them.

Then on November 30, the “Secretary of War” posted a sickening meme: Franklin the turtle shooting down boats from a helicopter.

Franklin is a beloved character from Canadian children’s literature and television, known for his desire to bring children and animals together. Franklin is a gentle hero who teaches empathy and cooperation.

So what does Hegseth’s tasteless meme have to do with a ship that went down over a hundred years ago?

The Llandovery Castle was a medical relief vessel sailing from Halifax to Liverpool with a large contingent of doctors and nurses to load up wounded from the battlefields of France. The boat was clearly marked as a medical ship, making it illegal to target it.

U-Boat 86 Captain Helmut Patzig decided to sink the ship.

As the medical staff and sailors scrambled into the lifeboats, Patzig realized these witnesses could give testimony against him. Captain Patzig then gave the order to ram the lifeboats and turned the machine guns on the helpless survivors.

The result was the death of 234 people, including the 14 nurses on board. When word got back to Canada, there was a justifiable outcry. Canada pushed hard for war crimes trials over these murders.

That marked the beginning of Canada’s role in ensuring that the international rule of law would apply in times of war against the unarmed, the wounded and civilians. Canada played a fundamental role in the Statute of Rome and the establishment of the International Criminal Court. Eminent Canadian jurists have prosecuted war crimes on the international stage.

For months, there have been rising concerns about the Trump administration’s attacks on boats in Latin America. Twenty-two boats have been targeted, resulting in 83 people being killed. Serious questions are now being raised as to whether these were actual drug cartel shipments or an effort by Trump to divert attention from the ongoing problems at the White House.

It was deeply concerning to hear Canada’s response to the spate of attacks off the Venezuelan coast. When pressed as to whether these extrajudicial killings constituted war crimes, Foreign Minister Anita Anand shrugged and said it was up to the United States to decide whether or not international law had been broken.

This answer represented a complete walkaway from Canada’s longstanding commitments to fighting war crimes. Those who commit the crimes may be powerful but they don’t get to decide whether or not they are guilty. The mob boss doesn’t get to decide what is legal and what is not. In light of Hegseth’s actions - including the provocative use of a Canadian cartoon character – Canada’s position must be clear.

The first strike on the boat on September 2 was a serious breach of international law. The second strike was outright murder.

Hegseth is now trying to blame an American admiral for the actions but the entire military chain of command is complicit in actions that are illegal and murderous. The Pentagon’s Law of War Manual is clear on attacking defenceless people:

“Persons who have been rendered unconscious or otherwise incapacitated by wounds, sickness, or shipwreck, such that they are no longer capable of fighting, are hors de combat (out of combat).

Persons who have been incapacitated by wounds, sickness, or shipwreck are in a helpless state, and it would be dishonorable and inhumane to make them the object of attack.”

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I understand that the use of the Canadian cartoon character Franklin in these horrific murders may seem like a non-issue but I believe it matters. There is something incredibly depraved about using an innocent children’s hero to promote murder.

I am proud to see Kids Can Press, the publishers who brought Franklin to generations of children speak up about the depravity of the Trump regime.

But this speaks to a deeper issue with the MAGA hate machine.

The Trump ascendency has been defined by a gleeful viciousness in the disregard for the law. Author Adam Serwar, in his book Cruelty is the Point, writes that public cruelty is a key factor in bringing the MAGA base together.

“Their cruelty made them feel good, it made them feel proud, it made them feel happy. And it made them feel closer to one another… Their shared laughter at the suffering of others is an adhesive that binds them to one another, and to Trump.”

But there is a more corrosive long-term impact: public displays of cruelty are meant to desensitize the population. It normalizes abuse and arbitrary denial of the rights of the weaker.

The Nazis understood this. So does the Israeli army. Gaza has witnessed horrific violence inflicted on an unarmed population by soldiers who stop to take selfies of their cruelty.

Serwer offers a warning:

“Once malice is embraced as a virtue, it is impossible to contain.”

Hegseth’s use of a child’s cartoon to brag about high seas murder was about feeding the MAGA base while attempting to desensitize the larger public to the fact that the Trump regime is engaged in very public crimes of murder.

Canada doesn’t get to sit this one out.

We are engaged in the offshore defence of the continent. We have intel obligations for dealing with gangs and drug smuggling. But we also have a duty to ensure that the rule of law is maintained.

We must speak up against the murder of civilians, whether in Gaza, Ukraine, or on fishing boats off the coast of Venezuela.

The murder of the nurses in the frigid waters off the coast of Ireland was a rallying moment for a young Canadian nation. We promised that there would be justice. And that means justice for all - whether on the high seas on in the burnt out tents of Gaza.

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