Op-Ed: Tammy Duckworth becomes a voice for Asian America

By Emil Amok Guillermo

Does any Asian American disagree with me that Pete Hegseth is the most incompetent Defense Secretary in the history of the U.S?

Hegseth is so unqualifed for the post that he gives a bad name to affirmative action—for whites. Better if he were a nepo-baby. He practically is the fantasy love child of Donald Trump.

This weekend, Hegseth was in California—the most Asian American state in the nation—but he wasn’t backing down a bit from his statement that the U.S. acted within its legal authority when U.S. forces fatally struck alleged drug boats in the Caribbean.

So who is speaking out for Asian Americans on the issue? 

It’s one thing when an Asian American speaks out on issues like immigration or birthright citizenship that directly relates to our broad AAPI community.

But when it comes to more general issues where our Asianness may seem to some as  irrelevant, then who speaks for us? 

Do we just clam up and become invisible, believing we have no standing to talk? Poppycock. 

Do we just selectively bypass the issue because it’s about Venezuela? Or do we save our ammo for direct issues that impact AAPI?

Why do that? These are American issues.

Asian Americans cannot afford to stay silent on war criminality. 

Thank goodness then for Sen. Tammy Duckworth, the Thai-born, Iraq War purple heart, who serves as the junior senator from Illinois. 

If you haven’t figured out your position on Pete Hegseth’s apparent double-tap boat strikes against alleged drug traffickers in the Caribbean, or whether you should care, all you need to do is hear Sen. Duckworth.

Were Hegseth’s military actions illegal? The strikes are acts of war, according to Duckworth. And with no vote in Congress the U.S. military isn’t authorized to be at war.

“The individuals in that boat were not even aimed at the United States, so everything (the U.S. has) done is illegal,” Duckworth told CNN on the “State of the Union.” “It’s illegal under international law. It’s illegal under the Geneva Convention, and it certainly is even illegal under domestic law. It was essentially murder with that double-tap strike.”

Who else has spoken out as an Asian American political leader in Congress with such unhesitating directness.

Duckworth has personal experience as an Iraq War vet who has been shot down behind enemy lines and forced to bail. “Under all international laws of warfare, you are supposed to help render aid to that individual,” Duckworth said. “You are not allowed to go back in and kill them, even if you know that they’re going to conduct future operations against you. That’s the Geneva Convention.”

Duckworth was clear there was no mistake. This was a war crime.

“You had two survivors clinging to half of a boat,” Duckworth said to CNN. “And then you went in and you killed them. That’s a war crime.”

She says if the administration really cared about drug traffickers, then it wouldn’t be pardoning people like Juan Orlando Hernandez,the former Honduran president who had been convicted of trafficking more than 400 pounds of cocaine and sentenced to 45 years in federal prison.

I first saw Duckworth in 2008 when I covered the presidential campaign and saw Duckworth introduced to the nation at the Democratic National Convention in Denver.

I watched her speech with a veteran AAPI civil rights leader and after hearing her we both felt, Duckworth as the first female double amputee from the Iraq War, was a leader of the future.

Now more than 17 years later, we see here with other emerging AAPI leaders.  Rho Khanna on the Epstein Files is one. Rob Bonta the California State Attorney General suing Trump over illegal administration actions is another.

But Duckworth is special. Too bad she was born in Thailand and can’t be president. Look at the field of AAPI political voices and who else speaks with the moral clarity of a Tammy Duckworth?

Granted Hegseth’s sins may seem easy to condemn. But no one does so as bluntly and effectively as a vet like Duckworth. It quite the opposite compared to the majority of  Republicans who are mostly mute, sticking with Hegseth like he’s a natural born son of Teflon Don. 

It leaves us with the sad prospect of more war crimes to come.

Emil Guillermo is a veteran journalist, commentator, and humorous monologist. He has written a weekly column on Asian American race, culture and political issues for more than 30 years. 

See him  do excerpts from his storytelling show at the Marsh on Monday in San Francisco, December 15. See him talk on Asian American issues with Prof. Dan Gonzales on Emil Amok’s Takeout on YouTube.com/@emilamok1