“We’re going to kill them. They’re going to be, like — dead.” US President Donald Trump said to a group of reporters at a White House presscon. “I don’t think we’re necessarily going to ask for a declaration of war. I think we’re just gonna kill people that are bringing drugs into our country,” he said, according to nbcnews.com in October last year.
NBC News reported that members of Congress had become concerned over a lack of information from the administration about the intelligence and strategy behind strikes on alleged drug smuggling boats. The US had fired on suspected drug vessels in the Caribbean and Pacific Ocean since early September, killing nearly 40 people, Reuters reported.
Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum and Colombian President Gustavo Petro decried the strikes. “All the same, it is murder,” Mr. Petro said. “Whether it be in the Caribbean or the Pacific, the US government’s strategy violates the norms of international law.” Amnesty International opposes missile strikes in the Caribbean.
But to talk about killing has been Trump’s branding, even when he was running for president against Hillary Clinton in 2016. “I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters,” Trump said at a campaign rally in Idaho. Trump had joked about killing people before, CNN noted (Jan. 24, 2016).
Trump made statements condoning and encouraging violence throughout his presidency, an Axios commentary bared. During a speech to law enforcement officers in Long Island, New York, he seemingly encouraged police officers to be rough with people they were arresting, per ABC News. “Please don’t be too nice,” he said. While speaking at a Montana campaign rally, he publicly praised Montana’s Congressman Greg Gianforte (R) for assaulting a reporter. “Any guy that can do a body slam, he is my type!” Trump said. A New York Times report outlined “various strategies Trump had allegedly deliberated to keep migrants away from the US southern border, including a water-filled trench with snakes or alligators and shooting migrants in the legs to slow them down.”
President Trump ran for reelection in 2024 vowing to “carry out the largest deportation operation in American history.” Less than 14% of nearly 400,000 immigrants arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in President Trump’s first year back in the White House had charges or convictions for violent criminal offenses, according to an internal Department of Homeland Security document obtained by CBS News. The Guardian reviewed figures from ICE and Customs Border Protection (CBP) since Trump’s 2nd inauguration. Total arrests: 397,880; people currently in detention: 68,290; total deportations: 396,400 — all as of Feb. 13.
For all his to-the-death guarding of US borders, Trump breached the borders of another country, Iran, and broke international law to kill off its leaders, and its people. The BBC quoted him as saying, “Our objective is to defend the American people by eliminating imminent threats from the Iranian regime, a vicious group of very hard, terrible people. Its menacing activities directly endanger the United States, our troops, our bases overseas, and our allies throughout the world.”
The obsession seems to be to kill, kill, kill.
“On 28 February 2026, Israel and the United States began a series of strikes against Iran targeting the country’s leadership, security forces and nuclear program and missile sites. They said they aimed to induce regime change in Iran and to address concerns regarding its nuclear program. The strikes are reported to have caused both military and civilian casualties in Iran” (commonslibrary.parliament.uk). Seven days after the US and Israel began attacking Iran, explosions continue to be heard in Iran, Israel, and across several Middle Eastern countries.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s Supreme Leader who led the country since 1989, was killed during the first wave of strikes. Israel said dozens more senior figures in the powerful Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC) were also killed, according to the BBC. US forces have struck nearly 2,000 targets in Iran since Saturday, the US Central Command (CENTCOM) said last week.
The IRGC says it has launched attacks on at least 27 bases in the Middle East where US troops are deployed, as well as Israeli military facilities in Tel Aviv and other parts of Israel. So far, Iran has launched strikes across nine countries in the region: Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. An Iranian drone also struck a runway at a UK military base in Cyprus.
Casualties as of March 5 (from commonslibrary.parliament,uk): Iran, 1,332 killed; Israel, 11; US soldiers, six; Bahrain, one; Iraq, two; United Arab Emirates, three; Kuwait, four; Lebanon, 123; Oman, one; Jordan, no deaths but five injured; Qatar, no deaths, but 16 injured; Saudi Arabia, not deaths or injuries.
“And sadly, there will likely be more (deaths) before it ends,” Trump said, before adding: “That’s the way it is. Likely be more,” according to CNN.
The end does not justify the means. Killing innocent civilians, or those accused but not yet proven guilty, or even soldiers not in combat, cannot be justified in the universal morality of human co-existence. Human rights are all based on the right to live, peacefully.
DUTERTE
Human Rights Watch described former President Rodrigo R. Duterte’s alleged human rights crimes thus: “Since taking office on June 30, 2016, Duterte has carried out a ‘war on drugs’ that has led to the deaths of over 12,000 Filipinos to date, mostly urban poor. At least 2,555 of the killings have been attributed to the Philippine National Police. Duterte and other senior officials have instigated and incited the killings in a campaign that could amount to crimes against humanity.”
Duterte was arrested on March 11, 2025, by local authorities in Manila following an arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) on March 7. He is now detained in The Hague, Netherlands, awaiting trial.
Rewind to Aug. 2, 2021, when Duterte blasted the ICC whose prosecutors wanted to launch a full-blown investigation into the drug war: “You know, if you really want me — it’s over my dead body. You will only be able to take me to the Netherlands dead. You will have a carcass. I will not go there alive, you fools. But if I see you here, I will have made the first move,” he threatened (AFP/Philstar.com, June 28, 2022).
Other Duterte “kill, kill, kill” quotes (ibid.):
“Hitler massacred three million Jews. Now there are three million drug addicts (in the Philippines). I’d be happy to slaughter them.”
“If you know of any addicts, go ahead and kill them yourself as getting their parents to do it would be too painful.”
“My orders are to the police and military, also village officials, that if there is trouble or the situation arises that people fight and your lives are on the line, shoot them dead.”
“Just because you’re a journalist you are not exempted from assassination, if you’re a son of a bitch.”
Rodrigo Duterte has admitted killing suspected criminals during his time as mayor of Davao City, CNN news noted in a December 2016 article, citing Duterte’s crass “braggadocio” about wanting to kill, kill, kill: “In Davao, I used to do it personally. Just to show the guys that, if I can do it, why can’t you?’ Duterte said. ‘And (I’d) go around Davao with a motorcycle, with a big bike around and I would just patrol the streets and looking for trouble also. I was really looking for an encounter so I could kill.’”
He made those remarks at the Wallace Business Forum in Manila on Dec. 12, 2016, according to the CNN article. Since taking power in June, Duterte waged a brutal “war on drugs” that was linked to more than 5,900 deaths in less than six months, CNN said.
On Sept. 27, 2018, during a speech before government executives, Duterte said, “Ang kasalanan ko lang, ’yung mga extrajudicial killing (My only sin is the extrajudicial killings).” He also threatened to “hit the head” of the ICC prosecutor.
Duterte’s then spokesperson, Harry Roque, later clarified that the President was “not serious” and was only being “playful,” and that what he meant to say was that extrajudicial killings are the only issue his administration is being accused of. (amnesty.ca, Sept. 28, 2018).
The death toll from the government’s “war on drugs” from July 1, 2016 to Aug. 31, 2018 stands at 4,854, according to government figures. Human rights groups, however, say the actual number could be up to three times this figure (Ibid.).
In 2018, the Senate commenced a serious inquiry into Duterte’s extrajudicial killings (EJKs) and his open admission of authoring and accomplishing them. In a Sept. 28 press release, Akbayan Senator Risa Hontiveros posted, “Duterte will have to pay wages of his sin of extrajudicial killings.” Duterte’s public admission of having sinned over rampant EJKs points to three important things:
1. it confirms the existence of Duterte’s EJKs
2. It establishes the President’s accountability for the killing
3. it serves as evidence in the pursuit of justice.
“Truly, a fish is caught by its mouth and a foul man by his deeds,” Ms. Hontiveros said. “President Duterte is the best witness against himself. By admitting to the extrajudicial killings, he owned full responsibility and accountability for countless cases of killings in our country. Sooner or later, President Duterte will have to pay the wages of his sin of extrajudicial killings” (translated to English from Pilipino).
“Kill, kill, kill” can never be considered playful “hyperbole” — not for Duterte, not for Trump, not for anybody who is in his/her normal mind, who knows killing is immoral and criminal. Only God gives life and takes life.
“Who is this stupid God? This son of a whore is really stupid in that sense. You created something perfect and then you think of an event that would tempt and destroy the quality of your work,” Duterte once said. But let not the alibi of insanity save him from the ICC charges of crimes against humanity.
Amelia H. C. Ylagan is a doctor of Business Administration from the University of the Philippines.
