by Amal Zadok
Trump’s second term has become a moral crime scene: a president who claims to fight terror and drugs is literally embracing a former jihadist whose past helped kill Americans, pardoning a narco‑president whose cocaine helped destroy American lives, arming Netanyahu as Gaza is reduced to rubble, and ordering missiles on nameless men in boats while powerful killers walk free. This is not “America First”; it is a grotesque alliance of blood‑stained elites, wrapped in a flag and sold as patriotism.
The Syrian visitor is President Ahmed al‑Sharaa, once a rising figure in jihadist‑linked networks that drew a multimillion‑dollar U.S. bounty and were treated as a direct threat to American lives. A man whose circles were on U.S. terrorism lists is now ushered through White House security as an honoured guest, his history airbrushed away in the glow of photo‑ops. Trump does not just “talk” to him in some neutral venue; he grants him the prestige, the symbolism, the legitimacy of the Oval Office, and in doing so spits on the memory of Americans killed by the very networks this man once served.
MAGA voters were told Trump would be the hammer of justice against jihadists, that he would avenge the dead and protect the living, that he would end “stupid wars” while keeping America safe. Millions of decent people believed those promises in good faith because they wanted fewer body bags, less chaos, and real protection for their families. They were not wrong to want those things; they were wrong about the man they trusted to deliver them.
Then there is the ex‑president of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernández. This man did not just “look the other way.” He helped turn his country into a narco highway, enabling cartels to move hundreds of tons of cocaine into the United States – a river of powder that translates directly into overdoses, gang violence, shattered families and dead Americans.
This is not some technical, victimless crime; it is mass poisoning delivered by the ton. A U.S. jury listened to evidence and concluded, beyond reasonable doubt, that this head of state was a key player in a vast cocaine conspiracy, and a federal judge handed down a 45‑year sentence because anything less would mock the victims. And Trump blew it away: in December 2025 he signed a sweeping pardon that opened the prison gates for Hernández and declared his record wiped clean. This is policy, not accident.
With one pen stroke, he tells every grieving American parent whose child died on cocaine or crack: your pain is negotiable, your justice is reversible, and if a man wears a presidential sash, his crimes are redeemable. He tells every cop who risked their life on the street, every agent who built the case, every witness who testified against a narco‑president: all of that can be wiped away if it is politically convenient.
At the same time, Trump continues to pour political cover and weapons into Netanyahu’s hands as Gaza is pulverised and large parts of the West Bank are terrorised. This is a government openly carrying out collective punishment, bombing densely populated civilian areas, annihilating entire families, and leaving Gaza’s hospitals, neighbourhoods and basic infrastructure in ruins. Trump stands not as a restraining voice, but as an amplifier: praising Netanyahu, indulging his maximalist rhetoric, blocking accountability, and helping ensure that the bombs keep falling.
Christians are not spared. Ancient churches have been damaged or desecrated, Christian communities harassed and attacked, Christian clergy assaulted or intimidated as the war spills across the Holy Land. The land where Jesus walked is now a place where Christian sanctuaries are treated as expendable collateral, and Trump’s response is not outrage, not sanctions, not a hard line on war crimes, but more indulgence, more permission, more weapons – all wrapped in a cynical fusion of Christian language and political calculation that turns faith into a shield for atrocity.
This is the man who promised “no more endless wars” and “America First.” What did his supporters get instead? A president who invites a former jihadist to the White House one day before one of the most sacred days for the U.S. military, turning solemn remembrance into a backdrop for a grotesque photo‑op. That is not restraint; that is desecration dressed up as diplomacy.
They got a president who blesses, arms and shields a foreign leader whose campaign in Gaza and the West Bank is seen by much of the world as a live‑streamed atrocity. They got a president who outsources “war” to drones and missiles at sea, blowing up boats on suspicion, rather than formally declaring conflicts or respecting Congress. U.S. forces under Trump have repeatedly struck alleged drug boats near Venezuela and across the Caribbean, killing men whose names, faces and actual roles are still hidden from the American public. This is policy, not accident.
This is not the end of war; it is the laundering of war. It is the transformation of war into a series of “operations,” “strikes,” and “counter‑narco missions” that avoid public debate while still killing real human beings. No body bags shown on television, just shredded bodies in the Caribbean and the eastern Mediterranean, far away from American cameras.
“Drain the swamp” was supposed to mean confronting entrenched power: lobbyists, foreign money, corrupt politicians, the revolving door with arms manufacturers and foreign regimes. Instead, Trump has fused his White House to some of the dirtiest currents in global politics. He entertains a former jihadist leader, frees a convicted narco‑president whose crimes helped drown U.S. communities in cocaine, and embraces and arms a government accused of genocide, war crimes, and systematic persecution – including persecution of Christians.
He then stands back as missiles slam into small boats on the high seas, killing the poor and powerless whose only crime is being on the wrong vessel with the wrong accusation attached. The message to the world is simple: presidents and generals get invitations and pardons, while fishermen, migrants and low‑level smugglers get obliterated without trial.
How is this “draining the swamp”? The swamp has never been happier. Arms dealers profit from the weapons sent to an unrestrained Israeli war machine, and defence contractors quietly celebrate the steady flow of contracts. Foreign politicians with blood‑soaked records find forgiveness and legitimacy in Washington. Lobbyists and ideologues pushing unconditional support for the Israeli government see their agenda elevated above the lives of Palestinians, above international law, above even the safety of Christian communities in the Holy Land.
Ask plainly: is this what MAGA expected? A president who kills nameless men in boats without trial while freeing narco capos in suits? Who dignifies a former jihadist leader while preaching toughness on terror? Who backs a foreign government as it flattens Gaza, terrorises the West Bank, and allows Christian churches and communities to be attacked? Who uses patriotic slogans and Christian language as a mask for raw realpolitik and transactional alliances with killers?
All of it adds up to a single, obscene picture. This is not the hero of some populist epic. This is a villain who learned how to speak the language of the angry and betrayed, only to turn around and protect the powerful while crushing the weak. Every missile launched at a boat full of suspects, every tank round that lands on a crowded Gaza street, every quiet, smiling photo with a man who once ran with terrorists or cartels – all of it is a signature on a contract that says: power will be protected, and the rest of you are expendable.
It is like declaring total war on the Medellín Cartel while still inviting Pablo Escobar to the White House, shaking his hand, and pardoning him for every crime he committed against the American people – then turning around and hunting down desperate teenagers in speedboats to prove how “tough” you are. In this upside‑down morality, power launders guilt, the presidency launders narco‑politics, and the only people who truly face the full violence of the U.S. state are the ones too poor, too foreign and too disposable ever to see the inside of the Oval Office.
©️2025 Amal Zadok. All rights reserved.
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