Hegseth Underbusses an Admiral

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

Every year new words emerge through popular usage and gain entry into our daily vocabulary.  The big on-line dictionaries entertain us toward the end of the year with their selections of the best of the new words.  Last week the Oxford English dictionary announced that "rage bait" was its word of the year. (Rage bait is something posted on-line with the intent of angering others and getting reactions.)   The Cambridge dictionary went with "parasocial," a one-sided relationship where one party feels an intimacy with another party who may not even be aware of the party of the first part - such as between a fan and a celebrity.

Dictionalry.com  chose "67," (pronounced"six-seven") a term signifying vagueness and indecisiveness and used by people to show they are "in the know" or part of an elite group which understands such vague lingo as"67."   Collins dictionary chose "vibe coding," a software development practice that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to generate, refine, and debug code based on natural language prompts.

Merriam-Webster, a leader in on-line and print dictionaries, has yet to announce their word of the year for 2025, so I decided to speed things along a bit by offering my recommendation.  It is a verb that I saw used on the internet for the first time yesterday, but knew immediately what it meant - and with Trump in the White House it could slip into common usage very quickly.

The word is "underbus," which sounds as though it might be an adjective, perhaps describing a type of road scale for weighing large vehicles, but in the news story I was reading it was clearly used as a verb.

The story where "underbus" was used is still controlling the news cycles two days after it first broke.  It is the one about Trump's "war" on small boats in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific, one he describes as a "war" on narco-terrorists, and an effort on which he is completely focused except when he is pardoning rich and politically-connected narco-terrorists from the same region.

The Trump administration began attacking small boats in the Southern Caribbean and Eastern Pacific in early September of 2025 and quit releasing information on those attacks on November 15th of 2025.  During the time that the administration was being transparent about its "war," they reported 21 strikes on 22 vessels with a dead body count of 83 people.  The claim was continually made by the administration that the boats were transporting drugs, though no evidence to back up that claim was ever presented to the press or the public.

Last week the Washington Post ran a story which said that in an attack on September 2nd, two survivors were seen clinging to debris in the water, and that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth ordered a second strike to kill the two survivors.  The administration response since that story came out has gone from Ramboesque braggadocio about the might of the US and its military, to bickering over legal definitions, and finally to serious underbussing.

Donald Trump, who takes quickly takes credit for anything that goes right or is seen to have strong pubic approval, backed away from the killings when the level of concern from members in both parties of Congress began rising and the public started demanding answers.  Trump decided that he had been unaware of the matter and had left it all with his inexperienced and unqualified Secretary of Defense.   Hegseth roared like a lion for a bit, but as the water he was in began to heat, he underbussed the matter to a navy admiral, and said that poor man ultimately gave the order to kill those evil drug smugglers.  As of yet, the admiral apparently has not passed the blame on to his secretary.

A couple of weeks ago a group of six Democratic members of Congress, all military veterans and/or members of the US Intelligence community filmed and released a video reminding members of the military that they are obligated NOT to follow illegal orders.  The video incensed Trump who used it for political purposes as he referred to those mmbers of Congress as "traitors."  There was even talk from Trump and Hegseth about bringing Senator Mark Kelly, one of the group Trump called "the seditious six," back to active duty so that he could be court-martialed for taking part in the video.

And then the Washington Post broke the story about the murder of the two survivors of the attack on their small boat.    It we are legitimately at war, then the act of killing those two fishermen or sailors could rise to the level of a "war crime."  If we are not at war, those two unarmed individuals clinging to floating debris were murdered.  Either way it will make for a nasty stain on somebody's reputation, and maybe even bring some time in the slammer.

The six members of Congress who reminded members of the military of their obligation to uphold the Constitution and not follow illegal orders have been vindicated.  The buck no longer stops on the President's desk - he was off playing golf and had no knowledge of the incident whatsoever.  The Defense Secretary said he had "moved on to another gig" when the act occurred, so he didn't know about it either.  If you are the lowly triggerman in a war crime - just following orders - you are very likely going to own the entire thing when the underbusing reaches you.

Somebody will ultimately pay for this war crime or murder - maybe - and my money is on the admiral's secretary - unless she has an assistant.