The infamously insane Roman emperor Caligula made his horse Incitatus a Roman Consul. Barack Obama has just nominated John Kerry to be Secretary of State. Rome, unlike the United States, at least got the entire horse.

The United States might just as well send Jared Lee Loughner or, if he was still alive, Adam Lanza, to represent it in the world community, and this is no exaggeration. John Kerry is, per his own admission, a mass murderer just like Loughner and Lanza or, to use his own words, Genghis Khan.

John Kerry: Admitted Felon, Liar, or Both

There is a huge legal difference between an admitted felon and a convicted felon. Neither John Kerry nor Barack Obama's friend William Ayers was ever convicted of a felony, but both said they committed felonies. Ayers said he was "guilty as hell, free as a bird," to which he added, "I don't regret setting bombs" and "I feel we didn't do enough." John Kerry was similarly never brought to trial for the things he said he did in Vietnam, but his own admission that he did them should be more than enough to disqualify him from any position of public trust or responsibility.

Mr. Crosby Noyes (Washington Evening Star, on Meet the Press, 18 Apr 1971): "Mr. Kerry, you said at one time or another that you think our policies in Vietnam are tantamount to genocide and that the responsibility lies at all chains of command over there. Do you consider that you personally as a Naval officer committed atrocities in Vietnam or crimes punishable by law in this country?"

Mr. Kerry: "There are all kinds of atrocities, and I would have to say that yes, I committed the same kinds of atrocities as thousands of other soldiers have committed in that I took part in shootings in free-fire zones, I conducted harassment and interdiction fire. I used .50 caliber machine guns, which we were granted and ordered to use, which were our only weapon against people. I took part in search-and-destroy missions, in the burning of villages. All of this is contrary to the laws of warfare, all of this is contrary to the Geneva Convention and all of this is ordered as a matter of written established policy by the government of the United States from the top down. And I believe that the men who designed these, the men who designed the free-fire zone, the men who ordered us, the men who signed off on the air raid strike areas, I think that these men, by the letter of the law, the same letter of the law that tried Lieutenant Calley, are war criminals."

Genghis John Kerry is therefore on record as saying that he knowingly and willfully committed actions that are contrary to the laws of warfare, including the Geneva Convention. He acknowledged that these actions were crimes punishable by law in the United States. To this he added a graphic description of other atrocities he might have perpetrated ("the same kinds of atrocities as thousands of other soldiers have committed..."):

They told the stories at times they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam in addition to the normal ravage of war, and the normal and very particular ravaging which is done by the applied bombing power of this country.

Kerry says these war crimes took place with "the full awareness of officers at all levels of command," but he leaves out the fact that he was himself an officer and therefore a purported gentleman. Even an enlisted soldier need not follow an illegal order, and the Uniform Code of Military Justice will stand behind him. Per Article 90, which relates to disobedience of orders,

An order requiring the performance of a military duty or act may be inferred to be lawful and it is disobeyed at the peril of the subordinate. This inference does not apply to a patently illegal order, such as one that directs the commission of a crime.

Furthermore, obedience of an order to commit a crime is itself a crime, as a substantial number of Nazis discovered during the Nuremberg trials.

In United States v. Keenan, the accused (Keenan) was found guilty of murder after he obeyed in order to shoot and kill an elderly Vietnamese citizen. The Court of Military Appeals held that "the justification for acts done pursuant to orders does not exist if the order was of such a nature that a man of ordinary sense and understanding would know it to be illegal."

There are no conceivable circumstances in which an order to commit rape, cut off ears and limbs, shoot randomly at civilians, shoot cattle and dogs for fun, and so on could be construed as lawful. Genghis John says that he perpetrated such actions anyway, and as an officer of the Armed Forces of the United States.

Genghis John: America's Lord Haw-Haw

Genghis John Kerry either told the truth to Crosby Noyes and the Senate Foreign Relations Commission, or else he lied. If he told the truth, he is an admitted felon. If he lied, he perpetrated a blood libel of our Armed Forces during time of war, and is therefore the moral counterpart of individuals like Axis Sally and Lord Haw Haw. The latter was hanged for treason while Axis Sally, who was an American citizen who worked for Hitler during the war, was sent to prison for treason. "The prosecution relied on the large number of her programs recorded by the Federal Communications Commission stationed in Silver Hill, Maryland, to show her active participation in propaganda activities against the United States." If Kerry lied about the atrocities, then he also deployed propaganda against the United States as a whole, and his fellow service members in particular, during time of war.

Barack Obama has already turned the government of the United States into a sick joke through his open association with individuals like William Ayers and Al Sharpton. His so-called Justice Department perpetrated what is arguably an act of war against Mexico with Operation Fast and Furious. Argentina's President, Cristina Kirchner, now construes Obama's previous issuance of the equivalent of the Zimmerman Telegram as a license to start another Falkland War. Ms. Kirchner is now channeling former dictator Leopoldo Galtieri to the extent where the United Kingdom felt it necessary to increase the Falklands' security. Obama's nomination of a self-proclaimed war criminal to represent our country as Secretary of State is entirely consistent with this track record.

William A. Levinson, P.E. is the author of several books on business management including content on organizational psychology, as well as manufacturing productivity and quality.