How Long Does Hegseth Survive His Support for Illegal Actions? – MishTalk

Hegseth openly condones war crimes. The Senate is investigating.

Shooting the Wounded

The Wall Street Journal comments Shooting the Wounded on Drug Boats?

Congress is mostly a media circus these days, so credit the members who take their duties seriously. Lawmakers are doing a public service by trying to get to the truth on whether the Trump Administration killed defenseless survivors of a drug-boat strike.

The controversy involves a Washington Post report that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered that no one survive a Sept. 2 missile strike on an alleged drug boat in the Caribbean. The story cites unidentified sources claiming that the U.S. military, on Mr. Hegseth’s orders, conducted a second strike to finish off survivors clinging to the destroyed boat.

Mr. Hegseth called the story “fabricated, inflammatory and derogatory,” and said U.S. actions have been “in compliance with the law of armed conflict—and approved by the best military and civilian lawyers, up and down the chain of command.”

President Trump added Sunday that the Secretary “said he did not say that, and I believe him, 100%.” Mr. Trump added that he’ll “look into it, but no, I wouldn’t have wanted that, not a second strike.”

But the charge of deliberately killing the defenseless is serious enough to warrant a close look from Congress. That includes Mr. Hegseth giving an account under oath. The Administration so far seems to think it can ride out the story with ritual denunciations of the media.

If Mr. Hegseth is right, then the factual record will support him. There are layers of bureaucracy between the Secretary of Defense and the business end of a missile. You can bet senior military officers bought insurance on their own careers by recording the advice they gave and the directions they received.

The Pentagon’s own law of war manual prohibits “hostilities on the basis that there shall be no survivors.” Such excesses will also turn the public against allowing a President the power he may someday need to defend the country’s interests quickly.

The Law? Who Gives a Damn?

Open Support for War Crimes

Hegseth: “Start with the baseline. We have 20 million people invading the country for four years and we don’t know where they are coming from. … I wish everybody could be in the room watching our professionals like Mitch Bradley … and I have empowered them to make that call. I watched that strike. I didn’t stick around for that hour, or two-hour or whatever. I moved on to my next meeting. A couple hours later I learned that commander made – and he had the complete authority to do – and by the way Admiral Bradley made the correct decision – to ultimately sink the boat and eliminate the threat. He sunk the boat and eliminated the threat. It was the right call. We have his back. And the American people are safer because narco-terrorists know you can’t bring drugs through the water – and eventually on land if necessary – we will eliminate that threat and are proud to do it.

A friend of mine is fond of saying “Judge a man by his enemies.”

I suggest we judge a man by his willful disregard for the law, willingness to condone war crimes, and his associates.

Hegseth just stated he was proud to approve of war crimes. We still do not know if Hegseth gave the order or if Bradley gave the order. But we do know that oner of them did. And we also know Hegseth openly condones war crimes.

And from the first clip, “We don’t fight with stupid rules of engagement.”

The logic of my friend amounts to this “The enemy of my enemy is my friend”. How has that idea has worked out in the Mideast or anywhere else?

I also find it amusing “We have 20 million people invading the country for four years and we don’t know where they are coming from.”

I thought Trump stopped the “invasion”. Didn’t he brag about that?

Killing Survivors Is Not a legal or Moral Gray Area

The LA Times author Jon Duffy, a retired Navy captain, says Killing survivors is not a legal or moral gray area

If the United States has been firing second missiles at the survivors of its own strikes, we are no longer debating policy. We are describing a nation committing the very acts it once prosecuted others for. We have become what we once condemned.

There is a rule every professional military knows it cannot break: You do not kill people who can no longer fight. This restraint is not because it is merciful or sentimental. You don’t do it because the moment you do, you are no longer engaged in war. You are no longer fighting an enemy. You are killing for the state.

The Geneva Conventions forbid violence against anyone “placed hors de combat,” or “out of the fight.” The Department of Defense’s Law of War Manual restates this without qualification. Section 18.3.2.1 even states, “For example, orders to fire upon the shipwrecked would be clearly illegal.” Every American service member learns it before deploying. Killing people who are swimming for their lives is not a “disputed framework.” It is the abandonment of law.

We know that a senior lawyer at U.S. Southern Command raised legal concerns and was sidelined from the process. Silencing a dissenting voice is not the act of a confident military. It is the act of one that knows its actions cannot withstand scrutiny. We know the SOUTHCOM commander, Admiral Alvin Holsey, abruptly announced his retirement amid these operations. While we do not yet know whether he objected, resisted or simply stepped aside — the effect was unmistakable: The last check on illegality disappeared, and the killing continued. That is not professionalism. That is a force conditioned to obey at the moment it most needed to resist.

A second missile does not fire itself. Killing survivors requires the participation or assent of entire layers of command: intelligence analysts, targeteers, pilots, strike cell leads, watch officers, military lawyers, commanders, post-strike assessors. This was not a lone aviator making a catastrophic judgment. This was institutional, and the institution committed a crime.

Firing on the defenseless is not a gray area or “irregular warfare.” Our uniforms may be cleaner, the legal memos more elaborate, the language more sanitized — but the act is the same. These are war crimes — ordered from the very top of the chain of command. And the consequence is unmistakable: the collapse of the moral credibility of American power.

There must be investigations. There must be consequences — reaching as far up the chain of command as the facts demand. A military that kills the helpless is not operating in a fog of war. It has crossed the final boundary separating a professional force from a system designed to execute, not to think. Once that boundary is breached, there is no such thing as “good order and discipline.” There is only obedience in service of harm.

A nation that orders its service members to kill the defenseless is not being protected by its military. It is morally injuring its warriors, dishonoring the institution they serve and disfiguring itself.

And a nation that tolerates this — without outrage, without accountability, without demanding that it stop immediately — can make no claim to exceptionalism. It has surrendered its soul.

Jon Duffy is a retired Navy captain. His active duty career included command at sea and national security roles. He writes about leadership and democracy.

Listen to This Deranged Puppet

Excuse me for asking but when did we declare war?

Department of War Crimes