SECRETARY OF DEFENSE Pete Hegseth is under increasing fire for a double-tap strike, first reported by The Intercept in early September, in which the U.S. military killed two survivors of the Trump administration’s initial boat strike in the Caribbean on September 2.
The Washington Post recently reported that Hegseth personally ordered the follow-up attack, giving a spoken order “to kill everybody.” Multiple military legal experts, lawmakers, and now confidential sources within the government who spoke with The Intercept say Hegseth’s actions could result in the entire chain of command being investigated for a war crime or outright murder.
“Those directly involved in the strike could be charged with murder under the UCMJ or federal law,” said Todd Huntley, a former Staff Judge Advocate who served as a legal adviser on Joint Special Operations task forces conducting drone strikes in Afghanistan and elsewhere, using shorthand for the Uniform Code of Military Justice. “This is about as clear of a case being patently illegal that subordinates would probably not be able to successfully use a following-orders defense.”
Just like the Jan 6 hearings, they will drag it out for political points, but have no intention to seek actual charges, institutional change, military reform or anything.
It will just be: “Look at all the evil shit they did! Don’t you wish something could be done! Oh well. Also Maduro bad m’kay, drugs bad m’kay, Hamas bad m’kay, we love troops m’kay. Hearing adjourned!”
Could.
But won’t.
Those asshats will manage to walk. The ICC should step in so they can only travel between the USA and fucking Russia.
I guess I don’t understand why the second strike is worse than the first one?
Because the vast majority of Western nations (including the US) consider it to be a war crime to deliberately make a military strike against survivors of an attack that pose no active threat.
Even that assumes that the original strike has military merit in the first place, which isn’t really the case when they are blowing up unarmed boats that might or might not be carrying drugs.
It’s not that it’s worse in any way, a person killed is dead either way, it’s that there’s no possible defense and it clearly demonstrates the intentional and likely premeditated illegality, making it possible to actually make a substantive case against it. It’s not realistic to apply a full legal process to every individual military misdeed or act of war, no matter how much many people might wish it were. We don’t live in a perfect world. The list of actual war crimes is intended to include things which are clearly demonstrable with enough evidence that a conviction could be realistic.
It’s the difference between running someone over once, which could be a simple accident and we can’t and probably shouldn’t prosecute every single pedestrian death as first degree murder, it might serve justice to try to do that in some ways, but it’s not realistic and also has the potential to be unjust.
Compare that to someone then stopping, backing up and running the same person over again. It removes any possibility of doubt whether the action was an intentional targeted crime and makes it a lot more worthwhile to prosecute. Neither one makes the person any more dead than the other. But one is almost certainly a lot easier to prove to be murder.
The UCMJ uses “firing on shipwrecked persons” as a specific example of an illegal order.
Firing on an operating crewed ship is, in a very, very broad sense, potentially justifiable. Firing on a disabled ship whose crew is not firing back is not.
I see. I guess me thought is…they wrecked their ship.
Exactly, and because the ship was wrecked the people in the water were no longer a threat.
The loophole they will try to use is those are war crimes.
We are not at war.
They are going to try to frame this as killing criminals, not enemy combatants. It’s transparently evil, but that’s what they’ll do to get away with it.
Or just say fuck it and issue pardons for all involved. If they even get charged in the first place.
We are not at war.
Seems this is just the way now, to never actually declare war, just carry it out?
“Respect the chain of command.” - Babylon 5 TV show
Same thing Democrats said recently. Same thing Milley said last time Trump put soldiers on streets years ago. Back then Trump also said Milley should be hanged for saying it.
I love B5 and while the show might look a bit dated now the message sure as fuck is not.
Oh boy! There going to pay for this now!
/s
Must not could
deleted by creator
Could be, should be, won’t be
Oh don’t worry, those down the chain will be prosecuted. Just not Hegseth.
Although that’s not totally inappropriate (although ideally he would be prosecuted too but for so many things not just this) because it’s also their responsibility to disobey illegal orders.
Theyd have to walk back their tantrum about veterans saying illegal orders are illegal
That would require the administration’s own people to bring those charges.
And I can already tell you the words you’re going to hear if this makes it to court. “Unlawful Combatant”, a designation we created so we could ignore the rules of war while fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq. Trump declared the Venezuelan drug cartels to be terrorists. Now they’re treating them like we treated the Taliban in Afghanistan.
These guys are literally just waiting for the next outrageous thing to push this one out of the news cycle.
And yeah, we’ve been doing airstrikes like this for 20 years.
Ok, do it.
And they should be, MAGA is a terrorist organization
Who went out of their way to find the character for a backwards apostrophe that isn’t on the keyboard?
backtick is on my keyboard and used in Markdown
Y’all mother fuckers ebeying in advance. These assholes will be held accountable. Call your representatives! Don’t assume their power is so great because it’s not!
Don’t “y’all” me, we ain’t kin and you don’t know me.
And what I do on Ebay is my own business, Bubba.
Except the Democrats have basically just announced they are going to do nothing because their efforts wouldn’t go anywhere. So better off not trying.
You are absolutely right. And even if they only end up charging some random lieutenant at the bottom of the chain, it will send a message to the rest of the troops that they will not be protected from the consequences of their actions.
Our representatives are literally owned by Israel and Israel loves this administration so I doubt we’ll get anything except a congressional hearing where they get a pool noodle beating for an hour or two. Why isn’t Trump in prison? That was a slam dunk case
Yeah I hear Obama is going to be arrested for drone striking Yemeni civilians too #TrustThePlan #StayTuned #AreYouEnjoyingTheShow
Lol, OK.
Still waiting for heads to roll for the CIA torture programme. The only person who went to prison was the whistleblower.
