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.”
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!
Which means, as the law is being followed in the US right now, only the plebs at the bottom might be held responsible.
Yeah I hear Obama is going to be arrested for drone striking Yemeni civilians too #TrustThePlan #StayTuned #AreYouEnjoyingTheShow
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!”
Unless the States they are from make the charges, it’s irrelevant. States like Minnesota need to charge him with treason. Or nothing will be done.
Aka remember: Minnesota should forever be known as a murdererous pedophile defending state until they prosecute him. 0 morals or ethics, all going to hell if they support Hegseth as their religion says. They are supporters every thing against Jesus
As someone who lives in MN. Why the hate for MN? Genuinely asking, because I don’t think we’re THAT bad.
It’s because y’all lie about how many lakes you have, you dishonest bastards. 15k != 10k
- a former Minnesotan
Minnesota?
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.
Those asshats will manage to walk. The ICC should step in so they can only travel between the USA and fucking Russia.
Spoiler: they won’t.
Does being convicted of a war crime or murder make you ineligible to be Secretary of Defense?
Exactly the same amount as being a 34 time convicted felon makes you ineligible to be president
50/50 they pardon everyone or Trump uses this opportunity to forcefully retire more generals and get Hegseth out.
The war crimes don’t get pardons and have no statute of limitations.
I meant they offer the other generals a sweetheart deal of early retirement in exchange for testimony against Hegseth. IIRC some of the people involved with the torture prison in Iraq got to retire for their testimony.
“held liable” means some bad press in ‘radical left’ media at this point, right?
Prince Joffrey
This is actually the example they use of an illegal order in the DOD manual.
Page 1117 18.3.2.1 https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23892053-dod-law-of-war-manual-june-2015-updated-july-2023/
Holy moly, all that’s left to do is to add a picture of Hegseth and of the exploded boat to illustrate this paragraph. SMH.
This should be top of the thread everywhere this story is mentioned, forever.
Incredible
Nooo, but trump and all his totally cool and not criminal bros said that the president cannot give an illegal order…
No no, he limits himself to “Clearly illegal” orders, normal illegal is beneath him.
Today I learned the word tragicomical
I could bite my finger off too. Doesn’t mean shit.
Could be, but won’t. At least, not under this regime.
Maybe its ethics. Maybe some folks in the chain of command have the fear of God in them. Maybe there’s just better pay in the private sector and now is as good a time as any to cash out. But I suspect stories like this are going to be increasingly common in the run up to the '26 election.
Future President Pete Buttigieg will have a cabinet full of people who drew the line at double-tapping a Venezuelan fisherman. And they’ll be spearheading our next Great Ethical War with… idk, Argentina or South Africa or something.
we can hope for some high-profile resignations and maybe an outspoken admiral or something. And remember, it’s only Trump’s DOJ until it isn’t anymore, and I think the statute of limitations on murder is more than 3 years…
Not a Trumper soadministration’s? Implied but doesn’t this fall under the same reasoning as all the indiscriminate drone bombing from the Bush and Obama administrations?
