Press secretary Karoline Leavitt claimed the apparent war crime was legal even as she said Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth knew nothing about it.
The White House on Monday shifted the blame for killing the survivors of a U.S. military strike on an alleged drug smuggling boat from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and onto the commanding admiral.
Killing survivors of a destroyed vessel is literally an example of a war crime in the U.S. Department of Defense Law of War Manual. “For example, orders to fire upon the shipwrecked would be clearly illegal,” the manual reads.
Press secretary Karoline Leavitt, nevertheless, repeatedly stated that it was legal – even as she further claimed, as Donald Trump did Sunday, that Hegseth was unaware that it had happened.
Killing survivors of a destroyed vessel is literally an example of a war crime in the U.S. Department of Defense Law of War Manual. “For example, orders to fire upon the shipwrecked would be clearly illegal,” the manual reads.
RTFM
I didn’t see anything about reading the fan mail…
That’s like what my understanding of fubar was, face unrecognizable, belay any response.
Thanks Dad.
Combined with a pretty bad case of face blindness led me to telling a fellow classmate a professor was “fubar” in public…
I’m confused—I thought that acronym was ‘fudged up beyond any repair’? I also don’t get ‘belay any response’. Does this mean to ‘remain unresponsive’? The confusion here being that belay means to halt essentially—so the word choice doesn’t make intuitive sense to me.
If this was all just a setup for the joke, apologies for the technicalities
Your understanding of the term, assuming you replaced “fucked” with “fudged”, is correct. The explanation given by the father was a lie to avoid teaching curse words to a child.
As they should. But the fact that he chose to follow an obviously illegal order, doesn’t absolve the ones who gave that order. This should in no way, take the heat off Hegseth…or Trump himself.
Hey military— see what happens when you obey illegal orders?
⤵️🚌
I mean, probably nothing. Its not like anyone is going to investigate or prosecute. Trump’s just throwing up chaff so he can whine about the press treating him unfairly. “We didn’t do it, but if we did it would have been based and cool, and don’t think we won’t do the thing we didn’t do again if we feel like it” is exactly what I’d have expected to hear from a PR flack in the Bush or Reagan Era.
Hell, I’m pretty sure this is the line Bush Sr used when the US shot down that Iranian passenger airliner. Nobody suffered any kind of consequence for that, either. Hell, the air warfare coordinator on duty received the Navy Commendation Medal after killing a few hundred civilians.
I bet Trump’s Navy Command is going to look like late-stage Brezhnev by the time he’s finished passing out pins and ribbons for civilian casualties.
Yeah, except the investigative body in this case is not the US government.
So no consequences for them again? Got it.
So we went from denial, to it happened but it wasn’t us…
I think we’re currently in the phase where it’s rapidly undulating between both takes.
Give it another week and it’ll devolve into “what firing on shipwrecked people? What are you talking about? Lalalala, I can’t hear you!”
When do we enter the phase that no boat was even destroyed that day?
If he ordered it, or complied with the order from above, lock him up. If not, this accusation is yet another confession.
Time to make this witness cooperative.
As was said elsewhere, the transmitted command will have been recorded. The hard undeniable truth can be provided. Congress just needs to subpoena it, or a soldier with a conscience needs to whistleblow and leak it. Otherwise, we trust the liars’ word and they get away with yet more of what are unquestionably, objectively, war crimes.
Ok… So common sense would read that as: ’ it wasn’t legal, it’s a prime example of a war crime, and Pete may not have explicitly approved of that action, but probably gave a vague order like ‘no survivors’ , which the admiral took literally, and so it’s entirely the admirals fault for not disobeying an unlawful order. ’
All I want for Christmas is a military coup, cold hard justice for the traitors enabling Trump, and emergency elections, monitored by the military, and un observers
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When. When the dictator falls.
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Hmm, I wonder why Admiral Holsey decided to retire when he did. 🤔
We also don’t fight with stupid rules of engagement. We untie the hands of our warfighters to intimidate, demoralize, hunt and kill the enemies of our country. No more politically correct and overbearing rules of engagement, just common sense, maximum lethality and authority for warfighters.
Pete Hegseth [Source]
warfighters
I fucking hate the way this LARPer talks about armed forces
What do you expect? The man is a washed-up talk show host and a drunk. He is by no means the only completely unsuitable buffoon in this incompetent, criminal administration.
Just for comparison: the Secretary of Education, Lisa McMahon, is a former wrestling promoter (Vince McMahon’s wife), and the Secretary of Health, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is a conspiracy theorist and anti-vaccination advocate - not to mention the president.
All of this is so ridiculous that it would be funny if it weren’t costing so many lives…
He’s an idiot
Indeed, and a murderer
Confirming the military should not follow through with illegal orders.
Imagine believing that there’s anything “legal” about global imperialism.
As a sailor, I find the whole shoddy affair most disgusting.
Yes in war (and this was by no means a war) we may seek to kill one another as enemies, but every sailor knows, it is the sea who is the ultimate enemy.
A human adrift at sea is a pitiful thing. To save them is to save ourselves.
Can it be a war crime if you’re not actually at war? Seems like it’s just murder.
Don’t need to be at war to commit “war crimes”
There has to be an armed conflict between two or more nations. Otherwise they’re “just” crimes.
A military court has murder charges it can bring. The recent letter from JAGS Working Group specifies the war crimes and murder separately.
Edit to add article: Legal Experts Accuse Hegseth of ‘War Crimes, Murder, or Both’ After New Reporting on Boat Strike Order
Former top military lawyers on Saturday said that new reporting on orders personally given by US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in early September, when the military struck the first of nearly two dozen boats in the Caribbean, suggests Hegseth has committed “war crimes, murder, or both.”
of course,the whole concept of war crimes is hilarious.
Blow up a boat with a missile killing people? OK
Kill them after you sunk the boat? NOT OK.
Just ask any president ever in the history of USA… It’s never a crime to murder poor people.
Dear America,
You are disposable to them.
and i really wish people would understand it was that way before trump too. trump admin is a little more extreme and blunt about it.
America is a nation of purposely indoctrinated naivety and privilege that provides escapism from honest humanity. Its not just the government its the culture of arrogance. Some how you are all proud and willing to pay for people to be killed so you can remain free-range cattle for a nation of business to profits off and manipulates and uses your entire existence.
America is a threat to humanity as a whole.
Dear
AmericaEarth,You are disposable to them.
I guess we can add “war criminal” or straight up “murderer” to Trump’s list of accomplishments. It’s his administration.
Yes, this is literally every president.
True, but politics is always going to be messy. Even if Bernie Sanders took the office, I’m sure he’d have to make lots of awful decisions. But even though Obama authorized drone strikes, I doubt he ever gave orders to kill everyone, or just arbitrarily struck fishing boats because he got off on it. Maybe Obama is a war criminal, but I think he really did feel bad about it. It’s been established that Trump very literally, as in literally literally gets aroused by deporting people.
If only he was closer to his predecessors in other ways too.
Do you want the military to coup d’etat your ass? Because throwing your admiral under a
busboat will make many military leaders think…Eh, what am I saying? Please keep throwing them, we all want a coup at this point
