Since The Washington Post’s Nov. 28 report that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered a second missile strike to kill survivors of an alleged drug-smuggling boat coming out of Venezuela, there’s been plenty of coverage throughout the legacy media and social media platforms, including here. So I’m going to keep this short without repeating all the ins and outs and motives behind what the U.S. is doing in the Caribbean.
As my colleagues Hunter and Mark Sumner have written at The Journal of Uncharted Blue Places, it is clear that if the reporting is accurate, those killings were murder or a war crime, depending on whether we’re at war or not. There is zero gray here. Not just with those two killings, but with all 83 civilians the Defense Department says it’s blown up in the Caribbean since Sept. 2 … so far.
Our Outlaw Prez, his Mouthpiece Barbie, and Hegseth crossed wires explaining their various versions of the matter. But all three have said blowing up boats and those aboard them is perfectly legit. Hegseth claimed, however, that he hadn’t called for a second strike, falling back on a hoary “fake news” assertion. Instead, he said, choosing to scapegoat, the decision was made by Admiral Frank “Mitchell” Bradley, at the time head of the Joint Special Operations Command. Hegseth also tweeted at Xitter, and got a poke from a Foxaganda veteran:
After the Senate Armed Services Committee voted strictly along party lines to send Hegseth’s nomination to the Senate floor in January, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a committee member, said: “Senate Republicans are rushing through the most unqualified nominee for U.S. Secretary of Defense in modern history. This confirmation process has made a mockery of the Senate’s constitutional responsibility with profound national security consequences.” Given Hegseth’s history, she didn’t have to be prescient to say that. The guy was obviously unfit for the post and has proved it repeatedly. Just as has his boss.
Now that same committee is going to investigate the boat killings. If you’re a bit cynical this will be a real investigation, you’re not alone. But if Chairman Roger Wicker wants to halfway redeem himself for the pitiful judgment he displayed in voting with all the other Republicans on the committee to forward his nomination to the Senate floor, he could ask Admiral Bradley just two questions:
“Did Secretary Hegseth order a second strike on the two survivors of a first strike or did you make that decision on your own with no input from him?”
If his answer is that Hegseth gave the order, the follow-up question should be, “Did you warn the Secretary that a second strike would be illegal?”
The Pentagon’s Law of War Manual makes it clear that whichever answers Bradley gives, he could be in hot water:
This doesn’t just apply to who initially gives an order but also to who carries it out. “Just following orders” is a defense demolished at Nuremberg in 1946.
But whatever happens to Bradley (if anything), it’s the overall villainous policy that matters, and it amounts to little more than international lynchings. While the untethered Hegseth acts — as Sen. Mark Kelly says — like a 12-year-old playing army, there’s also Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who is keen on regime change in the Caribbean, and not just in Venezuela. But the buck stops with Trump. And even if he’s non compos mentis, he’s still in charge. And whoever, if anyone, pays a price for killing the survivors, it almost certainly won’t be him.
Related:
Trump's Venezuela saber-rattling reprises old U.S. diplomatic trope of Caribbean as a 'Yankee lake'
