More than 80 people killed in campaign that law-of-war experts have labeled extrajudicial murder
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth reportedly gave a verbal order to leave no survivors behind as Donald Trump’s administration launched the first of more than a dozen attacks on alleged drug-running boats that have killed more than 80 people over the last three months.
On September 2, U.S. military personnel fired a missile striking a vessel in the Caribbean that carried 11 people accused of trafficking drugs into the United States.
When two survivors emerged from the wreckage, a Special Operations commander overseeing the attack ordered a second strike to comply with Hegseth’s instructions to “kill everybody,” according to The Washington Post, citing officials with direct knowledge of the operation.
I’m a world where laws mattered those words would haunt him all the way to the gallows.
If anybody is still under the impression that someone somewhere in the chain of command might refuse illegal orders, this tells you everything you need to know
If they didn’t kill everyone, it’s possible one of them would be able to prove there were no drugs and this is just racism…
It probably was drugs - but that is not the point. It’s wildly unethical and a violation of many rules of war to simply kill people like they are doing.
We don’t summarily execute people at the president’s say.
Seriously. Even domestically they aren’t allowed to just waltz into a drugden and open fire.
I mean, they still do but they are least have the claim that they fired in self defence. Not so much when you do it with drone strikes and missiles.
We don’t summarily execute people at the president’s say.
Yeah… no.
Sorry, I was using “parent telling a child ‘we don’t hit people’ voice”.
The “I was just following orders” defense is gonna be used a loooot in the future
Won’t be the last time he issues that command
“Sir, what should we do this Martin Luther King day?”
