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.
I can’t believe it was Joe Biden that flew the plane.
I heard Obama told him too
Pretty sure Obama was the weapons specialist on board… gees.
Hillary coordinated it all from email!
It’s all on the private server!
And all the males Hunter buttered up!
Get me those laptops photos!
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.
I think it works as instructions on how to face Cthulhu. Or maybe explains deer reacting to headlights.
Edit: I was reading ‘face’ as a verb as in 'to confront", instructing you to face the unrecognizable.
On the other hand I guess it could be a suggestion that you hide any recognizable facial responses to something.
If it’s any consolation, more than several professors ARE fubar
It was LEGAL but ALSO Pete Hegseth DIDNT know about it AND we Fired someone Over it!
Confirming the military should not follow through with illegal orders.
Imagine believing that there’s anything “legal” about global imperialism.
I guess we can add “war criminal” or straight up “murderer” to Trump’s list of accomplishments. It’s his administration.
If only he was closer to his predecessors in other ways too.
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.
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.
Admiral should’ve remembered the oldest rule in the military… “shit always rolls downhill.” Don’t think for a second that your superior will cover for you when something like this happens, even if they gave the order and should also be held accountable.
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
Technicality question. Doesn’t the sec def make the rules for the manual. Like he can just change them on a whim. And the manual isn’t law, congress didn’t vote on it right? So it might technically be legal under US law. Though I doubt the airhead knows anything about that. As for war crimes and such… the US has been killing whoever it wants for a long time now. But… throwing the admiral under the bus… that could have real consequences that I can’t wait to see.
The manual is the interpretation of the meaning of existing laws. Its not new law and changing the manual doesn’t change the law. And neither Hesgeth or Trump have the authority to change those laws just because they want to.
So I looked it up. The DoD owns the manual. They can change it if they want. And it is an interpretation of international law. So technically, what was done is legal per US law. International law is pretty sketchy. Since it lacks robust enforcement, it pretty much means nothing unless a world power decides it does. So she may technically be right on that one. But of course the question shouldn’t be if it was legal. It should be was it “right”. Which it most certainly was not.
Yeah but they didn’t change it though, so it was forbidden under the current rules. Too late to change that.
I am willing to bet that nothing in it rules out retroactive changes. It’s a manual, not the letter of law. And really, it is more of a guide.
And I am willing to bet that nothing in it allows it. Not sure how that would be relevant though?
You can’t be held to a standard that didn’t apply at the time of the incident, but the standard that did apply during the incident clearly forbade it. So it doesn’t matter even if they change it now, because judgement would have to be made in the context of the rules applicable at the time. Of course Trump could just pardon whoever gets found guilty…
You saying how it “should” be. But nothing stops them ftom changing the standard retroactively, which is relevant because it means change the standard now, and judge people’s actions based on the new standard. They can do that. They shouldn’t, but they can. And this guy certainly would if it was in his favor.
I doubt any court would agree to that line of reasoning if this ever goes to trial. The real problem is the administration is just openly ignoring the courts that don’t rule in their favour. And again, Trump has pardoning power for federal crimes.
Right, except the problem is that it creates a very easy argument under which everyone involved COULD be prosecuted. Probably not by THIS DOD, but we still have elections in America and this makes it easy for the next bunch.
Perhaps the core problem is that the people expected to follow the rules get to make them too. That usually works out well.
Except they don’t. These are laws passed by Congress just like every other law.
The manual is for interpretations of international law. Not US law. So no congress involved.
Hmm, I wonder why Admiral Holsey decided to retire when he did. 🤔
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.
the first one is illegal since we’re not at war, they weren’t an immediate threat, etc
the second is super illegal cause it’s considered a war crime
Exactly. The reason why there’s so much heat on this particular incident is simply because there’s zero grey area. Like, in general the blowing up “drug boats” stuff is almost certainly a war crime, but it at least falls within the “Lawyers can argue it in court” realms. Whereas killing survivors of a sunken ship is literally the textbook definition of a warcrime in the US military’s own manual on this stuff. It is so cut and dried that they use it as an example of a de facto illegal act.
Just ask any president ever in the history of USA… It’s never a crime to murder poor people.
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?
The Narcissist’s Prayer:
That didn’t happen.
And if it did, it wasn’t that bad.
And if it was, that’s not a big deal.
And if it is, that’s not my fault. <— we are here
And if it was, I didn’t mean it.
And if I did, you deserved it.
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.
This demonstrates another reason why you shouldn’t obey clearly illegal orders. If you kill someone on the illegal order of a superior and then they deny having given the order, guess who’s gonna hang for it?
Tbh I’d you joined the military and didn’t figure this out beforehand, you didn’t do enough research.
Nobody, apparently. They think that if they pass the blame enough, most people will forget it ever even happened. They are right.
Until we start lynching killer cops in the streets, they’ll never even think about holding their own accountable. It is only the threat of direct, immediate consequences that will have any effect on the status quo
I mean did you expect anyone in maga to take responsibility for anything negative?
Follow illegal orders, get thrown under the bus.
Dont follow illegal orders, get thrown under the bus.
Stop the bus
you know I’m starting to think that maybe they should just deal with the people giving the orders
That’s very uncommon for brainwashed crowd called “military” to do so.
… and following the orders.
Yes, the actual problem is people following orders.
Its probably best to distance from the MAGA insanity if at all possible.
