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.
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.
What courts? The UN courts? The manual covers international law interpretation.
Depends on the accused, in case of the general it would probably be a court martial. But for the Secretary of Defence I’m not sure, might be a civil court in that case. Either way I was talking about US courts deciding on this violation of international law. There never were international courts the US would obey.
Well, you can sue for anything in civil court… But if they tried to sue the person, and not the gov, it would get tossed immediately. And the courts have established very narrow conditions to allow it if the act happened outside the US.
Oh I didn’t mean civil as opposed to criminal. I meant civil as opposed to martial.
Only if hegseth and trump wanted him to. Which they don’t.
No you are still not following. I think if Hegseth was indicted it wouldn’t be by a court-martial, because the Secretary of Defense is technically a civilian elected to an office and not an enlisted member of the armed services.
He didn’t break any US laws because the manual isn’t law, and the action happened outside the US. So I think all that can happen is he gets impeached by congress.