Entire Chain of Command Could Be Held Liable for Killing Boat Strike Survivors, Sources Say

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is under increasing fire for a double-tap strike first informed by The Intercept in early September in which the U S military killed two survivors of the Trump administration s initial boat strike in the Caribbean on September The Washington Post in the past few days released that Hegseth personally ordered the follow-up attack giving a spoken order to kill everybody Multiple military legal experts lawmakers and now confidential sources within the administration who spoke with The Intercept say Hegseth s actions could aftermath in the entire chain of command being investigated for a war crime or outright murder Those directly involved in the strike could be charged with murder under the UCMJ or federal law reported Todd Huntley a former Staff Judge Advocate who served as a legal adviser on Joint Special Operations task forces conducting drone strikes in Afghanistan and elsewhere using shorthand for the Uniform Code of Military Justice This is about as clear of a scenario being patently illegal that subordinates would likely not be able to successfully use a following-orders defense The military has carried out known attacks destroying boats in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean since September killing at least civilians Since the attacks began experts in the laws of war and members of Congress from both parties say the strikes are illegal extrajudicial killings because the military is not permitted to deliberately target civilians even suspected criminals who do not pose an imminent threat of violence The summary executions are a critical departure from standard practice in the long-running U S war on drugs in which law enforcement agencies arrested suspected drug middlemen The double-tap strike on September added a second layer of illegality to strikes that experts and lawmakers say are already tantamount to murder The Pentagon s Law of War Manual is clear on attacking defenseless people Persons who have been rendered unconscious or otherwise incapacitated by wounds sickness or shipwreck such that they are no longer capable of fighting are hors de combat reads the guide using the French term for those out of combat Persons who have been incapacitated by wounds sickness or shipwreck are in a helpless state and it would be dishonorable and inhumane to make them the object of attack This fundamental tenet stretches back to the Lieber Code the first modern codification of the laws of war promulgated by President Abraham Lincoln which held that anyone who intentionally inflicts additional wounds on an enemy already wholly disabled or kills such an enemy or who orders or encourages soldiers to do so shall suffer death if duly convicted Over the weekend lawmakers expressed rare bipartisan agreement about the illegality of killing survivors Obviously if that occurred that would be very serious and I agree that that would be an illegal act Rep Mike Turner R-Ohio and a former chair of the House Intelligence Committee mentioned on CBS s Face the Nation on Sunday Sen Tim Kaine D-Va a member of the Armed Services Committee declared on CBS that if the Post s reporting was accurate the attack rises to the level of a war crime Related Secret Boat Strike Memo Justifies Killings By Claiming the Target Is Drugs Not People The Trump administration insists the attacks are defensible because it has deemed the targets alleged drug-traffickers to be terrorists On Sunday as questions mounted about the order to kill all survivors of the initial boat strike President Donald Trump stated Hegseth narrated him that he did not say that and I believe him percent As usual the fake news is delivering more fabricated inflammatory and derogatory reporting to discredit our incredible warriors fighting to protect the homeland Hegseth wrote on X White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt appeared to confirm on Monday that Hegseth authorized the double-tap attack On September Secretary Hegseth authorized Admiral Bradley to conduct these kinetic strikes she commented referring to Adm Frank Bradley then the commander of Joint Special Operations Command and now head of Special Operations Command Top Republicans and Democrats on the two congressional committees overseeing the Pentagon vowed over the weekend to increase their scrutiny of the attacks This committee is committed to providing rigorous oversight of the Department of Defense s military operations in the Caribbean House Armed Services Committee Chair Mike Rogers R-Ala and Ranking Member Adam Smith D-Wash declared in a joint message We take seriously the reports of follow-on strikes on boats alleged to be ferrying narcotics in the SOUTHCOM region and are taking bipartisan action to gather a full accounting of the operation in question Staffers on Capitol Hill explained The Intercept that they have started gathering information toward that end Sarah Harrison who advised Pentagon policymakers on issues related to human rights and the law of war in her former role as associate general counsel at the Pentagon s Office of General Counsel International Affairs announced each strike creates likely legal liability for the entire chain of command involved in the attacks While the September strike seems uniquely depraved every single strike taken against these boats by DoD is a summary execution of criminal individuals people who even if tried in court would never get the death penalty she informed The Intercept Every single strike exposes those in the chain of command to the peril of criminal liability under murder statutes and international law prohibiting extrajudicial killings Every single strike exposes those in the chain of command to the menace of criminal liability under murder statutes and international law prohibiting extrajudicial killings A administration source who has been briefed on the September strike explained The Intercept on the condition of anonymity that Hegseth is making murderers up and down the chain of command The administration insists the attacks are permitted because the U S is engaged in non-international armed conflict with designated terrorist organizations Trump has justified the attacks in a War Powers record to Congress under his Article II constitutional authority as commander in chief of the U S military and claimed to be acting pursuant to the United States inherent right of self-defense as a matter of international law The Justice Department s Office of Legal Counsel has also produced a classified opinion that provides legal cover for the lethal strikes The Former JAGs Working Group an organization made up of former and retired military judge advocates founded in February issued a comment condemning Hegseth s broadcasted kill-everybody order and its execution by subordinates as war crimes murder or both If the U S military operation to interdict and destroy suspected narco-trafficking vessels is a non-international armed conflict as the Trump Administration suggests orders to kill everybody which can reasonably be regarded as an order to give no quarter and to double-tap a target in order to kill survivors are clearly illegal under international law according to the former JAGs If the attacks are taking place outside of an armed conflict which greater part experts contend is the development the JAGs say that such orders to kill helpless civilians clinging to the wreckage of a vessel our military destroyed would subject everyone from SECDEF down to the individual who pulled the trigger to prosecution under U S law for murder After the September strike a high-ranking Pentagon official who spoke to The Intercept on the condition of anonymity reported that it was a criminal attack on civilians and that the Trump administration paved the way for it by firing the top legal executives of the Army and the Air Force earlier this year In addition to the firings Hegseth commissioned his personal lawyer Timothy Parlatore as a Navy JAG and empowered him to help overhaul the JAG corps reportedly pursuing changes that would encourage lawyers to approve more aggressive tactics and take a more lenient approach to those who violate the law of war The Former JAGs Working Group commented that if not for the systematic dismantling of the military s legal guardrails they were confident that safeguards would have prevented these crimes Related Pete Hegseth Is Gutting Pentagon Programs That Reduce Civilian Casualties In response to reporting that he ordered the U S military to kill survivors Hegseth explained in a post on X that the intent of the mission was to kill As we ve explained from the beginning and in every announcement these highly effective strikes are specifically intended to be lethal kinetic strikes Later Monday Hegseth suggested in a post on his personal X account that he wasn t responsible decisions surrounding the Sept strike Admiral Mitch Bradley is an American hero a true professional and has my aid I stand by him and the combat decisions he has made on the September mission and all others since Pentagon press secretary Kingsley Wilson failed to respond to detailed questions about the attacks Hegseth s orders and the assessments of the Former JAGs Working Group The cabinet official who noted Hegseth s orders were turning military personnel into murderers scoffed at the secretary s defense that he was allowed to offer no quarter because the strikes were intended to be lethal That s not how that works the official reported Seems like a confession declared Huntley It certainly isn t a denial The post Entire Chain of Command Could Be Held Liable for Killing Boat Strike Survivors Sources Say appeared first on The Intercept