Commander Ordered Strike On Alleged Drug Boat Survivors To Comply With Hegseth Demand
My Note: When will enough be enough? Is not congress also guilty of abdicating its authority to Trump? I have friends that think that Trump's actions are acceptable. In what political world are actions like this OK?
In early September, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered a U.S. strike force command to kill everyone on board a suspected drug-trafficking boat in the Caribbean, The Washington Post reported, leading to a second strike on a pair of incapacitated survivors that appears to constitute a war crime.
“The order was to kill everybody,” one source with knowledge of the operation told the Post [Washington].
The Sept. 2 attack represented the first of many strikes on alleged drug traffickers in the region, even though fentanyl — a prime contributor to overdose deaths — does not tend to come from Central and South America.
U.S. military commanders were apparently shocked to see two survivors clinging to the flaming boat once smoke from the first strike cleared. The second strike, apparently to comply with Hegseth’s instructions, reportedly killed the two survivors.
To date, the Trump administration’s hotly controversial strikes on supposed drug boats in the Caribbean and the Pacific Ocean have left some 80 people dead, although little is known about their identities or whether they were, in fact, trafficking drugs.
BBC: A former chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Court (ICC) has told the BBC that US air strikes on alleged drug smuggling boats would be treated under international law as crimes against humanity.
I was an infantryman in Vietnam and saw instances of unfortunate civilian deaths. Every trainee, then and now, is instructed on the rules of warfare. This instance is nothing short of a war crime and those engaged in it should be charged with a crime. That starts at the top, if Hegseth ordered a strike on the survivors floundering in the water; the commander for passing on the order to the kill team; and, the actual person who pulled the trigger. There is a debate as to the claim of "just following orders." That excuse did not pan out at the post World War 2 Nuremberg trials when some Nazis claimed that excuse. Any discussion deals with trying to make an assessment as to figuring out whether an order is legal or not. Many times it comes down to an instance when it is so obvious, as in this case. Sometimes people wonder how it was possible for the Nazis to do what they did to fellow human beings during World War 2. Unfortunately, that is what is occurring in the USA today. This is a gross instance of illegal action, but there are thousands of others who do the bidding of the president and abuse the citizens of this country; natural born citizens to the undocumented. IMHO, the mindset of the current president is akin to the mindset of that 1930's German leader.
ReplyDeleteWell thought out comment - Thank you.
ReplyDeleteIf the FACTS turnout that the smugglers were shot down in the water then heads should roll. Every President in my lifetime has pushed the envelope and in a lot of instances been shot down in the courts That is how the initial attacks on the boats should play out Unfortunately the HUFF Post and others are so desperate that they go overboard as in this case.Nazis? Really-how simplistic.The intent of the Nazis was to eliminate the Jews. The intent here was to prevent drugs from entering the USA. That attempt may turn out to be illegal . But at least consider Maduro who lost
ReplyDeletethe election but continues to rule by force for purposes of his drug empire.
and if you are having a cow about the "undocumented" where were you when nothing was done to prevent their entry in the 1st place?
Suggest you save your energy for the upcoming battle with the GOP who intends to make us a scapegoat in the upcoming election . Otherwise you will end up with no way to pee when out in public