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 mean did you expect anyone in maga to take responsibility for anything negative?
This is the whole point of “chain of command”. The suckers are at the bottom. This admiral should be grateful that he’s not dead in the ditch somewhere like his victims abroad and in the lower ranks.
Dear America,
You are disposable to them.
Dear
AmericaEarth,You are disposable to them.
and i really wish people would understand it was that way before trump too. trump admin is a little more extreme and blunt about it.
America is a nation of purposely indoctrinated naivety and privilege that provides escapism from honest humanity. Its not just the government its the culture of arrogance. Some how you are all proud and willing to pay for people to be killed so you can remain free-range cattle for a nation of business to profits off and manipulates and uses your entire existence.
America is a threat to humanity as a whole.
Confirming the military should not follow through with illegal orders.
Imagine believing that there’s anything “legal” about global imperialism.
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
Exactly
I guess we can add “war criminal” or straight up “murderer” to Trump’s list of accomplishments. It’s his administration.
Yes, this is literally every president.
If only he was closer to his predecessors in other ways too.
Hey military— see what happens when you obey illegal orders?
⤵️🚌
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.
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.
Can it be a war crime if you’re not actually at war? Seems like it’s just murder.
Just ask any president ever in the history of USA… It’s never a crime to murder poor people.
Don’t need to be at war to commit “war crimes”
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.
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.”
Follow illegal orders, get thrown under the bus.
Dont follow illegal orders, get thrown under the bus.
Yes, the actual problem is people following orders.
you know I’m starting to think that maybe they should just deal with the people giving the orders
… and following the orders.
That’s very uncommon for brainwashed crowd called “military” to do so.
Its probably best to distance from the MAGA insanity if at all possible.
Stop the bus
I can’t believe it was Joe Biden that flew the plane.
I heard Obama told him too
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!
Pretty sure Obama was the weapons specialist on board… gees.
Oh look, exactly what Mark Kelly was talking about. Shit rolls down hill guys. Remember that when someone orders you to murder people.
The top brass who aren’t full on MAGA, but didn’t leave now have clear proof that they are expendable and will be scapegoated to protect Trump and his croneys. Honestly showing their hand at this stage gives me a lot of hope that any coup won’t happen now and resistance will be strengthened from within. I smell leaks coming!
I just followed the orders.
the beautiful part is that if they followed the orders, they get thrown under the bus. If they DIDN’T follow the orders, they get thrown under the bus. Can’t win.
I’d rather be illegally discharged and deal with that in court than proceed to murder people so my boss isn’t mad at me.
And this is one of the many, many good reasons why one does not comply with illegal orders, damn it!
Ah, yes the most upstanding army that didn’t comply to illegal orders in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria et al.
The fuck you guys smoking?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fragging
A proud American tradition
That makes me wonder what the highest level frag has been. I mean, not counting Caesar.
Seems it’s Caesar then.
That just underscores the point I made.
What point? That you live in an imaginary fantasy land?
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.
So we went from denial, to it happened but it wasn’t us…
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.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?
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
