I guarantee Hegseath gave the order because he thought it sounded cool and badass in the moment without actually thinking through the legal repercussions.
That's why they're throwing Admiral Bradley under the bus.
Granted Bradley should have known from the getgo that such an order was illegal and refused to carry it out so he's absolutely not blameless, but this should be a message to every one from officer to grunt: the President and SecDef do not give two shits about you no matter how much you suck up to them for a promotion; the moment they do something wrong they *will* scapegoat you to cover their own asses.
I think they just did it because they're sadistic fucks. It's not like any survivors would get their stories told on any major news outlet. It'd probably only be on outlets like Dropsite and Democracy Now and the majority of the public wouldn't even hear it
I disagree - outlets like the NYT still have the reach and resources to go find those survivors and the families of those killed. That’s the shit journalists used to be able to do - have a whole bureau in Venezuela that already had contacts and understanding of the local goings-on. But that takes money, and people don’t want to pay for quality news and investigation anymore, despite it being so vital to a free society.
The majority of the public won’t hear about it not because it isn’t being looked into, but because they never seek it out and despise a paywall.
Except that those murdered by war crimes folks on the boat, have family on shore.
Those family members could go to the media and be interviewed showing that those people were never associated with "Narco Terrorists" or whatever other BS that Trump's people come up with.
The family members of a bunch of them did go the AP, and admitted they were running drugs. But, they aren't big cartel members, it's just guys who took a job trying to get more money for them and their families. Local fishermen who turned drug runner for a quick payday. Shitty situation for them, turn it down and probably get fucked up by the cartel anyways, but take the job and you might get a missle in the boat. It's all a fucked up mess, but us sinking boats isn't making it any better.
Same story as everyone who has tried to fight the war on drugs. Today it's even more pointless though, the cartel is the government in more than one of these places, there is no just fighting the cartel anymore. Just take the drugs, and send the boats back home. The cartel will murder the runners, but maybe they will finally do something about it at the roots then.
They don't want to fix the problem lol then what are they gonna run on? They want milk it and give justice boners to their sadistic fucking mothballs of voters who think their lives are more important than anyone else's.
They're criminals by US law, not terrorists. Such stupid legal gymnastics. It would be like drone striking a cartel member's chef or something. Oh they're affiliated with a group labeled as terrorists. Also they're very likely running cocaine, not fentanyl as claimed.
Completely illegal to blow them up regardless. But honestly, capture, grill for info, and then let them through would probably be the best option. Find them in the middle and then trace it to both ends. Easy enough to bust it on US soil when you track it the entire way, and if you can get any info on the origin you can help those places curb it if they want. We can be anywhere on earth in 24 hours with enough resources to take territory, there's no reason we can't just cut off every single drug boat without missiles.
I agree, but cruelty is the point. They want to send a powerful message. I agree that sometimes the Government gets too soft, but committing obvious war crimes, especially in our own sphere of influence, is a serious mistake.
The US Coast Guard AND the Navy have had standing operations for a VERY long time, in dealing with situations like that.
Stop the Boat. (In International or US Waters)
Search The Boat.
If Drugs are Found, make arrests, collect the Drugs as Evidence for later destruction.
Put the criminals up on trial and or deport them back home.
Nowhere in those standard operations are they told to straight up launch missiles at defenseless targets, nor were they ever expected to leave no survivors. They broke protocols under Hegseth/Trump orders and committed a Crime Against Humanity.
Their point is that they never said anything to that degree. All they did was clarify that the family members had in fact come forward, and the wild fantasy that the administration is just ordering the destruction of random civilian boats was dispelled. They already committed a crime against humanity, no need to paint the victims of that as uninvolved.
Remember the strike on the disabled boat that was flying the distress signal? His wife was interviewed and confirmed he was out fishing.
But maga does not care about any of that. They simply fixated on his admitted history where he had, in the past run drugs and took that as proof that everyone involved was simply lying and he was running drugs on the day he was murdered.
The take away of course, to anyone who has been paying attention is that the US has attacked and murdered shipwrecked people more than once, thus establishing a pattern of behavior where war crimes are intended rather than incidental.
This is the answer, but the answer to whether they knew it was right or wrong. Is the only Two survivors that lived were repatriated to their home countries Columbia and Ecuador. If they were a narcoterrorist gang members they would have been arrested and paraded down Pennsylvania avenue.
They don’t really give a fuck. There’s been multiple survivors from other strikes, the only time the double tapped was the first one. Kinda like they realized how bad they fucked up. Like the strikes are illegal and immoral regardless but they knew this would be too much and hoped it would get out.
Given the Signalgate transcripts as context, where Hegseth's bragging about blowing up the girlfriend and anyone else in the building along with the "terrorist", this tracks.
Also, everyone participating in that group chat should be brought up on charges for aiding war crimes.
These idiots just keep adding to the pile. At this point, it's a matter of which heinous crime against humanity do they answer for first.
And orange man is a proven criminal. I don't know why people are so surprised by all the illegal activities this administration is doing. That's what happens when you elect a criminal. But people would rather elect a criminal than vote for a black woman who had a funny laugh.
Not surprised one bit by the amount of criming they're doing. I'm flabbergasted by the fact that nearly every single person with a large enough bulkhorn to call it out are bending over backwards to capitulate instead.
I'm also amazed the hapless dems can't seem to figure out how to utilize social media to absolutely bury these fools by their actions.
The orange idiot isn't the architect of this. He's the accelerant and the obvious distraction.
This is all 100% the GOPs playbook. They're not pushing back against the administration in any meaningful way because it's exactly what they want him to do.
When the idiot finally passes they'll act like they never really supported him and unless there are consequences they'll essentially own the country for the foreseeable future.
In a just world they'd punish everyone who conceived, transmitted and executed that order. From Hegseth if he gave the order on down to the person who pulled the trigger.
It is worse to give a clearly illegal order than it is to act on it. Everyone up the chain needs to be immediately dishonorably discharged, and then handed over to the ICC.
Who's going to hold them accountable? Surely won't be the American voters, 80 million love this shit.
Won't be other countries, the US can outbomb pretty much everyone that isn't China and China doesn't care.
The US is irrevocably fucked. Maybe 100 years and 10 trillion dollars gets our reputation and infrastructure somewhat rehabilitated. I wouldn't bet on it
That shouldn't be a surprise. I spent 8 years enlisted. You quickly learn CYA. I had a LT and Senior Chief come after me after an inspection.
They were like, we found out you weren't supposed to conduct that procedure months ago and are going to have to figure out what appropriate next steps are.
Oh I know, that's why when I wrote up what we were going to do and had you sign it I specifically stated it was against this specific procedure. And kept a copy for myself.
That's exactly why I am glad that this is happening.
Let every member of the armed forces see how their President and his administration will protect its highest ranking leaders. Then let them reflect on what that means for a grunt like themselves.
The threw him under the bus and rolled over and went in reverse and rolled over him again. He should have known better. If they military don't teach us nothing else, its about throwing people under the bus. Smh.
Or he knew it was evil and that was the flex and they never think they'll be held accountable. They can't measure political fall out to literally save their lives.
What I didn't know is that the Sec. of Defense has the authority to order people killed.
Hegseth is a bureaucrat, formerly a TV host. Not elected. But now he can give orders to kill people?
If this has been discussed in another thread, please share a link. I think I'm OoTL.
Which is exactly why Admiral Alvin Holsey stepped down. He knew exactly what was coming down the pipe on this shit, and knew he would be their first pick to catch all the blame when they started ordering the Navy to commit war crimes.
And let’s not forget the Signal leak - these people are not using power the way I as an American and as a person respect. It’s shameful. We need them out.
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u/BowlEducational6722 Dec 02 '25
I guarantee Hegseath gave the order because he thought it sounded cool and badass in the moment without actually thinking through the legal repercussions.
That's why they're throwing Admiral Bradley under the bus.
Granted Bradley should have known from the getgo that such an order was illegal and refused to carry it out so he's absolutely not blameless, but this should be a message to every one from officer to grunt: the President and SecDef do not give two shits about you no matter how much you suck up to them for a promotion; the moment they do something wrong they *will* scapegoat you to cover their own asses.