Since September, the US military has been blowing up ships supposedly smuggling drugs in the Caribbean.
Whether these attacks are legal is hotly debated. Congress has not declared war or even authorized the use of force. The Trump administration has simply designated several (alleged) drug traffickers as “terrorists” or members of “terrorist organizations” and then waged war on them. The legal conclusion behind all this has not been made public. But whatever the administration's argument was in private, it was weak enough that the British government announced In early November it would no longer share intelligence with the United States relevant to the operation in the Caribbean due to concerns about its legality.
On Friday, the Washington Post launched a explosive report about the first of these operations. During the attack, the Navy not only shot down a suspected drug trafficking ship, as previously reported, but when survivors were seen clinging to the wreckage, the special operations commander overseeing the operation also ordered a second attack on the survivors, to comply with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's order to kill everyone involved.
“Hegseth gave a spoken directive, according to two people with direct knowledge of the operation,” the Post reported. “'The order was to kill everyone,' said one of them.”
Whatever one thinks about the Caribbean operation in general, it is a simple fact that shooting survivors at sea is a war crime, under US and international law.
Later on Friday, in a long social media postHegseth attacked the Washington Post report as an example of “fake news… offering more fabricated, inflammatory and disparaging reports.”
What Hegseth did not do was directly deny the report. Instead, he insisted that “we have said from the beginning, and in every statement, that these highly effective attacks are specifically intended to be 'lethal kinetic attacks.'”
The intention to kill everyone on the first attempt is not a legal excuse for murdering survivors clinging to the burning wreckage.
In fact, a much shorter follow-up post was even more denialist: “We have barely begun killing narcoterrorists.”
Even Republican members of Congress expressed serious concerns, with the official story going from “fake news” to more forceful denial over the weekend. President Trump said that Hegseth denied giving such an illegal order, “and I believe him 100%,” adding that “I wouldn't have wanted that. Not a second attack.”
So now it appears that the White House has confirmed that there was a second attack on the survivors and admitted that it would at least go against the president's policy. It remains to be seen whether the White House will admit that the attack was illegal. But what we do know is that someone gave the order to carry out a second attack. And if it weren't Hegseth, whoever that person was could be facing a court martial or, given who the commander in chief is, a pardon.
But I don't want to get ahead of the news.
Instead, I'll make a few points.
First, a minor complaint: This administration and its defenders need to be more selective in their use of the term “fake news.” I have no problem calling a fake story “fake news.” But if you know a story isn't false, calling it “fake news” only makes you look even more of a liar and hypocrite in the future when you end up admitting the truth and defending actions you once pretended were defamatory.
More importantly, the entire Caribbean strategy is constitutionally and legally dubious. As a matter of foreign policy, it increasingly seems like a pretext for some kind of regime change gambit in Venezuela. If the administration has evidence to justify its actions, it should reveal it. I understand the arguments in favor of secrecy, but if they could not convince the British, through classified channels, of the legality of the operation, it is probably because the case is not convincing.
Even more important: illegal orders, particularly orders to kill people, cannot be justified. When half a dozen Democratic members of Congress released a video saying that the military should not follow “unlawful orders,” the president and many of his defenders became hysterical. Trump lamented that the United States has become so “soft” that such “seditious behavior” is no longer punishable by death.
Democrats' most serious critics complained that the video sowed confusion in the ranks and damaged morale. I actually understand that argument.
But you know what else sows confusion and damages morale? Real illegal orders.
UNKNOWN: @JonahDispatch
