Must Pete Hegseth Be Investigated Now?
A Saturday Prompt
It’s hard not to become desensitized to the near-constant violent extremism of Donald Trump and his sycophants. But after six lawmakers (all veterans) shot a video reminding members of the military of their duty to refuse illegal orders, the response from Trump and his belligerent “Secretary of War” Pete Hegseth was unusually over-the-top, even by their cruel, deranged standards. These elected officials’ speaking out was “punishable by death,” Trump said, even by hanging. One of their number, Mark Kelly, the decorated Navy veteran, NASA astronaut and Arizona senator, must be investigated and possibly court-martialed, Hegseth said.
Well, their extreme—and extremely foolish—threats may make more sense in light of a chilling report published yesterday by The Washington Post describing Hegseth’s illegal order to murder two unarmed and wounded survivors of the first military strike off the coast of Trinidad on September 2. This isn’t just their usual attempt to counterpunch and intimidate critics, but an effort to undermine powerful Americans standing up for the Constitution and the rule of law—and who are in the position to investigate their wanton criminal behavior. That could include filing subpoenas and calling witnesses to testify to what they saw and heard.
According to two people “with direct knowledge of the operation,” what military officers heard was Hegseth ordering U.S. forces to “kill everybody” when those two survivors were clinging desperately to the burning wreckage after the first boat strike. These survivors were visible on a live drone feed before Hegseth’s order was carried out and the men were blown apart. The Post’s report relied on interviews and accounts from seven people with knowledge of this strike and the overall operation.
The paper included remarks from Todd Huntley, a former military lawyer who advised special operations forces for seven years and now directs Georgetown Law’s national security law program. He called Hegseth’s order to kill everyone, including the two wounded survivors unable to fight, “a war crime.” He said, contrary to the regime’s false claims they are engaged in an “armed conflict” with these alleged drug traffickers, that because they posed no imminent threat, their killing “amounts to murder.” Note that last month, after meeting with Pentagon officials, Sen. Kelly told ABC News, “The White House and the Department of Defense could not give us a logical explanation on how this is legal. They were tying themselves in knots trying to explain this. We had a lot of questions for them, both Democrats and Republicans. It was not a good meeting.”
This Sept. 2 strike was the first of the Trump/Hegseth campaign that has reportedly hit 22 boats and killed more than 80 people. Hegseth did not deny Friday’s report, but rather doubled-down by writing that “these highly effective strikes are designed to be lethal, kinetic strikes” and they are “lawful under both U.S. and international law.” He also posted: “We have only just begun to kill narco-terrorists.”
The arrogance. The inhumanity. The immorality. Hegseth’s indifference to human life is depraved.
If the allegations against Hegseth are true, he must be held to account with his removal and criminal conviction. Republican Sen. Roger Wicker and Democratic Sen. Jack Reed, respectively the chairman and senior member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said they will conduct “vigorous oversight to determine the facts related to these circumstances.” That’s a start.
Even if you were to buy into the regime’s claims that they are conducting these killings to root out drug traffickers who cause harm to Americans, Trump utterly belied that argument yesterday by providing a full pardon to former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, who has been serving a 45-year prison sentence for drug trafficking. This was the guy, the Department of Justice said in June last year when he was sentenced, who participated in “destructive narco-trafficking of the highest imaginable magnitude.” He “helped to facilitate the importation of an almost unfathomable 400 tons of cocaine to this country: billions of individual doses sent to the United States.” If this man should be pardoned, what of the more than 80 alleged lower-level traffickers murdered by Trump and his operatives?
So what do you think? Must Pete Hegseth be investigated now? Can we stand by while he obediently carries out Trump’s sadistic hunger for killing? How much more can we tolerate? Must each of us reach out to our representatives and demand accountability? And does this make you more skeptical of the reasons behind the regime’s attacks on Democrats urging soldiers to refuse illegal orders?
As always, I look forward to reading your observations and the opportunity for the America, America community to hear from each other. Please do be respectful in your remarks. Trolling will not be tolerated.
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He must be impeached. He is a war criminal and a national security risk.
Hegseth is a war criminal and should be tried for murder.