White House Shields Hegseth While Blaming Commander in Deadly Boat Strike Scandal
In backing the Defense/War Secretary Pete Hegseth over allegations of killing survivors at sea, the White House appears to be throwing the military commander of the Caribbean drug boat attacks under the proverbial bus.
By itself, that disdain for military line officers reflects a remarkable lack of responsibility by the Trump administration. But the murkiness over exactly what happened that night, its legality and the scurry to try to cover some personal reputations while sinking others will only serve to urge bipartisan congressional investigations to dig in deeper.
In the deepening scandal, Congress’ four armed services chairs and ranking members now want to investigate the legal justifications in the boat attacks altogether as well as the order to kill – actions that a widening circle see as hovering between murder and the war crime of slaying survivors.
Donald Trump says he prefers to believe that Hegseth never gave a verbal command to “kill everyone,” resulting in a second strike on an 11-person, suspected drug boat on Sept. 2. Trump was circumspect as to whether there even was a second strike but backed his political appointee and insisted a lethal first attack was legally legitimate.
In the formal White House statement, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt appeared to say that it was Adm. Frank Bradley who acted in leading a strike – which apparently was watched live by Hegseth – and a second strike on the targeted boat that killed at least two survivors of the original strike. The Washington Post reported that Hegseth gave a verbal order to kill everyone after surveillance footage showed two men clinging to the wreckage. Bradley, as head of Special Operations Command, ordered the second strike.
Officials seemed to say that Hegseth ordered a lethal attack, but may not have insisted on a second strike, leaving the responsibility questions just a bit hazy. But Hegseth certainly did not stop it, as required by military justice codes. In the latest telling by Pentagon officials, Hegseth’s directive did not specifically address what should happen if a first missile did not kill everyone – an assertion that itself runs counter to normal military planning.
Hegseth now added in a social media post – the curious stage of choice for public policy – that he did not even view the entire attack, a contradiction of his televised comments the day after the military action. It again underscored that Hegseth takes no responsibility and hangs it own military commander.
Blaming the military officer is the opposite of the-buck-stops-here responsibility that we associate with great leadership. It is also a dangerous, slippery legal position since the operation clearly had been witnessed live and on video by a healthy number of military operations observers.
More Questions Emerge
When the records of the attack finally become public, how deeply will Trump and Hegseth have buried themselves? Do they expect nonpartisan military officers, pilots, and Pentagon staffers to lie to protect Hegseth?
Trump and Hegseth both argue without citing a law that lethal strikes on suspected smugglers are justified by declaring cartels as terrorist organizations that can be pursued across international borders and neutral zones. Trump asserted that drug smuggling is now “infinitesimal,” an assertion that simply cannot be shown by any reported fact.
Indeed, the Hegseth investigation is bound to renew inquiries into whether the crews of the 22 targeted boats to date were sent by organized cartels, or rather reflected freelancing civilians seeking a payday for individual smuggling runs, as reported by the Associated Press, which sent reporters to find the families of crewmen. Moreover, if the boat held drugs, there were questions about why it would be carrying 11 crew members who would simply be taking up space needed for bulky drug shipments, and about what type of drugs were on the boat.
The U.S. had intended to stop import of fentanyl, not cocaine, and the boat was not on a route meant to end on U.S. shores.
Trump also brought new questions by moving to pardon Juan Orlando Hernandez, former president of Honduras, arrested in Honduras and convicted in the U.S. for his role in smuggling 400 tons of cocaine into the U.S. The pardon was happening just as the inferno was building around Hegseth.
Coincidental Timing
Hegseth also is at the center of seeking to recall Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., into the Navy to have him face possible court martial for advising members of the military to think twice about blindly following “unlawful” orders. The FBI is investigating Kelly and five other members of Congress for “seditious” behavior, as Trump has labeled their repetition of clauses from the Uniformed Code of Military Justice.
Hegseth insists that there are no “unlawful” orders in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific, in the threats of land and aerial war in Venezuela, or on the streets of America, where Hegseth has ordered National Guardsmen by the thousand to Chicago, Los Angeles, Charlotte and other immigrant-heavy populations.
Kelly has doubled down with these Hegseth non-denunciations of kill orders as “fake news.” Kelly now says that as a Navy captain, he would have refused a verbal order, as alleged in the boat case, to kill survivors at sea.
Neither Hegseth nor the White House has offered a defense of Hegseth’s role as the supervising government official in knowing that the purported second strike had taken place with nary a word of caution from him.
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