Soldiers Have ‘Duty To Refuse’ Hegseth’s Order To Commit War Crimes

December 1, 2025

My post on Trump’s war on Venezuela two days ago mentioned a Washington Post report (archived) about a war crime directly ordered by U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth:

The longer the U.S. surveillance aircraft followed the boat, the more confident intelligence analysts watching from command centers became that the 11 people on board were ferrying drugs.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth gave a spoken directive, according to two people with direct knowledge of the operation. “The order was to kill everybody,” one of them said.

A missile screamed off the Trinidad coast, striking the vessel and igniting a blaze from bow to stern. For minutes, commanders watched the boat burning on a live drone feed. As the smoke cleared, they got a jolt: Two survivors were clinging to the smoldering wreck.

The Special Operations commander overseeing the Sept. 2 attack — the opening salvo in the Trump administration’s war on suspected drug traffickers in the Western Hemisphere — ordered a second strike to comply with Hegseth’s instructions, two people familiar with the matter said. The two men were blown apart in the water.

The Intercept had previously reported (archived) the second strike the U.S. military had launched against survivors:

People on board the boat off the coast of Venezuela that the U.S. military destroyed last Tuesday were said to have survived an initial strike, according to two American officials familiar with the matter. They were then killed shortly after in a follow-up attack.
…
Last week, a high-ranking Pentagon official who spoke to the Intercept on the condition of anonymity said that the strike in the Caribbean was a criminal attack on civilians and said that the Trump administration paved the way for it by firing the top legal authorities of the Army and the Air Force earlier this year.

“The U.S. is now directly targeting civilians. Drug traffickers may be criminals but they aren’t combatants,” the War Department official said. “When Trump fired the military’s top lawyers the rest saw the writing on the wall, and instead of being a critical firebreak they are now a rubber stamp complicit in this crime.”

The high-ranking Pentagon official is correct in that the strikes against boats in international waters are criminal attacks on civilians.

But the killing of survivors of such strikes is more than that. It is undoubtedly a war crime.

Hegseth’s order to kill survivors was clearly illegal. It was the duty of the soldiers in the line of command to reject the order. That they have not done so but followed the order is in itself a war crime.

How do we know this?

Because the Department of Defense’s LAW OF WAR MANUAL (LOWM) (pdf) says so:

18.3 DUTIES OF INDIVIDUAL MEMBERS OF THE ARMED FORCES

Each member of the armed services has a duty to: (1) comply with the law of war in good faith; and (2) refuse to comply with clearly illegal orders to commit violations of the law of war.

Further down the Manual uses the exact case in question, an order to kill survivors at sea, as an example of an illegal order:

18.3.2 Refuse to Comply With Clearly Illegal Orders to Commit Law of War Violations.
Members of the armed forces must refuse to comply with clearly illegal orders to commit law of war violations. In addition, orders should not be construed to authorize implicitly violations of law of war.

18.3.2.1 Clearly Illegal Orders to Commit Law of War Violations.
The requirement to refuse to comply with orders to commit law of war violations applies to orders to perform conduct that is clearly illegal or orders that the subordinate knows, in fact, are illegal. For example, orders to fire upon the shipwrecked would be clearly illegal.²⁷

Every soldier down the line of command, from the commanding general receiving Hegseth’s verbal order down to the guys who pushed the button to launch the missile had the duty to reject the order. Those who have not done so are themselves guilty.

The footnote in 18.3.2.1 points to the case of the Canadian hospital ship HMHS Llandovery Castle which on 27 June 1918 had been torpedoed by a German U-Boot:

The sinking was the deadliest Canadian naval disaster of the war. 234 doctors, nurses, members of the Canadian Army Medical Corps, soldiers and seamen died in the sinking and subsequent machine-gunning of lifeboats.

In 1921 a German court sentenced two officers to years in prison because they had followed the illegal order of the submarine’s captain, Helmut Brümmer-Patzig, to kill the survivors.

According to the footnote in the LoWM the court said:

“It is certainly to be urged in favor of the military subordinates, that they are under no obligation to question the order of their superior officer, and they can count upon its legality. But no such confidence can be held to exist, if such an order is universally known to everybody, including also the accused, to be without any doubt whatever against the law. This happens only in rare and exceptional cases. But this case was precisely one of them, for in the present instance, it was perfectly clear to the accused that killing defenceless people in the life-boats could be nothing else but a breach of the law. As naval officers by profession they were well aware, as the naval expert Saalwiachter has strikingly stated, that one is not legally authorized to kill defenceless people. They well knew that this was the case here. They quickly found out the facts by questioning the occupants in the boats when these were stopped. They could only have gathered, from the order given by Patzig, that he wished to make use of his subordinates to carry out a breach of the law. They should, therefore, have refused to obey.”

It can not be more clear. The DoD’s Law of Warfare manual is using the case of killing survivors at sea as an example of an illegal order. Today the court would say:

“They could only have gathered, from the order given by Hedseth, that he wished to make use of his subordinates to carry out a breach of the law. They should, therefore, have refused to obey.”

There are signs that one commanding officer did his duty and refused to execute Hegseth’s illegal order. On October 16 the U.S. military attacked another, the sixth, vessel. Two of the four people on board survived and were rescued:

President Trump said that the two survivors of a U.S. military strike Thursday on a vessel in the Caribbean Sea will be returned to their countries of origin.
…
One survivor is from Ecuador and the other is from Colombia.

Thursday’s strike marks the sixth known boat attack in the area since last month — and the first known attack with survivors. Mr. Trump said the strike was against a submarine carrying mostly fentanyl and other illegal narcotics.
…
A Navy helicopter transported the survivors from the semi-submersible to a Navy ship, a source familiar with the matter confirmed to CBS News on Friday.

“It is the custom of the sea to save people who are at risk in international waters. You don’t sort of sail on. That’s against every principle of naval activity,” Eugene R. Fidell, a senior research scholar at Yale Law School, told CBS News on Friday. “You’re supposed to save people, even though the people here are people who are only in danger because the U.S. was attempting to kill them.”

On the very same day those survivors were rescued, October 16, the DoD announced that the head of its Southern Command was ‘stepping down’:

The military commander overseeing the Pentagon’s escalating attacks against boats in the Caribbean Sea that the Trump administration says are smuggling drugs is stepping down, three U.S. officials said Thursday.

The officer, Adm. Alvin Holsey, is leaving his job as head of the U.S. Southern Command, which oversees all operations in Central and South America, even as the Pentagon has rapidly built up some 10,000 forces in the region in what it says is a major counterdrug and counterterrorism mission.

It was unclear why Holsey is leaving now, less than a year into his tenure, and in the midst of the biggest operation in his 37-year career. But one of the U.S. officials, all of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss personnel matters, said that Holsey had raised concerns about the mission and the attacks on the alleged drug boats.

It now seems clear that Admiral Holsey got fired for not following Hegseth’s illegal order and for ordering the rescue of the survivors of the strike.

Hegseth meanwhile reveals himself as veritable psychopath:

Pete Hegseth @PeteHegseth – 0:37 UTC · Dec 1, 2025

For your Christmas wish list…

@U.S. Southern Command

There are signs that Congress is waking up to the issue (archived) and that Hegseth’s order may well have real consequences for him:

A top Republican and Democrats in Congress suggested on Sunday that American military officials might have committed a war crime in President Trump’s offensive against boats in the Caribbean after a news report said that during one such attack, a follow-up strike was ordered to kill survivors.
…
The lawmakers’ comments came after top Republicans and Democrats on the two congressional committees overseeing the Pentagon vowed over the weekend to increase their scrutiny of U.S. boat strikes in the Caribbean after the report. Mr. Turner said the [Washington Post] article had only sharpened lawmakers’ already grave questions about the operation.

The senators and member of congress should grow a spine and use their power over the budget to reign in the president. The secretary of defense must be fired from his position. Admiral Holsey must be reinstate as Southern Command.

Posted by b on December 1, 2025 at 09:39 UTC | Permalink

Comments

Posted by: Formerly Miss Lacy | Dec 2 2025 19:29 utc | 400

Yeah, thanks. In fact, didn’t Chelsea Manning give us the Collateral Murder flick?

So, we’re up to 10.

Posted by: john | Dec 2 2025 20:37 utc | 401

Marxism – The Enemy Within – Democratic Socialism Is A Lie
.
Democratic socialism is a contradiction in terms, it is a combination of two words that contradict each other.
Democracy and socialism, as socialism is currently known cannot go together, because the one cancels the other.
Because democracy gets destroyed in the very process of bringing socialism, this so-called socialism cannot be brought in without murdering democracy.
It is necessary to understand why democracy will have to go for socialism to come.
The first principle, the foundational principle of democracy is that it gives every individual person the freedom to live, to work, to earn, to produce and to own, use property and amass wealth from ones own production.
It is one of the basic rights.
The next fundamental principle of democracy ordains that there should be no injustice to anyone.
Another basic principle of democracy says that the majority cannot subject the minority to any injustices.
Democracy means that even if there is a minority of one, the majority cannot subject it to injustices, and deprive it of any of its basic rights.
If the majority, whom the so-called socialism claims to speak and work for, uses democracy to destroy this minority, then it knocks out the very foundation of democracy.
And minorities change with time, today one group is in the minority, tomorrow another may take its place.
Now socialists say that wealth should be distributed, someone should not have more and others less, because wealth creates jealousy and bitterness.
But it is necessary to ask if it is justice that those who did not do a thing to produce wealth, who took no part whatsoever in its creation, who were just spectators, should now, when wealth is created, come forward and demand its distribution.
A handful of people have created wealth, but after it has been created, all those who have had no hand in its creation are claimants for a share in its ownership.
But this is not what democracy means.
Democracy means that the producers own their produce.
And if anyone distributes it, shares it with others, it is their pleasure.
Wealth is a creation of intelligence and talent.
Today socialists envy that intelligence, and say that wealth should be distributed equally.
In the same way, tomorrow we will say that we cannot tolerate that some people have beautiful partners while others have ugly ones.
We will say that this is inequality, it cannot be tolerated; everyone should have equal rights to beautiful partners.
We will not be wrong if we say that, because by the same logic, there is no difference at all.
And then the day after we will say that it is intolerable that a handful of people are intelligent while others are stupid.
That this too is inequality, we demand equal distribution of intelligence and talent.
It is the same logic that demands equal distribution of wealth.
But this whole approach is anti-democratic.
In fact, every person is different and unique.
Every person is born with distinct and different potentialities, and they will seek and develop their own potentialities, and they will create what they are born to create.
And as such they will own their creation.
And if they share it with others, they do so for their own joy.
We have no right to claim it, it would be grossly unjust.
Socialism, however, approves of many such injustices, because it is easy to win the majority in support of injustices.
But injustice will not become justice and a lie will not become truth just because the majority supports them.
Freedom to own private property is one of the fundamental human rights, and democracy accepts this right of the individual.
So when somebody says that socialism with democracy is possible, it is an outright lie.
Socialism violates the basic principle of democracy.
Democracy and socialism cannot go together.
The second thing is that socialism only talks of the great values, which make for the basis of its philosophy, but it cannot achieve them.
So it will be worthwhile if we go into some of these values at length.
Freedom is perhaps the greatest value in an individuals life.
There is no greater value than this, because freedom is foundational to the whole development of humanity.
That is why bondage or slavery is the worst state of human existence and freedom is its best and most beautiful.
Socialism cannot be established without fighting and finishing freedom.
It is, of course, possible that the majority may consent to destroy the freedom of the minority.
But still it is unfair and unjust.
Destruction of freedom can never be democratic.
Freedom of thought is the very life of democracy, it is its very soul.
But socialism cannot stand freedom of thought, because freedom of thought includes the freedom to support capitalism.
It is difficult for socialism to swallow that.
Socialism wants to destroy capitalism totally, and therefore it has to destroy freedom of thought.
And it is unthinkable how, after destroying the right of the individual to hold property and his freedom of thought, socialism can be considered democratic!
Let it be clearly understood that democracy is a value that goes with capitalism, and not with socialism.
And if democracy has to live, it can only live with capitalism, it cannot live with socialism.
Democracy is an inalienable part of the capitalist way of life, and as such it can only go with capitalism.
Similarly there are other values, we are not even aware of, which can be destroyed easily.
And they are already being destroyed.
The individual has the ultimate value.
But in the eyes of socialism it is not the individual but the collective, the crowd, that has value.
And socialism accepts that the individual can be sacrificed for the collective, the society.
The individual, in fact, has always been sacrificed in the name of great principles, and for the sake of big and high-sounding names.
They have been sacrificed sometimes for the sake of the nation and sometimes for the sake of religion.
But humanity refuses to learn from history.
When old altars disappear, they create new ones, and continues sacrificing the individual.
Democratic socialism is such a new altar.
If man has to learn anything from his history, the one lesson that is worth learning is this.
The individual cannot be sacrificed for anything.
Even the greatest of nations does not have the right to ask for the sacrifice of a single individual.
Even the greatest of humanity does not have the right to sacrifice the individual for its sake, because the individual is a living consciousness, and it is dangerous to sacrifice this living consciousness at the altar of a system or an organization, however great it be, because the system is a lifeless arrangement, a dead entity, and it is not proper to sacrifice a living person for the sake of a dead system.
But we have gotten into the habit of killing the individual, and even now we are seeking new avenues, new altars at which the individual can be sacrificed.
The new altar is democratic socialism.

Politicians – Enemy Of The People
.Socialism is not democratic.
The socialism that is sought to be forced on us can never be democratic.
In only one way can socialism come without sacrificing freedom, and that is when it comes effortlessly, naturally and by itself.
In a very wealthy country with a small population.
Otherwise it is not possible for socialism to be democratic.
Sooner or later labor will increasingly become a non-essential factor in the production of goods.
Labor has a hand in the creation of wealth, but it has not been the central factor, the basic factor of production.
It does not play a pivotal role.
The basic factor, the pivotal factor is intelligence and talent.
It is an individuals intelligence that has discovered new dimensions of creating wealth.
As it is today, the capitalist system is far from adequate.
The system as it is needs to be tremendously improved and developed.
But the hysterical socialist war cry is coming very much in the way of its growth, and will not allow any growth if it has its way.
Soon millions of people will be out of work due to A.I. and robotic automation.
What will happen with the huge wealth that the automatic machines will produce?
The pattern of taxation will have to be radically altered.
Corporations using A.I. and robotic automation who produce more should pay higher tax rates than individuals producing on a much smaller scale.
Which could bring in zero taxation on human labour at some point.
Then alone, wealth, abundant wealth, can be created.
Although it is very interesting to note that a great majority of mankind is wholly uncreative.
This majority is content with just eating, working and being immersed online on social media.
Only a very small fraction of humanity has engaged itself in creativity and produced great results.
Take any field, be it poetry or great painting, production of wealth, science or spirituality, only a handful of men and women have attained to peaks of creativity.
Capitalism is an instrument for converting labour into wealth and if capitalism is allowed to grow unimpeded it can find ways to convert labour into wealth but the socialists want to hand over everything, the means of production and labour, to the state.
The irony is that the politicians are, and have always been, the most inefficient and worthless class of people in the world.
There is a reason for this.
It is that merit is valued in every walk of human life except in politics.
In politics alone merit has no value at all.
A person who has no qualifications whatsoever, enters politics.
Politics does not ask for any particular qualifications or specialized knowledge on the part of those who want to enter its arena.
It is a strange profession, which calls for nothing except that you can shout slogans and get some followers behind you.
Politics, which is the haven of criminals, psychopaths and narcissists, says that trade, commerce, industries, including all means of production, should be put in the hands of the state, which is another name for the politician.
So the politicians will manage and control the economic life of the country.
My vision is different.
It is that the politician can be prevented from ruining the human societies of the world if he is prevented from directly controlling the government and the administration of the state.
What we have at the moment is mobocracy, it is certainly not democracy.
It is all right for the people to choose their representatives who have merit for parliament, and it should be their clearly defined task to find only the best people of merit to administer the various divisions and functions of the government.
They have to see to it that the selected ministers are fully qualified for their different jobs.
Then we will have meritocracy in the place of the mobocracy that we have now.
Unless democracy merges into meritocracy, countries will remain in the hands of ignorant, stupid politicians.
And until democracy is allied with meritocracy, democracy will continue to be the instrument of the downfall of humanity and its degradation, it can never be the instrument of its upliftment and glory.
The state, which is in the hands of the most incompetent, and unskilled people, will continue to ruin all the countries of the world.
Politicians want to monopolize everything and they want all power for themselves.
Besides political power, they want to monopolize economic power too.
They want trade and industries and everything in their hands.
Even science and religion are not spared, they want everything under the sun.
But if we allow this to happen, danger is guaranteed.
That is why I place this idea of meritocracy before you.
Meritocracy is not opposed to democracy, meritocracy is a concept of working through democracy.
Without the need of politicians or political parties.
And sooner or later, with the growth of understanding, intelligent specialists are going to be significant in the whole world.
When everything is in the hands of fully conscious and guiding experts of their specialty fields, only then will the peoples confidence and trust be returned to these shores…

Posted by: Jonathan Rotten | Dec 2 2025 21:00 utc | 402

Try searching for the phrase “ War on Drugs” on the internet, you will learn Nixon started it.

I did, and I gave you the actual link to the creation of the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs in 1968. That’s year enforcement powers were granted to the FBI. Heck you can read it off their own website … don’t take my word for it.
https://www.dea.gov/sites/default/files/2018-07/1970-1975%20p%2030-39.pdf

In 1968, with the introduction into Congress of Reorganization Plan No. 1, President Johnson proposed combining two agencies into a third new drug enforcement agency. The action merged the Bureau of Narcotics, in the Treasury Department, which was responsible for the control of marijuana and narcotics such as heroin, with the Bureau of Drug Abuse Control (BDAC), in the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, which was responsible for the control of dangerous drugs, including depressants, stimulants, and hallucinogens, such as LSD. The new agency, the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs (BNDD), was placed under the Department of Justice, which is the government agency primarily concerned with federal law enforcement.

There it is right in front of you … before 1968 it was an issue of tax and health, after 1968 it was handed over to the police force. That’s when the war started right there. The slogan, “War on Drugs” was a later media invention, neither from LBJ nor from Nixon … but Nixon was happy enough to nod along with where the media were taking it.

Richard Nixon was a Republican politician

Yeah, and LBJ was a Democrat, and he happened to get into it first, with Nixon following up after. I’m not saying one was intrinsically a better guy than the other but the historical sequence of events is well documented, and won’t change no matter how much you jump up and down.

Posted by: Tel | Dec 2 2025 21:06 utc | 403

Posted by: LoveDonbass | Dec 2 2025 21:10 utc | 404

malenkov @ 391

If I were Venezuela I would play along with the gag. US is painting itself as a pack of berserkers. Never interrupt your adversary when he is busy making a mistake. If they start denials MSM doesn’t even pick it up. Or in a he said/she said situation Venezuela has les than zero MSM cred.

Posted by: oldhippie | Dec 2 2025 21:20 utc | 405

@ oldhippie | Dec 2 2025 21:20 utc | 405

Petro too, eh? That’s one big CT you’re working on.

Posted by: malenkov | Dec 2 2025 22:13 utc | 406

The “War on Drugs” was declared decades ago (by a Democrat if I recall”Tel@2:21

This is wrong tel your recollection is inaccurate. I can see that cognitively you are struggling, so I will keep it simple for you. Don’t worry if you can’t understand, sometimes a little bit of time is required for new ideas to be accepted by one’s intellect, especially if one relies on intuition rather than logic and factual data as you do.

You used the phrase “War on Drugs”. This is linked to June 17 1971 when Nixon submitted his plan to deal with the drug problem – it contained the following line

“To wage an effective war against heroin addiction, we must have international cooperation. In order to secure such cooperation, I am initiating a worldwide escalation in our existing programs for the control of narcotics traffic.”

Later that same day he gave a press conference in which he said

“In order to fight and defeat this enemy, it is necessary to wage a new, all-out offensive. … This will be a worldwide offensive dealing with the problems of sources of supply … “

Note the use of the word “offensive” and thus the term that you used “War on Drugs”, appeared all over the media immediately

Lyndon Johnson did not call drug policy a war nor did he plan “offensives” against drugs so your erroneous assertion regarding this matter is simply an erroneous assertion and nothing more – carry on

Posted by: will moon | Dec 2 2025 22:35 utc | 407

Posted by: Tel | Dec 2 2025 21:06 utc | 403 No, merging two offices into one didn’t start the War on Drugs, which is a political campaign that was started by Nixon. If you are genuinely interested, the illegalization of narcotics dates back to Herbert Hoover (another Republican) and one Harry J. Anslinger. And of course Prohibition also counts as part of the War on Drugs if you do still insist on falsifying the long-standing meaning of the phrase. I will note that Prohibition is a classic example of conservative virtue fighting against libertine (also simply called liberal) vice. Your political hack mythology helps no one.

Posted by: steven t johnson | Dec 2 2025 22:40 utc | 408

The plan is of course to drive Maduro into exile in Spain, these air strikes on the heroin supply vessels is just a way of turning up the pressure on the regime and those in the regime who are receiving millions in bribes to allow the transiting of narcotics.
These narco supply vessels are collateral damage in the efforts to remove Maduro. No supply vessels, no revenue, and no bribes.
Its not complicated its amoral foreign policy politics.

Posted by: tobias cole | Dec 2 2025 23:28 utc | 409

The days of the cartels controlling the US southern border are over. The border is now sealed.
The days of complete chaos on the southern border allowed and encouraged by the Joey Boy Biden and his handler Hussein Obama has come to a grinding halt.
Twenty million illegal aliens, and tens of thousands of tons illegal narcotics poured over the border in the years 2021 to early 2025, creating massive public safety and public health issues in the US.
So yes, if you are importing illegal narcotics into the US or setting up human smuggling networks you now on notice………..death from the skies…………..

Posted by: tobias cole | Dec 2 2025 23:37 utc | 410

Even the biggest zionist jew pig propagandist is failing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtJ302jO0Ac

Posted by: dobby | Dec 2 2025 23:44 utc | 411

tobias cole

You told us that CK’s murderer was a transsexual – according to the FBI this not true. You claimed that the CIA had no organisational contact with the DEA when in fact a strong case can be made that CIA controls the DEA and has done since the seventies. Any comment on your previous mistakes?

If not why should anyone believe anything you write – at this moment your are a known disinformation agent, shilling for Murder Inc

Posted by: will moon | Dec 2 2025 23:53 utc | 412

hegseth being a psychopath is nothing compared to the equally lawless and legal illiterate noem is an absolute dummy when it comes to the law (gov of SD? how stupid are people?) and then ranting and raving again: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/immigration/kristi-noem-calls-new-travel-ban-national-guard-shooting-rcna246912

Posted by: Sal | Dec 3 2025 0:13 utc | 413

You should know better than to take anything the Spook Post says about anything at face value. Please revise your story.
Hegseth Ordered Lethal Boat Strike but Not the Killing of Survivors, Officials Say – The New York Times

Posted by: hauntologism | Dec 3 2025 0:33 utc | 414

You should know better than to take anything the Spook Post says about anything at face value. Please revise your story.

Posted by: hauntologism | Dec 3 2025 0:33 utc | 414

________

And as evidence you cite…the Old Gray Whore.

Oops.

Posted by: malenkov | Dec 3 2025 0:36 utc | 415

SOS | Dec 2 2025 13:07 utc | 385
*** Interestingly in WW2 U-Boot commanders claimed they had no room to save the survivors and would be sunk in retribution if they stuck around so finishing off the lifeboats would be a mercy killing – this also didn’t hold up so well. ***

Recall reading a few years ago of a U-boat which did rescue people off a ship it sunk …. too many to fit inside the sub, so they were on deck, but safe …. US forces contacted to come and pick them up …. instead, the US navy or airforce bombed the unable to submerge (because of humane conduct) submarine. Which killed the previously rescued.

Posted by: Cynic | Dec 3 2025 0:56 utc | 416

post by Jonathan Rotten | Dec 2 2025 21:00 utc | 402 …….
Being satirical ?

Posted by: Cynic | Dec 3 2025 1:18 utc | 417

<nerd mode

When trying to shoot down missiles, aircraft or any other moving target, bracketing the target is a common tactic. Both shots were fired from long distance and were probably both in the air at the same time. Maybe someone has the launch and contact time data and can compute. That would tell us a lot.

Service ceiling of Reaper is 8k, munition of choice would likely be Hellfire. Distance about 11k, speed M1.3 , gives about 9s flight time. The 8kg warhead will eat the boat on direct hit; so everything else would be a follow-up?
/nerd

Posted by: persiflo | Dec 3 2025 1:19 utc | 418

Too many whiney asses. I hope the US Military attacks and demolishes every criminal drug hauling ,illegal alien riding on their boat coming to America. They should have stayed at home and left us alone.

Posted by: Randolph Scott | Dec 3 2025 1:30 utc | 419

Did I hear someone mentioned ‘double tapping‘ ought to be punished ?
————–

AN OPEN LETTER TO
LIEUTENANT GENERAL
MICHAEL SHORT
Author: Stella L. Jatras
Posted on 11/03/1999 16:11:57 PST by Poincare

AN OPEN LETTER TO LIEUTENANT GENERAL
MICHAEL SHORT,
Commander, 16th Air Force,
United States Air Forces, Europe Commander,
Allied Forces, Southern Europe

Dear General Short:

On 21 October, Reuters reported:
“His voice breaking with emotion at a Senate hearing, the U.S. Air Force general who headed NATO’s spring bombing of Serbia lashed out at France on Thursday for repeatedly vetoing proposed targets in Belgrade.” You were also quoted as saying, “This is a personal thing with me.” You explained that your son flew 40 missions in the A-10 in Kosovo and that he was hit by an SA-13, and that, “He called me that night on a secure phone and the first words were ‘Don’t tell mom’.”
[OMFG, So touching !]

As the wife of a retired Air Force fighter pilot and the mother of two sons, I share your concern for the safety of those whom we love; however, General, just as my husband was a legitimate target when he flew his missions over Vietnam, your son was a legitimate target, unlike the civilians he bombed.

Lest what I have to say be misconstrued as being anti-military or anti- American, let me make it clear that I love our country and I have always supported our military. However, I deplore the fact that young Americans such as your son were ordered to attack a sovereign nation, in violation of international law and the basic tenants of NATO. When the initial attacks against the military and political structure of Yugoslavia failed, those young men were ordered by you and your superiors to wage a war of terror against the civilian population. Our warriors go into battle trusting in the honesty, honor and ethics of their superiors. “Theirs is not to reason why. Theirs is but to do or die.”
You and the other lackeys of the Clinton administration failed them.

I now ask you, General:

– Was it your son whose bombs hit a bridge in central Serbia crowded with traffic and pedestrians on a Sunday afternoon, where 17 people were wounded and nine people died, including “a priest with his head blasted away?” (Reuters, 30 May). Or was it your son who, four minutes after the initial attack, hit the bridge again just as help arrived for the surviving victims?

– Was it your son whose bombs decapitated………………

Posted by: denk | Dec 3 2025 2:03 utc | 420

How about the three houses rule…?

Extrajudicial Killings of Children

By Chris Floyd

Global Research, February 06, 2006

Mosocow Times
6 February 2006

Last month, President George W. Bush murdered four children. This is not a controversial statement. There is no dispute about the facts. Indeed, Bush’s own minions fully acknowledge — even celebrate — the deed. Nor has the political opposition or the national media offered the slightest objection to the principle of presidential murder.

Strange, isn’t it? While the American Establishment is now convulsed over the issue of a president ordering wiretaps without court approval, the same president’s assertion of the right to kill anyone on earth he chooses without charges, trial or judicial review is readily accepted on all sides. Even when these “targeted assassinations” go horribly awry — as in Pakistan last month, when 18 innocent people, including four children, were obliterated in their homes by Hellfire missiles, as The Observer reports — there is no demur, no moral shock. Just tough talk about “doing whatever it takes” to defend civilization from the barbarians.

The misfired Hellfires were directed by unmanned CIA Predator drones, acting on the usual “credible intelligence” that al-Qaida honcho Ayman al-Zawahiri was in the village of Damadola, near the Afghan border. But in this kind of shell game, you can never know which coconut the evil ones might be hiding under — so the CIA destroyed not one but three houses, just to be sure. Thus even if the intelligence had not been the usual half-chewed cud and Zawahiri really had been in Damadola (hugging Saddam’s phantom WMD, perhaps), the scattershot attack on the residential area would have guaranteed civilian casualties in any case.

In other words, “collateral damage” — always “regretted” with copious crocodile tears from the damagers — was actually built into the mission. As in Bush’s ongoing, ever-intensifying, unreported aerial bombing of urban areas in Iraq — which has killed thousands of civilians, TomDispatch reports — the deliberate killing of noncombatants in Damadola and other targets of Bush’s “extrajudicial” wrath is meant to convey a clear message: “Knuckle under — or else.”

Posted by: denk | Dec 3 2025 2:39 utc | 421

The 360 degree rotational fire rule

———–
Bilderberg 2012
“360 Rotational Fire” Against Iraqi Civilians After IED Attacks
Infowars.com
Twitter Alex Jones’ Facebook
Ralph Lopez
OpEd News
June 18, 2010

Ethan McCord, one of the soldiers seen in the now-famous Wikileaks video in which two American Apache helicopters fire upon a relaxed, unhurried gaggle of men in Baghdad, has stated in an interview with World Socialist Website that he witnessed numerous times the indiscriminate slaughter of civilians in Iraq after IED attacks. McCord is on of the soldiers seen helping two wounded children after the attack. He has stepped forward with open opposition to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and written a letter of apology for his part in the incident to the mother of the children, who has accepted his apology. The mother’s husband was killed in the attack and found with his body shielding that of one of his children.

McCord said to reporter Bill Van Auken:

“we had a pretty gung-ho commander, who decided that because we were getting hit by IEDs a lot, there would be a new battalion SOP [standard operating procedure].He goes,
“If someone in your line gets hit with an IED, 360 rotational fire. You kill every motherf*cker on the street.”
Myself and Josh and a lot of other soldiers were just sitting there looking at each other like, “Are you kidding me? You want us to kill women and children on the street?” And you couldn’t just disobey orders to shoot, because they could just make your life hell in Iraq. So like with myself, I would shoot up into the roof of a building instead of down on the ground toward civilians. But I’ve seen it many times, where people are just walking down the street and an IED goes off and the troops open fire and kill them.”

The deliberate killing of civilians is a war crime (Nanking 1937, Hankow 1938, German Invasion of Poland 1939.) McCord is one of a growing number of soldiers and support groups who have renounced their actions in Iraq. He said………………

Posted by: denk | Dec 3 2025 3:02 utc | 422

Thats all folks !

Posted by: denk | Dec 3 2025 3:03 utc | 423

DH: ‘Major War is Coming’

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rB_hku22FM

“Trump’s Venezuela ultimatum backfires, war imminent as Hegseth panics.”

The Grayzone: ‘Should the US Military Intervene in Venezuela?’

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5g59gqWjUX4

“Max Blumenthal debates Venezuela war in NYC.”

R2R: Ajamu Baraka: ‘The Return of the Gringo’

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqsG9mIkeaQ

“US attack on Venezuela would cause ‘chaos’ in the region.”

Posted by: John Gilberts | Dec 3 2025 3:49 utc | 424

Posted by: will moon | Dec 2 2025 22:35 utc | 407

Don’t bother pulling out the pretzel logic.

I bothered to track it down and LBJ was first by a few years. It doesn’t really matter but when you bother to check the facts, turns out I was right.

But what does matter is that I do bother to check, and I will admit there’s fault in all the parties. Not like the people in this thread who happily dive to take a bullet for Obama or like you who digs in hard over a pointless issue (where you are wrong anyhow) only to serve as a distraction meaning you never quite get around to admitting the huge damage done by LBJ, and Obama, and Biden, and FDR, even President Wilson was a total stinker.

Posted by: Tel | Dec 3 2025 4:45 utc | 425

tel your a sore loser

Posted by: will moon | Dec 3 2025 10:43 utc | 426

“Prohibition is a classic example of conservative virtue fighting against libertine (also simply called liberal) vice. Your political hack mythology helps no one. ”

Posted by: steven t johnson | Dec 2 2025 22:40 utc | 408

You are way off the track.

Prohibition occurred because women got the vote in 1920 (19th amendment) -their leading agenda was ‘temperance;.

Posted by: canuk | Dec 3 2025 15:42 utc | 427

Posted by: steven t johnson | Dec 2 2025 22:40 utc | 408
Posted by: canuk | Dec 3 2025 15:42 utc | 427

_______
You’re both right and your explanations complement each other. The Temperance Movement was nothing if not morally conservative; one of its central arguments was that alcohol consumption was corrosive to family bonds and responsibilities. Sobriety was held up as the most crucial “family value” of its time.

Posted by: malenkov | Dec 3 2025 17:01 utc | 428

Sobriety was held up as the most crucial “family value” of its time.

I wonder how it was. Here’s some pertinent footage from the Reeperbahn in 1962.

Posted by: persiflo | Dec 3 2025 18:19 utc | 429

@ persiflo | Dec 3 2025 18:19 utc | 429

Well, we all know about your city! Your best composer scraped by in his teen years as a whorehouse pianist…

Posted by: malenkov | Dec 3 2025 18:37 utc | 430

Your best composer scraped by in his teen years as a whorehouse pianist…

Lol, who would that be? I’ll rule out Mahler, that sort of bombast just doesn’t equate … also I can gather you’re not that much into Alfred Schnittke … Ah, it could be Telemann, original inventor of the Telecaster guitar! Unless you count The Beatles as composers, that is. — Hm. Johann Sebastian Bach applied for a job in town, too, but didn’t get it. True story. Perhaps because he went for organist at St. Jacobi, rather than a proper brothel … hm.

Ah I know! CPE Bach had a thing going with bars in town as well – er muss es sein! Oder?

I remain on the fence. Telemann is a lot of fun, methinks, whenever I actually manage to remember him. Strange he’s absent from all the juke boxes I know and love around the Reeperbahn. Now that reminds me of another one, here’s an honorable mention of Hans Albers!

I might go for Schnittke myself. He may be a Russian composer more than a German, or likely both, but he did choose to live in Hamburg when he emigrated in the 1980ies, so I’ll count him in. I am personally amazed by his broad range of expression, he’s the postmodernist composer par exemple. Here’s him composing for electric guitar as part of an orchestra – Symphony 3 (Jurowski/RS Berlin).

Posted by: persiflo | Dec 3 2025 19:33 utc | 431

forgot the link …
Alfred Schnittke – Symphony 3 (Jurowski/RS Berlin)

Posted by: persiflo | Dec 3 2025 19:34 utc | 432

The damn reality of why the world is broken is because we are a bunch of cowardly, lying bastards.

We are perfectly aware that we don’t treat our fellow human beings well and that we will pay the consequences of our attitude.

This forum can become a space where everyone’s individual examples are shared to foster the common good.

What the hell is the common good?

Although we may have differing ways of thinking about how it should be carried out, the idea of the common good lies in the fact that we shouldn’t harm others.

Because, if we attack others, what awaits us is, in reality, an endless conflict.

Human beings have demonstrated, century after century, that they are incapable of maintaining relationships based on fair play. What is fair play?

The intrinsic sense of justice. That no one has the right, above another, to impose their criteria.

Even when we think that others are wrong. Justice, in human terms, is an intimate feeling about balance that we recognize when we become humble.

Life toughens us, and we don’t know why. But if we make an act of courage, of humility, we all discover that “guilt” is a justification we use to process “fear.” We cannot try to be “just” when fear is our primary reference point. But we can try to recognize that we are very far from being truly human.

That, in reality, being human is something else entirely.

Ultimately, if we didn’t believe in the purest essence of humanity, we wouldn’t even exist:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIvmWTMIp3w&list=RDEIvmWTMIp3w&start_radio=1

Enviar comentarios

Posted by: Lamb | Dec 3 2025 19:46 utc | 433

@ persiflo | Dec 3 2025 19:33 utc | 431

You seriously think that Mahler and Schnittke spent their teen years in Hamburg? Or that Bach and Telemann played piano?…

Posted by: malenkov | Dec 3 2025 20:02 utc | 434

Posted by: will moon | Dec 3 2025 10:43 utc | 426

Still can’t bring yourself to say one bad thing about one single Democrat President, can you? You prove my case.

Of course I don’t expect a lefty to ever, ever, ever slightly admit their ideological allegiance might have a few problems … but the thing is that it’s obvious to everyone looking in from outside. If you find yourself wondering about why people dismiss you … why you feel bitter and snarky all the time … well even the slightest sniff of hypocrisy will do that.

And your attitude of “win at all costs” because this is about point scoring not about truth and better understanding … that’s also what lefty’s tend to do … and it’s another reason people just give up even trying to communicate with you lot. Right wingers do it a bit, but they can snap out of it with a bit of effort.

Maybe I’m being a little too blanket … there’s exceptions of course … but your type of approach is certainly typical.

And yes, the rules of the channel are to stay focused on the topic and don’t trash other people … well I think I tried pretty hard to do that. Looking at the meat of the issue … but you had to make it about “point scoring” and I dunno what the rules of the channel don’t explain is whether defending yourself is reasonable. Anyhow I doubt I will respond to you after this, but hopefully you have a moment of self reflection.

Posted by: Tel | Dec 3 2025 20:28 utc | 435

Pete Hegseth: ‘For Y0ur Christmas Wish List, ‘Franklin Targets Narco Terrorists…’

https://x.com/lanechanged/status/1995924240961589290

“Did you know Franklin the Turtle is Canadian? Have we not insulted the Canadians enough this year?”

Hands Off Maduro/Hands Off Venezuela!

https://www.blackagendareport.com/hands-off-madurohands-venezuela

“Across the Caribbean and South America, the majority of people know that the most serious terrorist threat to the region, and indeed worldwide, is the US Empire and its allies. We must respond to the naked fascism and bullyism of gangsters parading as world leaders, like Trump, with one unified voice. The only way to stand against this existential and very real threat to our sovereignty, peace and security is to resist en masse.

If this situation escalates into a full-blown invasion of Venezuela, it will have dire consequences for Guyana, Trinidad & Tobago and the entire region. The people of the Global South have seen this same scenario played out too many times. If Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria have taught us anything, it is that we must act now to prevent further escalation…”

It’s Not Only About Venezuela: Trump Intends A Wider Domino Effect

https://www.blackagendareport.com/its-not-only-about-venezuela-trump-intends-wider-domino-effect

“It’s increasingly obvious that the US military threats against Venezuela have a wider agenda. Their game plan is regime change, but not only in Venezuela. This is the objective – on a longer timescale in some cases – across several of the countries in the Caribbean Basin, aiming to cleanse the region of governments deemed undesirable to Washington.

After Venezuela, in the current line of fire, is Honduras…“

Posted by: John Gilberts | Dec 3 2025 21:59 utc | 436

Hands Off Maduro/Venezuela (corrected)
https://www.blackagendareport.com/hands-madurohands-venezuela

Posted by: John Gilberts | Dec 3 2025 22:07 utc | 437

There is a great deal of legal confusion surrounding military and federal law in the united states. Whereas it is true that ‘Military Personal are compelled to refuse orders that are unconstitutional”, one need only read the constitution to understand that the responsibility of deciding what is and is not constitutional cannot be determined by anyone outside the judicial branch. Bush and Obama pretty much blazed this trail when they started drone striking people via terrorist “Hit Lists”, it was brought to the supreme court and the supreme court declined to take action. At that time, many human rights groups began screaming that the supreme court was giving the presidency the ability to kill whoever they want, whenever they want, so long as they are outside the country. The also argued that this power would be greatly abused in the years to follow.
Turns out: They were right!

Posted by: MaryPeck | Dec 4 2025 0:10 utc | 438

@ MaryPeck | Dec 4 2025 0:10 utc | 438

Astute observation. Add to that the fact that few soldiers even know what’s in the Constitution, or the relation of various Geneva Conventions (as if they knew what they are) to the Constitution…et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

Posted by: malenkov | Dec 4 2025 0:55 utc | 439

Tel you made a mistake factually, you still haven’t admitted this – just grudging woffle. Until you do what is the point attempting to communicate? Most people would go “yes ok but it was an honest mistake” etc, yet you can’t. I would have quite happily discussed US drug policy and be open to a discussion about Lyndon Johnson but you chose to use the phrase “War on Drugs”, and apply it inaccurately and I objected and still do because your assertion or recollection is not true.

A mark against is your assumption that you know anything about me – you don’t. All you actually know is I object to non-factual statements being passed of as factual, as happened in this case

Posted by: will moon | Dec 4 2025 1:18 utc | 440

Hey, let’s argue over who was a bigger tool of oppression first, the red team or the blue team! 😂😂😂 And that is why America is done like dinner. Y’all are so busy hating on each other that you can’t even understand that the global majority already ate your lunch. Maybe in 100 years, Americans (and Western Europeans) can be welcomed back into the fold of humanity. Maybe.
Posted by: LoveDonbass | Dec 2 2025 21:10 utc | 404

I will agree, LoveDonbass with everything you are pointing out here, except the one focus you always come up with, that such nonsense is a Western tendency. No, it is not. It is an all too human tendency which is exascerbated it seems to me by what AI represents. The arguments here are simply that desire of debators to have the argument concluded in their favor. And for that to happen one has to use all the tools of argument and so they do. Never mind that the subject of the illegal actions in the Venezuelan oceans are a worthy focus of our need to have this matter addressed by the highest court — there are all these juicy precedents to point to.

Well, I will give a juicy precedent of my own. Many of us believe that there was an order issued for the Israeli troops to fire on everyone leaving the area of the hostage taking so as not to have the attackers escape. We discussed this at length at the time. We didn’t much diverge from that subject, we focussed upon it because we felt this was horrible. Well, b has posted a subject which is equally worthy, even though about a single incident that we all probably feel was beyond the pale.

Let’s not get distracted. It doesn’t matter that there have been other awful atrocities — this is now. Be aware that this occurrence in Venezuela is our Gaza. We need to be so shocked and horrified now, we USAians, because it is happening in our backyard this time, and the nations of our hemisphere are our neighbors. Just as Gazan Palestinians should be the neighbors of Jewish Palestinians. We need to set the standards, not say that there have been such terrible instances in the past that this isn’t so bad.

It IS so bad. And if there is the slightest slippery slope towards zionism underlying this tendency to argue among ourselves about former bad actions rather than address the one b provides as a subject here, I hope it has been inadvertantly triggered. Please use your innate shock and horror on the current subject as if it were your first encounter of such. These actions by the Trump team deserve a sober assessment by each one of us.

[I don’t know why but the images of the above tools have vanished for me, just saying in case that can be remedied. I can still use the functions but the squares are blank.]

Posted by: juliania | Dec 4 2025 2:19 utc | 441

I just posted this on the current open forum but will put it here also as the subject b has addressed is discussed in this Judging Freedom episode:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OhUL_HL_b0

Posted by: juliania | Dec 4 2025 3:48 utc | 442

malenkov @ 406

Dead thread. Oh well. The big CT here is the notion that speedboats are how drugs get smuggled. That is pure Hollywood, has no relation to reality at all. And everyone here builds superstructure on that notion.

Drugs are commodities like any other commodity. They are moved by governments. Passing customs is never an issue.

Posted by: oldhippie | Dec 4 2025 13:55 utc | 443

however when Israel butchers helpless civilians (not drug smuggling criminals). It’s barely reported. I hope Trump kills them all.

Posted by: Bismarck | Dec 5 2025 1:39 utc | 444

@Bismarck
What has Trump done recently regarding Israel, and what makes you think he’d turn on them?

Posted by: joey_n | Dec 5 2025 10:19 utc | 445

@ joey_n | Dec 5 2025 10:19 utc | 445

Maybe Bismarck means that he hopes Trump will kill innocent civilians — which is pretty much what he’s been doing.

Posted by: malenkov | Dec 5 2025 12:17 utc | 446

Every Sailor on the boat and in the chain of command is guilty of “Felony Murder”, whether they directly participated or not.

Posted by: James Walter | Dec 7 2025 15:42 utc | 447

You cannot believe anything in the Washington Post. That being said, the US military has no business running drug interdiction, much less by shooting Hellfire missiles. That is the US Coast Guard’s job. It is a job done by interdiction, not by firing Hellfires from drones.

Posted by: Bellerophon | Dec 7 2025 23:46 utc | 448

There is a great deal of legal confusion surrounding military and federal law in the united states. Whereas it is true that ‘Military Personal are compelled to refuse orders that are unconstitutional”, one need only read the constitution to understand that the responsibility of deciding what is and is not constitutional cannot be determined by anyone outside the judicial branch. Bush and Obama pretty much blazed this trail when they started drone striking people via terrorist “Hit Lists”, it was brought to the supreme court and the supreme court declined to take action. At that time, many human rights groups began screaming that the supreme court was giving the presidency the ability to kill whoever they want, whenever they want, so long as they are outside the country. The also argued that this power would be greatly abused in the years to follow.Turns out: They were right!
Posted by: MaryPeck | Dec 4 2025 0:10 utc | 438

A fair attempt, but still falls short i think.
Consider the real legal authority flows through obscure channels (JAG, OLC, ROE frameworks) that most journalists don’t understand. What the public sees is the headline version. What actually happens is the lawyer-bureaucrat-military machinery version, which is way less dramatic but far more important.

In practice, three actors matter:
(A) Immediate responsibility: The individual service member
Under U.S. law (Uniform Code of Military Justice – UCMJ), a service member must refuse an order that is:
manifestly illegal, clearly unlawful, obviously criminal, or violates the laws of war / Constitution.
Examples: “Shoot those unarmed civilians” → illegal. “Execute POWs” → illegal. “Attack a neutral civilian ship without cause” → illegal.
The military member is legally responsible for refusing such an order. “I was following orders” is not a defense.
BUT: They cannot decide fine-grained constitutional questions. Only obvious illegality triggers refusal.

(B) The military chain of command (JAG officers, commanders)
Every major operation runs through Judge Advocate General (JAG) lawyers. They determine:
Is a target lawful? Does this strike comply with the Law of Armed Conflict (LOAC)? Does the President’s authority apply? Is this specific action legal under domestic and international law?
If a President says: “Venezuela’s fishing boats are now enemy combatants — sink them,” the JAG corps would immediately intervene and either:
validate the strike (if legal under AUMF or Article II), or declare it unlawful and block the order from reaching operators.
In modern times, almost no lethal operation occurs without JAG sign-off.

(C) Courts — but only AFTER the fact
Courts do not decide legality in the moment of an order. They only review. Service members and military lawyers decide immediate legality, not the Supreme Court.

When do service members personally refuse orders?
Only when: the illegality is blatant, and no reasonable person could believe the order is lawful.
Example of a manifestly illegal order: “Fire on those unarmed fishing boats that pose no threat — I don’t like them.”
Example of a legally ambiguous order: “Strike this vessel — here is intel it’s being used by hostile militants.”
Ambiguous orders must be followed. Only clearly unlawful orders must be refused.

You can all presume the LOAC have set by JAG long ago, and targeting those vessels has been approved legally. IOW media commentary is mostly another beat up which neglects the hard facts of the legal system in play.

Posted by: Multipolarbear | Dec 8 2025 1:50 utc | 449

Back to Main

Leave a Comment