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Entire Chain of Command Could Be Held Liable for Killing Boat Strike Survivors, Sources Say (theintercept.com)

submitted 7 hours ago by HellsBelle@sh.itjust.works to c/news@lemmy.world

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SECRETARY OF DEFENSE Pete Hegseth is under increasing fire for a double-tap strike, first reported by The Intercept in early September, in which the U.S. military killed two survivors of the Trump administration’s initial boat strike in the Caribbean on September 2.

The Washington Post recently reported that Hegseth personally ordered the follow-up attack, giving a spoken order “to kill everybody.” Multiple military legal experts, lawmakers, and now confidential sources within the government who spoke with The Intercept say Hegseth’s actions could result in the entire chain of command being investigated for a war crime or outright murder.

“Those directly involved in the strike could be charged with murder under the UCMJ or federal law,” said Todd Huntley, a former Staff Judge Advocate who served as a legal adviser on Joint Special Operations task forces conducting drone strikes in Afghanistan and elsewhere, using shorthand for the Uniform Code of Military Justice. “This is about as clear of a case being patently illegal that subordinates would probably not be able to successfully use a following-orders defense.”

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[–] BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today 3 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago)

I'm hearing conflicting reports of the timeline.

One version has Hegseth ordering the strike, and after the first hit, there were two guys alive in the water, and Hegseth said "Kill them all," and the second strike was fired.

Another version has Hegseth saying "Kill them all" up front, and the pilot, noticing the two survivors in the water, decided to fire the second shot on his own, in accordance with Hegseth's original order, but Hegseth did not give the specific order to fire a second shot.

In the first version, Hegseth is definitely on the hook for the order to fire the second shot, which was murder, plain and simple. In the second version, the pilot unilaterally made the decision to murder the survivors, giving Hegseth weak deniability. He did order them to "Kill them all," but he could say it was an excited but rhetorical statement at the outset of the operation, but that he didn't mean for the pilot to commit actual murder. He'll act all outraged, and throw the pilot under the bus.

If nothing else (and they are plenty else), MAGA is cowardly.