Press secretary Karoline Leavitt claimed the apparent war crime was legal even as she said Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth knew nothing about it.
The White House on Monday shifted the blame for killing the survivors of a U.S. military strike on an alleged drug smuggling boat from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and onto the commanding admiral.
Killing survivors of a destroyed vessel is literally an example of a war crime in the U.S. Department of Defense Law of War Manual. “For example, orders to fire upon the shipwrecked would be clearly illegal,” the manual reads.
Press secretary Karoline Leavitt, nevertheless, repeatedly stated that it was legal – even as she further claimed, as Donald Trump did Sunday, that Hegseth was unaware that it had happened.
the first one is illegal since we’re not at war, they weren’t an immediate threat, etc
the second is super illegal cause it’s considered a war crime
Exactly. The reason why there’s so much heat on this particular incident is simply because there’s zero grey area. Like, in general the blowing up “drug boats” stuff is almost certainly a war crime, but it at least falls within the “Lawyers can argue it in court” realms. Whereas killing survivors of a sunken ship is literally the textbook definition of a warcrime in the US military’s own manual on this stuff. It is so cut and dried that they use it as an example of a de facto illegal act.