The pattern is all too familiar. The Washington Post runs a story with a sensational claim: Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth ordered the killing of survivors of one of the first boat attacks back in September — a coup de grace or finishing shot that would constitute a war crime. The Post appears to have had only one source making the specific claim about Hegseth, but ran with the story. What followed was a line of politicians and pundits calling for the usual criminal charges, impeachments, and resignations. Then, various sources, including the New York Times, debunked the story.
When this story broke, some of us cautioned that the law was clear, but the facts were not. Yes, it is generally a war crime to intentionally kill or order a “double tap” strike for the sole purpose of killing the survivors at sea. The Nazis were charged with such heinous acts in World War II. However, such allegations are often difficult to resolve even after investigations in the “fog of war,” where decisions are made in seconds on a battlefield. This claim was being made with only the Post and a single source as “evidence.”
The Post claimed “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.”
This is the same newspaper that won the Pulitzer Prize with the later debunked Russian collusion story — a scandal started by the Clinton campaign, which secretly funded the infamous Steele dossier.
Nevertheless, the airways were filled with experts stating categorically that a war crime was committed.
Notably, these claims were made over the Administration’s vociferous objections, which denied that any such order was given by Hegseth during the attack. Indeed, a later attack did involve survivors who were retrieved and then returned to their country.
The New York Times this week ran a multiple-source story saying that Hegseth gave no such order.
Putting aside the sensational and apparently false claim about Hegseth, the issue of the order by Admiral Bradley comes down to motivation. It is common in war to deliver a finishing blow on a vessel. It has been routinely done by many countries, including when survivors remain on board or near the boat. While countries must take reasonable measures to allow survivors to leave a sinking vessel, the demands of war often allow for a finishing shot to achieve a mission with personnel on or near the boat.
The first attack did not sink the boat in question, and Bradley ordered a second hit. If he did so to sink the vessel, he is likely within the laws of war.
Of course, reasonable people can question the overall policy and whether killing drug carriers is consistent with international law. However, that is not the specific claim raised in this controversy. The question is whether, in a military action, a second finishing shot can be delivered to complete a mission to sink a vessel. The answer is likely yes.
It is also worth noting the distinction between operations targeting boats and operations targeting people. Past presidents like Barack Obama have unilaterally ordered the killing of people abroad, including U.S. citizens. Presumably, if an attack on a targeted individual did not clearly kill that person, Obama would have ordered a second attack to finish him off.
That brings us back to the sudden appearance of this story about an attack in September. The Administration was hitting the Democratic members hard over their controversial video telling military personnel to refuse unlawful orders. Those members later admitted that they could not actually name such an order. While some have demanded sedition charges against the members, I have written that such a case would be legally unfounded and would certainly collapse immediately in court. This was protected speech, even though I disagreed with these members about posting the video.
As the heat over the video continued to rise, the Post suddenly had breaking news of an illegal order from Hegseth. You would have to be a complete chump to ignore the obvious timing and purpose of such a story. The fact that the Post would run to print with a single anonymous source made the story even more incredible. Yet, it did not matter. It was a fact too good to check for the Post and a long line of experts and pundits.
It still does not matter. We are living in a post-truth political environment where media outlets feed the demands of echo-chambered readers. It was true because they wanted it to be true. They wanted Hegseth watching survivors clinging to a boat and ordering the military “to kill everybody.”
The Congress is moving forward with investigations, and that is a good thing. We should be clear on the rules of engagement and confirm that the motivation was not to kill survivors in the water. However, the real lesson here is one that still has not been learned about the corrosive effect of political bias in the media.
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