Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is attempting to distance himself from the U.S. airstrike on September 2 that targeted two shipwrecked men who had survived an earlier U.S. strike on a boat the Pentagon says was carrying drugs, without providing evidence. Legal experts say the strike was likely a war crime. Last week, The Washington Post reported Hegseth had given a verbal order to “kill everybody” on the boat. Hegseth spoke Tuesday during a White House Cabinet meeting. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth: “I watched that first strike live. As you can imagine, at the Department of War, we’ve got a lot of things to do. So I didn’t stick around for the hour and two hours, whatever, where all the sensitive site exploitation digitally occurs. So I moved on to my next meeting. A couple of hours later, I learned that that commander had made the — which he had the complete authority to do, and, by the way, Admiral Bradley made the correct decision to ultimately sink the boat and eliminate the threat.” Hegseth was sitting right next to President Trump during the three-hour Cabinet meeting, in which Trump appeared to fall asleep several times. Since September, the U.S. has bombed at least 21 boats in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean, killing more than 80 people. Meanwhile, the family of a Colombian fisherman killed in a U.S. boat strike on September 15 has filed a complaint against the U.S. with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. The family of Alejandro Carranza Medina says he was the victim of an “extrajudicial killing.” In more news from the region, a bipartisan group of lawmakers have introduced a War Powers Resolution to block the Trump administration from engaging in hostilities against Venezuela without congressional authorization.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is attempting to distance himself from the first U.S. airstrike on September 2 that targeted two shipwrecked men who had survived an earlier U.S. strike on a boat the Pentagon says was carrying drugs, without providing evidence

    • Muehe@lemmy.ml
      12·
      1 天前

      Apparently he does:

      During a Cabinet meeting at the White House, Hegseth said he did not see any survivors in the water, saying the vessel “exploded in fire, smoke, you can’t see anything. … This is called the fog of war.”

  • supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz
    35·
    2 天前

    Bullshit, whatever platform launched these missiles was likely a predator drone, helicopter or fighter jet. Any of these platforms have the capability to outrun, outmaneuver and encircle a powerboat easily. Categorically “fog of war” doesn’t work here because there is no fog, there is just a military pointlessly murdering people like shooting fish in a barrel. The US military has the capability to read the writing on a tattoo off of a crew member at night on one of these boats from far enough away that the surveillance equipment wouldn’t even be detected by the crew, the idea that a fog of war existed for the US military here is darkly hilarious and evil and if taken at face value is basically an admission of stunning incompetence that in my opinion demands legal action and jail time.

    This excuse is equivalent to saying you aren’t responsible for where all the bullets go when you shoot at a target on a shooting range because of the “fog of war” of target shooting… No… you have to CHOOSE to fire every bullet and you have to CHOOSE not to pay attention to what you are shooting at. There should NEVER be fog of war when you are target shooting, period! Most gun owners would look at you like you had three heads if you were talking about target shooting with a rifle and remarked that you would casually fire in a direction without knowing if it was safe and passing off the comment with a shrug and a laugh saying “well how am I supposed to know where the bullets went???!?”. Here it is so much worse, we are talking about using multi-million dollar military equipment to murder people in cold blood to “hopefully” start a bullshit war to cover for this administrations crimes and utter incompetence from top to bottom.

    Maybe Hegseth is mistaking a “Fog Of War” for a crushing hangover from being constantly drunk?

    • Muehe@lemmy.ml
      3·
      1 天前

      I had to go to a different source, but here is the actual quote:

      During a Cabinet meeting at the White House, Hegseth said he did not see any survivors in the water, saying the vessel “exploded in fire, smoke, you can’t see anything. … This is called the fog of war.”

      So yeah, he thinks “fog of war” means literal fog…

    • D_C@sh.itjust.works
      3·
      1 天前

      You know when you’ve just orgasmed real hard and your eyes are glazed over and maybe a little rolled up? That.

      He was so happy about the murders of these fishermen that he orgasmed and blurted out “kill em all” in ecstasy.

  • Kronusdark@lemmy.worldEnglish
    28·
    2 天前

    So he wasn’t certain there were survivors but fired on a shipwreck anyways?! Just for fun I guess?