The Defense Secretary’s account of a war crime has shifted dramatically, and suspiciously, over five days:
| Date | Who | Claim |
|---|---|---|
| Friday | Hegseth | “Fake news.” Does not deny “kill everybody” order. |
| Sunday | Trump | “Pete said that didn’t happen.” “I believe him 100%.” Also: “I wouldn’t have wanted that, not a second strike.” |
| Monday | Leavitt | Confirms second strike. “Hegseth authorized Admiral Bradley to conduct these kinetic strikes.” |
| Monday | Hegseth | Posts Franklin the Turtle meme. “We have only just begun to kill narco-terrorists.” |
| Tuesday | Trump | “I didn’t know about the second strike.” |
| Tuesday | Hegseth | Claims he left the live feed before the second strike. “Didn’t personally see survivors” due to “fog of war.” |
Bombing While Intoxicated?
On Sunday, Trump said “Pete said that didn’t happen.”
By Tuesday, Trump admitted he didn’t know about the second strike.
So Trump was defending Hegseth “100 percent” against something Trump now admits he knew nothing about?
On Monday, the White House said Hegseth “authorized” the strikes.
By Tuesday, Hegseth claimed he wasn’t even watching and it was too foggy to see the thing he had been celebrating so hard that he promoted the guy who did it.
Are they drunk on the job?
What Has Not Happened
The issue is not who pushed the button. The issue is the policy of executing survivors. The allegation is that Hegseth set that policy. Whether he personally watched is irrelevant to whether he ordered “no survivors” as standard procedure.
Hegseth has spent months dismantling protections against war crimes. The current deflection, arguing about who pushed the button on the second strike, is a familiar tactic to bury accountability.
No one has technically denied the actual worst part, that Hegseth gave a “kill everybody” directive before the operation began.
Pentagon Pete Has a Nuremberg Problem
The principle established in the post-WWII war crimes trials, and codified in subsequent international law, is command responsibility: commanders are criminally liable for war crimes committed by forces under their control if they ordered them, knew about them, or should have known and failed to prevent them.
“I wasn’t watching” and “I delegated authority” are confessions.
- The Yamashita standard explicitly prohibits commanders from ceding operational command to subordinates as a defense.
- Under Geneva Protocol I and the Rome Statute, constructive knowledge is sufficient. A commander who fails to keep himself informed can be held responsible.
- Hegseth confirmed he gave Bradley authority to “eliminate the threat” and “stands by” the decision. That’s not a defense—that’s establishing the command structure that makes him liable.
General Tomoyuki Yamashita claimed he didn’t know about the atrocities his troops committed and couldn’t have stopped them. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that commanders cannot cede operational command to subordinates as a defense—operational commanders must exercise their full authority to prevent war crimes, and “neither failure to supervise subordinates nor ambiguous orders” exculpates them. He was hanged.
Hegseth’s tattoos tell you what he believes: crusader crosses, “Deus Vult,” the mythology of holy war without mercy. That ideology has a legal name when it becomes policy.
General Anton Dostler was the first German general executed for war crimes after World War II. His crime: passing Hitler’s Commando Order, which mandated “no pardon” for captured commandos, to a subordinate who carried out the executions.
Dostler’s defense was that he “had not issued the order, but had only passed it along” from his superior. The tribunal rejected it:
No soldier, and still less a Commanding General, can be heard to say that he considered the summary shooting of prisoners of war legitimate.
He was shot by a 12-man firing squad.
Hegseth’s defense is that he gave Bradley “complete authority” and wasn’t watching.
The precedents say that’s no defense.
That’s admission of war crime.
Congress Must Act
The War Crimes Act (18 U.S.C. § 2441) makes grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions by U.S. nationals a federal crime. If death results, the penalty can include death.
This isn’t abstract international law. It’s Hegseth violating a U.S. criminal statute.
The Armed Services Committees have oversight responsibility. A credible allegation that the Secretary of Defense commanded the execution of shipwreck survivors demands investigation.
The U.S. established these precedents. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld Yamashita. The U.S. military tribunal shot Dostler. The U.S. Congress wrote 18 U.S.C. § 2441. Do those things still mean anything, or were they just for other people’s war criminals?
Hegseth is on television confessing to command structure. The statute is clear. The only question is what America stands for.