IT APPEARS TRUMP'S SECRETARY OF DEFENSE, PETE HEGSETH, COMMITTED A WAR CRIME -- OR MURDER.

 

Graphic depictions of two survivors being killed by a second US military strike on an alleged Venezuelan drug ferrying boat have provoked outrage where previously there was none – or at least relatively little.

 A firestorm of controversy has greeted a recent Washington Post report which suggested that a deadly attack on a vessel carrying 11 people in the Caribbean was followed with a second assault after the initial strike failed to kill everybody onboard.

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"The rationale has been widely rejected by most legal experts, who have pointed out that the US is not in conflict with an armed group involved in attacking its territory or its assets abroad." 

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 “Even if we buy into their framing that the individuals on these vessels are combatants, it would still be unlawful to kill them if they are hors de combat, which means they’re incapacitated,” said Rebecca Ingber, a professor at Cardozo law school and a former legal adviser to the state department. 

 “It is manifestly unlawful to kill someone who’s been shipwrecked. This is such a longstanding textbook principle of the law of armed conflict. 

 The prohibition is made explicit in the Pentagon’s own Law of War manual." 

 'Members of the armed forces and other persons … who are wounded, sick, or shipwrecked, shall be respected and protected in all circumstances,' it says. 'Such persons are among the categories of persons placed hors de combat; making them the object of attack is strictly prohibited.'

 Significantly – given the allegation that the second strike was conducted in accordance with Hegseth’s order to kill everyone onboard – the manual also addresses the question of illegal orders."