Update’s….
Possible ‘War Crime?’ says a several Democratic and Republican lawmakers….
A top Republican and Democrats in Congress suggested on Sunday that American military officials might have committed a war crime in President Trump’s offensive against boats in the Caribbean after a news report said that during one such attack, a follow-up strike was ordered to kill survivors.
The remarks came in response to a Washington Post report on Friday that said that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had given a verbal order to kill everyone aboard boats suspected of smuggling drugs, and that this led a military commander to carry out a second strike to kill those who had initially survived an attack in early September.
“Obviously if that occurred, that would be very serious, and I agree that that would be an illegal act,” Representative Mike Turner, Republican of Ohio and a former chairman of the Intelligence Committee, said on “Face the Nation” on CBS….
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The lawmakers’ comments came after top Republicans and Democrats on the two congressional committees overseeing the Pentagon vowed over the weekend to increase their scrutiny of U.S. boat strikes in the Caribbean after the report. Mr. Turner said the article had only sharpened lawmakers’ already grave questions about the operation.
“There are very serious concerns in Congress about the attacks on the so-called drug boats down in the Caribbean and the Pacific, and the legal justification that’s been provided,” he said. “But this is completely outside of anything that’s been discussed with Congress, and there is an ongoing investigation.”
The investigations by both the House and Senate Armed Services Committees are the sharpest scrutiny to date by Congress of Mr. Trump’s escalating military offensive, undertaken without congressional approval or consultation, which he says is aimed at taking out drug traffickers.
They constitute a notable step by Republican lawmakers who have spent much of the year deferring to Mr. Trump and refraining from exercising oversight of his actions….
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Hegseth tells his boss ‘I did not’say THAT’….
During an attack on a boat on Sept. 2 — the opening salvo in the Trump administration’s war on suspected drug traffickers in the Western Hemisphere — a live drone feed showed two survivors from an original crew of 11 clinging to the wreckage of their boat after an initial missile attack, The Washington Post reported Friday afternoon.
To comply with a spoken order from Hegseth to kill everyone, the Special Operations commander overseeing the mission ordered a second strike that killed the two survivors, according to two people with direct knowledge of the operation. Those people, along with five others in the original report, spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the matter’s sensitivity….
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On Sunday, Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Virginia) said that, if the reporting is true, “it’s a clear violation of the DOD’s own laws of war, as well as international laws about the way you treat people who are in that circumstance.”
“And so this rises to the level of a war crime if it’s true,” Kaine said on CBS News’s “Face the Nation.”
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On Saturday, a group of former military lawyers and senior leaders known as the Former JAGs Working Group, which has scrutinized the Trump administration’s military activities in Latin America, said in a statement that the targeting of defenseless people is prohibited — regardless of whether the U.S. is in an armed conflict, conducting law enforcement or other military operations.
Under the circumstances cited by The Post, “not only does international law prohibit targeting these survivors, but it also requires the attacking force to protect, rescue, and, if applicable, treat them as prisoners of war,” the group said in a statement circulated to news media. “Violations of these obligations are war crimes, murder, or both. There are no other options.”…
Note…
Somebody IS Lying.….
Is Congress gonna talk to the Commander whon actually gave the order to shoot the survivors of the US boat attack?
The people in the rooms on BOTH the ship and the US Souther Command?
Is NCIS digging in this?
How about the Pentagon itself?
Can Hegseth survive this, never mind what Trump says right now?
image…Matt McClain/The Post
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