Admiral Bradley will make an appearnce before Congress shortly. to tell his story about whatr he did under his boss’s orders…..
Will the ‘Truth’ be in evidence?
Hegseth says he ‘didn’t stick around’ for second strike on alleged drug boat
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on Tuesday that he did not “stick around” to see the second U.S. military strike in early September against an alleged drug-trafficking boat that killed two survivors in the Caribbean.
“I watched that first strike live. As you can imagine, at the Department of War, we 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,” Hegseth told reporters during a Cabinet meeting at the White House.
A “couple” hours later, Hegseth said he learned that Adm. Frank Bradley made the decision to carry out the second strike on the boat.
That second strike is now simmering as a Washington controversy, with lawmakers asking whether it should have been carried out to kill survivors of the first strike, and whether it was a war crime.
Both strikes were part of an operation that the Trump administration says killed 11 “narco-terrorists” on Sept. 2., and Hegseth again on Tuesday defended Bradley, the Navy admiral who serves as commander of U.S. Special Operations Command and carried out the second strike….
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Bradley will be in Congress on Thursday to brief lawmakers about the Sept. 2 strike, the first attack that was disclosed by the Trump administration its amid military operations against alleged drug-smuggling boats, as some have expressed concerns and as top committees overseeing the Defense Department said they will look into the mission.
On Tuesday, Hegseth also said that he did not see the survivors after the initial strike because the vessel was on fire.
“It was exploded in fire or smoke. You can’t see anything,” the Pentagon head said. “You got digital … this is called the fog of war.”
Hegseth then went on to attack the media, including the Post over the initial story about the strikes…..
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Doubt’s about Admiral Bradley acting on Hegseth’s orders….
Former Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall on Monday rejected Navy Adm. Frank Bradley’s reasoning for launching a second strike on a vessel in the Caribbean as two wounded survivors clung on to the boat.
“Under normal circumstances, it’d be court-martialed. He’d be relieved of his duties, and he’d be court-martialed,” Kendall, who served as secretary under former President Biden, said during an appearance on MS NOW. “The administration makes up logic and rationale for the things it’s doing that defy all legal history and all precedent, and that’s basically what we’re seeing here.
Several other former U.S. government and military leaders have also dubbed the “double tap” attack a violation of the country’s law of war manual. Bradley is slated to provide a classified briefing to lawmakers Thursday as members of Congress continue to investigate the Trump administration’s strikes in the Caribbean….
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Hegseth saying he ain’t gonna quit shooting up unarmed boats?
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth struck a defiant tone Tuesday, telling reporters during a Cabinet meeting that the military has “only just begun” sinking “narco-terrorists” to “the bottom of the ocean.”
The big picture: The Trump administration has rallied around Hegseth following a report that the military in September conducted a second strike on an alleged drug vessel near Venezuela to kill any survivors, which legal experts warn could violate the laws of war.
- The White House said Hegseth authorized a Navy admiral to conduct the strikes, which the administration argues was within his authority and the bounds of the law.
Driving the news: “We’ve only just begun striking narco-boats and putting narco-terrorists at the bottom of the ocean because they’ve been poisoning the American people,” Hegseth said from the president’s side.
- But “it’s hard to find boats to strike right now,” he said to laughter in the room, adding that “deterrence has to matter — not arrest and hand over and then do it again.”
State of play: The strikes have killed more than 80 people in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific…..
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“The U.S. military would have committed a crime if it killed the survivors of an attack on an alleged drug boat,” the Associated Press reports.
“It doesn’t matter whether the U.S. is in ‘armed conflict’ with drug cartels as the Trump administration asserts. Such a fatal second strike would have violated peacetime laws and those governing armed conflict.”
Todd Huntley: “Basically, this is the one strike that we know about where even if you accept the Administration’s position that the United States is in an armed conflict with these drug cartels, this would still be unlawful under the laws of armed conflict, because the individuals were out of the fight and shipwrecked, and thus owed protection.”
Mark Nevitt: “The United States, which has military forces deployed around the globe, cannot build a safer world for its own service members by discarding basic laws of war. History shows that when America blatantly abandons humane norms and the law of war, it ultimately endangers its own people.”
Jack Goldsmith: “Surely the warrior ethos, whatever else it means, doesn’t require killing helpless men clinging to the burning wreckage of a blown-up boat.”
Note…
Contrary to Trump and Hegseth’s views…
America is NOT ‘At War’ with guys in speed boats hauling drug’s that do NOT shoot at or back at Big Assed American War ships in International Waters….
Update…..
Pentagon Knew There Were Survivors After Boat Attack
“The Pentagon knew there were survivors after a September attack on an alleged drug boat in the Caribbean Sea and the U.S. military still carried out a follow-up strike,” the AP reports.
“The rationale for the second strike was that it was needed to sink the vessel.”
“What remains unclear was who ordered the strikes and whether Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was involved.”