The NY Times does a look at a Admiral who stepped down being uneasy with a drug policy his boss, Defense Sec. Hegseth, was conducting in the Southern Command Admiral Halsey oversaw.
The retiree, Adm Holsey’s departure has been public….
The boat strike themselves are NOT under his command….
They where executed by Southern Commands assets under orders from the Joint Special Operations Command, under Admiral Bradley in the Sept. drug boat attack…
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The military commander who initially oversaw the Pentagon’s attacks on boats in the Caribbean Sea and the Eastern Pacific retired on Friday, leaving several issues about the strikes unanswered.
The officer, Adm. Alvin Holsey, abruptly announced in October that he would step down at the end of the year from his job as the head of the U.S. Southern Command, which oversees all operations in Central and South America. The Trump administration has said that boats in the region were smuggling drugs and criminals into the United States, and the Pentagon rapidly built up some 15,000 forces there in what it called a major counterdrug and counterterrorism mission.
It was still not entirely clear why Admiral Holsey was departing a year into what is typically a three-year job and in the midst of the biggest operation in his 37-year career.
He offered no explanation on Friday at a sun-dappled ceremony flanked by palm trees at his headquarters, near Miami. Admiral Holsey, known as Bull, made no reference to the controversy over the boat strikes in brief remarks, instead urging members of his command to press for a “secure, free and prosperous Western Hemisphere.”
But one current and one former U.S. official, as well as a congressional official, all of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss personnel matters, said Admiral Holsey had raised concerns early in the mission about the attacks on the alleged drug boats, which started in September.
At the time, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had expressed frustration that the admiral was not pursuing suspected drug traffickers quickly and aggressively enough. The admiral’s concerns caused him to fall further out of favor with the defense secretary, the officials said. In the end, Mr. Hegseth pushed out Admiral Holsey, the officials said.
While Admiral Holsey has been the highest-ranking military officer overseeing the boat strikes, the decision to carry them out has been driven by the White House and Mr. Hegseth. The strikes themselves have been conducted by the Joint Special Operations Command, with the admiral largely cut out of the decision-making, congressional and defense officials said….
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“Military officers spend their entire careers earning a role as a four-star combat commander,” said James G. Stavridis, a retired admiral and the former head of the Southern Command. “To simply depart one year into a three-year assignment without explanation of any kind is beyond unusual. I cannot think of a similar case across my four decades in uniform.”…
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Troops Involved in Boat Strikes Face a ‘Moral Injury’ Risk, Experts Say
The Trump administration’s missile strikes against boats that it says are carrying drugs have drawn fierce criticism from legal experts and from some members of Congress, who say that the killing of unarmed civilians in international waters is illegal and amounts to little more than summary execution.
Congress has convened classified hearings, and legal groups have sued to force the administration to release secret memos authorizing the strikes.
But amid all the high-level debate, little public attention has been given to how the strikes affect the low-level people who have to carry them out. For those people, decades of research has shown, the emotional effects of this kind of killing can be devastating.
Participating in killing — even killing seen remotely on a video screen — can leave deep psychological wounds and lead to long-lasting struggles. If the person perceives the killing as morally wrong or unjustified, the effect can be even greater. The Department of Veterans Affairs sees the problem often enough that it has a name: “Moral injury.”
It stems from feelings of intense guilt or shame that can lead to a number of psychological problems, including an increased risk of suicide. It is amplified when the person feels betrayed by an institution or leader that they believed in.
In the boat strikes, hundreds of military personnel could be affected.
When the Trump administration orders a missile strike on a boat speeding across the Caribbean Sea, executing the order isn’t as simple as having an admiral push a red button.
There are intelligence teams using surveillance drones and satellites to track boat traffic. Specialists to intercept radio and cellphone communications, and linguists to translate them. Analysts to sift through intelligence for potential targets, and targeters to call for a strike on a specific boat.
If the strike is carried out by an armed drone, there are sensor operators to aim the drone’s targeting laser, and a drone pilot who ultimately launches the missile. High-definition video footage is beamed to big screens in operations centers, where command teams and their staffs watch every move….
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The troops who do this work are trained to execute orders quickly with little discussion. The orders come from “the customer,” military jargon for whichever command authority requests the mission. For at least some of the boat strikes, the customer has been SEAL Team Six, which reports to Adm. Frank Bradley, the head of Special Operations Command, and to Mr. Hegseth.
Military personnel have little if any say over the assignments they get or the orders they receive. Unlike civilians, they cannot simply quit their jobs. And in almost all circumstances, refusing an order is a crime that can lead to prison time…
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“I just hope they are getting taken care of,” he said. “And if they do raise concerns about the mission, hopefully someone can pull them off the line to get help, rather than punish them.”…
Note….
Sen. Keley’s ‘Not following illegal orderes thing doesn’t really apply to the grunts carrying out those orders…..
Theirs IS to Just ‘Follow’ orders…..
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