#Via Gift Articles @GiftArticles
Nov 28, 2025, 9:40 PM
"Dear JAG: What Do I Do if I Get Unlawful Orders to Blow Up Civilian Boats?"
slate.com/news-and-politics/20…
Dear JAG: What Do I Do if I Get Unlawful Orders to Blow Up Civilian Boats
Orders are presumed to be lawful, but that presumption is rebuttable rather than conclusive.Eugene R. Fidell (Slate)
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Mother Bones
in reply to Mother Bones • • •Sensitive content
#Via Ryan Goodman / rgoodlaw
Nov 28, 2025, 1:34 PM
"Textbook war crime/extrajudicial killing.
Two survivors were clinging to the smoldering wreck. The Special Operations commander overseeing the Sept. 2 attack ... ordered a second strike to comply with Hegseth’s instructions."
[Gift Link ⬇️ but it still tries to make you create an account to read further. But you can see the headline and first section:]
washingtonpost.com/national-se…
Mother Bones
in reply to Mother Bones • • •#Via Ryan Goodman / rgoodlaw
Nov 28, 2025, 1:34 PM
"Because there is no legitimate war between the two sides, killing any of the men in the boats 'amounts to murder,' said Todd Huntley, a former military lawyer who advised Special Operations forces for seven years at the height of the U.S. counterterrorism campaign."
Mother Bones
in reply to Mother Bones • • •#Via Ryan Goodman / rgoodlaw
Nov 28, 2025, 1:34 PM
"Even if the U.S. were at war with the traffickers, an order to kill all the boat’s occupants if they were no longer able to fight 'would in essence be an order to show no quarter, which would be a war crime,' said Huntley, now director of the national security law program at Georgetown Law."
Mother Bones
in reply to Mother Bones • • •#Via Ryan Goodman / rgoodlaw
Nov 28, 2025, 1:34 PM
"Hiding the evidence from the American public: Later in the day, President Donald Trump released a redacted 29-second surveillance drone video showing the attack. The video does not include any footage of the subsequent strike on the survivors.
And to Congress, Administration explanation to Congress seems to be a bold-face falsehood: claiming double-tap strike was to clear debris, not to kill survivors."
Mother Bones
in reply to Mother Bones • • •#Via Ryan Goodman / rgoodlaw
Nov 28, 2025, 1:34 PM
"That explanation has prompted frustration among some members of Congress who say they believe the Pentagon was deceptive.
The Pentagon has not fulfilled a bipartisan request from lawmakers to see unedited footage."
Mother Bones
in reply to Mother Bones • • •#Via Garrett M. Graff / vermontgmg
Nov 28, 2025, 7:14 PM
"In case you’re wondering why Pete Hegseth is freaking out about a congressional video reminding the military not to participate in illegal orders:"
Mother Bones
in reply to Mother Bones • • •#Via Brandon Friedman
@BrandonFriedman
Nov 28, 2025, 6:48 PM
"To put a finer point on this whole thing: 'Two people with direct knowledge of the operation' — presumably uniformed military leaders — are accusing the U.S. Secretary of Defense of personally ordering specific war crimes. That's a historic accusation."
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Mother Bones
in reply to Mother Bones • • •Mother Bones
in reply to Mother Bones • • •#Via David Alman / davidalman
Nov 28, 2025, 1:11 PM
"Heinz-Wilhelm Eck might have something to say about this one.
To be explicit, we executed a German U-Boat commander who said he had to sink lifesaving gear / 'inadvertently' kill survivors because it might give away his position, thereby potentially resulting in the loss of his submarine.
We executed multiple members of that crew."
Mother Bones
in reply to Mother Bones • • •#Via Andy Craig / andycraig
Nov 28, 2025, 3:34 PM
"Ordering no quarter, as Hegseth effectively did, isn't a newfangled modern war crime. It was understood as a crime as far back as the Revolutionary War. Washington threatened to do reprisals over it. The bad guy in 'The Patriot' is (very loosely) based off a British officer who was notorious for it."
your auntifa liza 🇵🇷 🦛 🦦 reshared this.
Cade
in reply to Mother Bones • • •Mother Bones
in reply to Cade • • •Mother Bones
in reply to Mother Bones • • •#Via Dalassa
@dalassa
Nov 28, 2025, 2:32 PM
"You cannot fire on people in the water after you attacked their boat."
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hors_de_…
soldiers unable to fight
Contributors to Wikimedia projects (Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.)Mother Bones
in reply to Mother Bones • • •#Via Marble Liberal / marbleliberal
Nov 29, 2025, 4:15 AM
"This is literally one of the oldest customs of war at sea, and much less heartless than many old customs of war on land. The real enemy is always understood to be the sea itself."
Mother Bones
in reply to Mother Bones • • •#Via Climate Angel / climateangel
Nov 29, 2025, 4:08 AM
"It’s against international maritime law to murder individuals at sea (in the water after boat destroyed)"
thelog.com/ask-a-maritime-atto…
Ask a Maritime Attorney: Do I legally have to render assistance to a distressed boater? | The Log
Jordan Darling (The Log)Alton Barrett reshared this.
Mother Bones
in reply to Mother Bones • • •#Via Spencer Ackerman / attackerman
Nov 28, 2025, 4:32 PM
"Hegseth's not the only war criminal here. 'The [USSOCOM] commander overseeing the operation from Fort Bragg in North Carolina, Adm. Frank M. 'Mitch' Bradley, told people on the secure conference call that the survivors were still legitimate targets... He ordered the second strike.' "
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Mother Bones
in reply to Mother Bones • • •#Via Post Andy Craig / andycraig
Nov 29, 2025, 3:29 PM
"Bradley, more than Hegseth, just shot straight to the top of the list of people most likely to be prosecuted. Not because a future Dem administration will necessarily have strong political will for prosecutions. Because the military itself will be chomping at the bit to nail his ass to the wall."
Mother Bones
in reply to Mother Bones • • •#Via Kyle Griffin
@kylegriffin1
Nov 29, 2025, 8:20 PM
"Republican-led House and Senate committees say they will amplify their scrutiny of the Pentagon after a WaPo report revealing that Pete Hegseth gave a spoken order to kill all crew members aboard a vessel suspected of smuggling drugs in the Caribbean several weeks ago."
libramoon reshared this.
Mother Bones
in reply to Mother Bones • • •#Via The War Monitor / warmonitor.net
Nov 29, 2025, 8:38 PM
"There are now bipartisan investigations in both the House and Senate into the administration targeting and killing people in the Caribbean without due process."
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Mother Bones
in reply to Mother Bones • • •#Via Mike Black / mikeblack114
Nov 29, 2025, 9:01 PM
"Hoo boy
Whole buncha folks about to have to face a choice between complying with a Congressional subpoena and getting fired because pete's mad at them
Also if anything is a 'start the clock' moment on pete's tenure coming to an end, it's this."
Mother Bones
in reply to Mother Bones • • •"Pete Hegseth Is Finally Getting Investigated"
motherjones.com/politics/2025/…
Pete Hegseth is finally getting investigated
Mother JonesNini
in reply to Mother Bones • • •Doodles
in reply to Mother Bones • • •Sensitive content
Ontario Canuck 🇨🇦🏳️🌈
in reply to Mother Bones • • •@dalassa
You can if you are a fascist. Nazi mariners were put to death after WWII for just such behaviour.
Mother Bones
in reply to Ontario Canuck 🇨🇦🏳️🌈 • • •@dtq1952
mstdn.social/@_L1vY_/115633831…
Mother Bones
2025-11-29 16:03:56
ClaraBlackInk
in reply to Mother Bones • • •Don't quote me but as I recall from the BTB episodes* on Hegseth, he seemed to think we lost wars because we wouldn't do war crimes. That hands were tied and thus winning was impossible.
Which is probably the position of a lot of the folks doing war crimes at this moment. A vague belief that if only there weren't pesky rules, they wouldn't be losers.
*Episodes were from August 4 & 7 2025 for anyone curious. They discuss his 2020 book.
Mother Bones reshared this.
Jesse
in reply to ClaraBlackInk • • •@clarablackink
And for those that don't know: BTB = Behind the Bastards 😉
Behind the Bastards: Part One: Pete Hegseth's Fascist Book 'American Crusade'
Episode webpage: omny.fm/shows/behind-the-basta…
Part One: Pete Hegseth's Fascist Book 'American Crusade' - Behind the Bastards
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G. Gibson reshared this.
Mother Bones
in reply to ClaraBlackInk • • •Nazani
in reply to Mother Bones • • •Mother Bones reshared this.
Jack the Pumpkin Count
in reply to Mother Bones • • •Mother Bones reshared this.
EarthMomma
in reply to Mother Bones • • •IN OTHER WORDS -------
Following illegal orders
John Carlsen 🇺🇸🇳🇱🇪🇺
in reply to Mother Bones • • •Congress has not declared war, so there can be no "war crimes".
Let's demand to know everyone involved in this conspiracy to commit murder, from who gave the illegal order to who pulled the trigger.
Prosecute them all for conspiracy to commit murder.
Mother Bones
in reply to John Carlsen 🇺🇸🇳🇱🇪🇺 • • •Maddad ☑️
in reply to Mother Bones • • •Sensitive content
Mother Bones
in reply to Maddad ☑️ • • •Mother Bones reshared this.
Maddad ☑️
in reply to Mother Bones • • •ok, it wouldn't open for me on your post so I went and opened it and took a screeny.
I find using Brave over Linux with the avoid paywall filter enabled I can open most pay news sites. Sometimes a bit of juggling is needed, but normally it usually works.
Mother Bones
in reply to Maddad ☑️ • • •Maddad ☑️
in reply to Mother Bones • • •It might of been something at my end then, I have no idea what though 😆
Mother Bones
in reply to Maddad ☑️ • • •Maddad ☑️
in reply to Mother Bones • • •The game server I play on sometimes has had a lot of lag issues the last couple of weeks and at one point became unplayable for a while.
Mother Bones reshared this.
Mother Bones
Unknown parent • • •Mother Bones
Unknown parent • • •Darth Osler
in reply to Mother Bones • • •Mother Bones reshared this.
Darth Osler
in reply to Darth Osler • • •when I entered the USMA class of 1999, one instructor called fragging "the lowly conscript's sacrament"
Probably an instructive turn of phrase