If you were confused by the helpful reminder from the so-called Seditious Six — the six members of Congress, including Colorado’s Jason Crow — to those in the military that they should not obey “unlawful” orders, now you understand what they meant.
A week after members of Congress made the video — which led Donald Trump to call them traitors and even threaten execution — it was reported that unlawful orders were apparently issued in the first U.S. attack, back on Sept. 2, on alleged drug-running boats from Venezuela.
And it was reported, too, that those apparently unlawful orders were apparently carried out.
I don’t know if the Seditious Six were tipped that the Washington Post story was coming. Or if they were just prescient. Or if they simply understood exactly where this undeclared war against Venezuela as a narco-terrorist state was inevitably heading.
It’s a twisted tale, in which some in the Trump administration are being accused by legal experts, and even some Republican lawmakers, of potential war crimes.
And if the war isn’t actually a legal war, the crimes could be considered murder.
You can make a guess — it’s only a guess — as to why Trump threatened the Seditious Six, who are all either veterans of the military or intelligence operations.
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Did he know what was coming? Or was he just prescient? Or is there any chance he knows what prescient means?
What did come was a Washington Post report last Friday, saying that self-styled secretary of war Pete Hegseth gave a “kill everyone” order on Sept. 2 in what was the first of approximately 20 such attacks on so-called narco-terrorists, which may not even be a real thing.
As we now know, after the initial attack, there were two survivors, who were, in a second attack — known in the military as a double tap — blown out of the water again. This time, they died.
If there was a kill-everyone order, which Hegseth denies, that would explain the second attack on the two survivors. Orders to kill everyone means to kill everyone, including two helpless survivors clinging to the remnants of a boat.
To understand the seriousness of the crime, it reminded some of the attack on the Greek steamer Peleus by a Nazi German U-boat near the end of World War II. When the ship sank, the U-boat captain ordered all the survivors to be killed by gunshot and hand grenade. Three survived the attack. And after the war, five members of the U-boat crew were tried as war criminals and convicted.
While apparently following Hegseth’s kill-everyone order, Adm. Frank “Mitch” Bradley issued the order for the double tap. And orders were then followed down the chain of command.
At a cabinet meeting Tuesday, Hegseth was asked if he had watched the attack, as he had previously claimed. He said he did watch it live, but then claimed — conveniently enough — that he had left the room before realizing there were any survivors.
If you believe Hegseth, nobody came looking for him to ask about the second attack. He praised Adm. Bradley for making the decision, called him a hero, and said he stood by him. Which sounds to those listening carefully that Hegseth was throwing Bradley, and the military, under the bus in order to protect himself.
But it starts with Hegseth, unless you figure Hegseth was just following Trump’s orders. Of course, thanks to the Supreme Court, Trump has immunity for all crimes committed while acting as president, although he presumably could still be — hold the laugh track, please — impeached.
As columnist George Will wrote, “Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth seems to be a war criminal. Without a war. An interesting achievement.”
Jack Goldsmith, a Harvard law professor who was an assistant attorney general during George W. Bush’s presidency, is among the few experts who say there could be a “conceivable” legal justification for the boat strikes.
But, he says, citing the Defense Department’s Law of War manual, “there can be no legal justification” for attacking boats with the order there can be no survivors. The manual also says that “persons placed hors de combat [out of the fight] may not be made the object of attack.”
That sounds clear enough. Everyone, with the exceptions of Trump, Hegseth, press secretary Karoline Leavitt and maybe the admiral, seems to agree there was no legal justification.
But is anything really clear here?
In defending the attacks, Trump claims that sinking each boat saves 25,000 American lives. But do the math. If you multiply 25,000 lives by 20 sunken boats, you get 500,000 lives saved. According to the CDC estimates from 2024, approximately 80,000 Americans died from illegal drug overdoses.
Of course, Trump also claims that the boats are carrying fentanyl, but we’re told, by Hegseth, that the boats have been seen carrying large bags of a white substance. I’m no expert here, but white powder sounds a lot like cocaine to me.
Five hundred thousand lives saved? Really?
Are these people in charge serious people? You probably know the answer by now, but I’ll give you two major clues.
When the Post story comes out, what does Hegseth do? Does he call a news conference to explain? Does he offer evidence of what happened that day? Do we even know for sure that the boat was carrying drugs or, if it was, whether the drugs were headed to the United States?
As you know, Hegseth did none of those things.
Here’s what he did instead: In a post over the weekend, Hegseth shared an image of a doctored book cover, titled “Franklin Targets Narco Terrorists.” If you have young kids, you know of Franklin, the turtle. But you may never have seen Franklin, dressed in armor, gleefully firing rocket-propelled grenades at narco-terrorists.
“For your Christmas wish list …” Hegseth wrote.
Yeah, fire that one up, Santa, for the preschool kids. They’ll love it.
Seriously?
Even if the killings were somehow legal, who would send out such a meme? Is killing that unserious to Hegseth? Apparently.
And then there’s the second clue, which involves Hegseth’s unserious boss. At around the same time the Washington Post story was published, Trump was pardoning the former Honduran president, Juan Orlando Hernández, who had been sentenced to 45 years for his role as an international drug trafficker.
According to the prosecutors, the former president ran a 20-year enterprise to unload more than 500 tons of cocaine into the United States. That’s a real boatload.
Why did Trump pardon him? Trump blames Joe Biden for setting up Hernandez, whose corruption is hardly a secret, on a bum charge. Of course, there is nothing for which Trump doesn’t blame Biden. So, we’ll have to assume it’s actually something else. Any guesses?
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Meanwhile, Trump’s at something like war with Venezuela for running drugs while he’s simultaneously, and inexplicably, pardoning one of the worst drug traffickers of our time. Of course, Hernandez was a dictator, and Trump is a wannabe. So maybe that’s it.
In any case, the charge of war crimes, even without a legal war, is serious.
As Sen. Mark Kelly, of the Seditious Six, who is being absurdly threatened by Hegseth with a court-martial, says of the defense secretary, “He runs around on a stage like he’s a 12 year old playing army. It’s embarrassing.”
It’s embarrassing, and it’s unserious, and, worst still, deadly serious.
And it’s not as if we hadn’t been warned.
Mike Littwin has been a columnist for too many years to count. He has covered Dr. J, four presidential inaugurations, six national conventions and countless brain-numbing speeches in the New Hampshire and Iowa snow. Sign up for Mike’s newsletter.
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