Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is under increasing fire for a double-tap strike, first reported by The Intercept in early September, in which the U.S. military killed two survivors of the Trump administration’s initial boat strike in the Caribbean on September 2.
The Washington Post recently reported that Hegseth personally ordered the follow-up attack, giving a spoken order “to kill everybody.” Multiple military legal experts, lawmakers, and now confidential sources within the government who spoke with The Intercept say Hegseth’s actions could result in the entire chain of command being investigated for a war crime or outright murder.
“Those directly involved in the strike could be charged with murder under the UCMJ or federal law,” said Todd Huntley, a former Staff Judge Advocate who served as a legal adviser on Joint Special Operations task forces conducting drone strikes in Afghanistan and elsewhere, using shorthand for the Uniform Code of Military Justice. “This is about as clear of a case being patently illegal that subordinates would probably not be able to successfully use a following-orders defense.”
“This is about a clear a case as anything”
No its not or people would be in jail already
It’s clear enough that if a non oligarch did these things they would be in jail already.
It’s not unclarity that keeps these people out of prison, just as it was not unclarity that kept Bush, Cheney or Kissinger out of prison.
I mean to be fair, legal processes take time
And require the defendant to be a poor. Laws don’t apply to these people.