The U.S. Secretary of War (Crimes) Pete Hegseth issued verbal orders to “kill everybody” with a second strike — after the first missile left two survivors of a vessel allegedly carrying narcotics in the Caribbean on September 2.
The Washington Post reported that SEAL Team 6 carried out the orders that finished off 11 individuals off the coast of Trinidad, in what was the first of a series of boat strikes.
Adm. Frank M. “Mitch” Bradley was reportedly the commander who oversaw the mission and allegedly justified the second strike by saying survivors could have called other drug traffickers to retrieve the two remaining survivors and any leftover cargo.
Under the Geneva Conventions, wounded or sick combatants are to be collected and cared for by either side in a conflict.
Trump and advisors argue the strikes are legal because Trump has designated drug cartels as “foreign terrorist organizations,” while legal experts say the U.S. should be relying on law enforcement — not the military — to seize shipments and arrest suspected criminals.
“This entire narrative is completely false,” Chief Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said in a statement. “Ongoing operations to dismantle narcoterrorism and to protect the Homeland from deadly drugs have been a resounding success.”
From CNN:
…In a classified legal opinion produced over the summer, the Justice Department argued that the president is legally allowed to authorize lethal strikes against 24 cartels and criminal organizations in self-defense, because the groups pose an imminent threat to Americans.
Survivors of the strike on September 2 posed no imminent threat, since they were effectively incapacitated.