New reporting shows Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth may have violated U.S. and international law by ordering a follow-up attack on two survivors in the administration’s controversial missile strikes on alleged drug smugglers.
President Donald Trump’s Pentagon chief ordered the Sept. 2 strike off the Trinidad coast, but drone footage showed two survivors clinging to the wreckage after the smoke cleared – and the Washington Post reported that Hegseth gave a second verbal directive to “kill everybody.”
Joint Special Operations Command, or JSOC, reported to the White House afterward that the “double-tap,” or follow-on strike, was intended to sink the boat and remove a possible hazard to other ships, and not to kill survivors, and a similar explanation was given to lawmakers in closed-door briefings.
“The idea that wreckage from one small boat in a vast ocean is a hazard to marine traffic is patently absurd, and killing survivors is blatantly illegal,” said Rep. Seth Moulton (D-MA), a Marine Corps veteran and Trump critic who was briefed on the strikes with other members of the House Armed Services Committee. “Mark my words: It may take some time, but Americans will be prosecuted for this, either as a war crime or outright murder.”
A variety of experts agreed with Moulton’s assessment on social media, saying Hegseth quite likely had engaged in a war crime.
“So the order for the US military to launch these deadly Caribbean boat strikes was straightforwardly illegal under US and international law, immoral under long established standards, and on top of that, terrible strategy,” posted Nicholas Grossman, international relations professor at University of Illinois. “Not maybe. Not got to check with a lawyer. Unambiguous. Blatant. Deliberate.”
“Declaring ‘no quarter’ is a war crime,” argued Brian Finucane, a former State Department lawyer and an editor at Just Security. “Even assuming an armed conflict exists.”
“Textbook war crime/extrajudicial killing,” agreed Just Security co-editor-in-chief Ryan Goodman.
“If the U.S. was at war, Pete Hegseth’s order would be a war crime, a military lawyer said,” said Washington Post reporter Drew Harwell. “Instead, it might just be murder.”
“So do you think Hegseth drinks himself to death before he gets in front of The Hague if that looks like that’s a possibility under the next administration?” asked Bluesky user Cooper Lund.
“An unambiguous, premeditated war crime for which Pete Hegseth should be put on trial and spend the rest of his life in prison,” argued Brad Simpson, a foreign relations professor at University of Connecticut.
“A confederacy of thieves and barbarians,” said the ACLU’s Gillian Branstetter.
“This isn’t a military strike,” added author Patrick S. Tomlinson. “This is premeditated murder and Pete Hegseth is going to spend the rest of his f—— life rotting away in the deepest hole in Leavenworth once America is liberated from this illegitimate, illegal regime.”
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