Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth has come out guns-blazing against reports that his lethal strikes on a vessel in the Caribbean could constitute war crimes.
Lashing out at a Washington Post story, in which the Pentagon chief is alleged to have blindly ordered troops to “kill everybody” aboard a boat near Trinidad, Hegseth branded the story “fake news.”
“As usual, the fake news is delivering more fabricated, inflammatory, and derogatory reporting to discredit our incredible warriors fighting to protect the homeland,” Hegseth wrote on the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.
“The Trump administration has sealed the border and gone on offense against narco-terrorists. Biden coddled terrorists; we kill them.”
To ensure no misunderstandings, the 45-year-old former Fox News commentator followed up his rebuttal with a blunt promise of more death.
“We have only just begun to kill narco-terrorists,” Hegseth wrote from his personal account.
On Sept. 2, Hegseth is alleged to have instructed Special Operations forces to destroy all 11 people on board a suspected drug trafficking boat off the coast of Trinidad.
After one hit with a missile, a SEAL Team 6 commander ordered a second strike to comply with the order and kill the two remaining survivors clinging to the wreckage of their boat.
“The order was to kill everybody,” said a source speaking to The Post with knowledge of the operation.
The operation was the first in an ongoing airstrike campaign in international waters that the Pentagon claims is targeting drug traffickers importing fentanyl into the United States. At least 83 people have been killed, and 21 vessels have been struck.
The report has sparked major national backlash, with commentators assessing that the operations constitute “murder” and “war crimes.”
“Textbook war crime,” wrote New York University law professor Ryan Goodman.
“This would be a war crime even if there were an actual war and these people were actual combatants, which there isn’t and they weren’t,” wrote lawyer and President of the Society for the Rule of Law, George Conway.
Hegseth was quick to refute the claims.
“We told the Washington Post that this entire narrative was false yesterday,” said chief Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell. “These people just fabricate anonymously sourced stories out of whole cloth”.
“Don’t buy the Fake News from phony politicians,” Department of Defence Press Secretary Kinglsey Wilson said. “Every lethal kinetic strike against narco-terrorists is: 1) Completely legal 2) Conducted against the operations of a Designated Terrorist Organization 3) In defense of vital U.S. national interests.”
While the Pentagon has claimed to be carrying out lethal air strikes against known members of organizations deemed terrorists, classified documents seen by members of Congress provide no specific information on those targeted.
The Trump administration has similarly provided no public information to validate their claims over who they are killing with their embrace of a policy that marks a significant escalation in War on Drugs tactics.
In the wake of the military campaign, the British government has decided to stop sharing information with the U.S. about boats in the region, labeling the attacks illegal.
Hegseth’s online rebuttal claiming dedication to “stop lethal drugs” comes as Trump himself posted a message to Truth Social in which he said he would pardon Juan Orlando Hernandez.
“I will be granting a Full and Complete Pardon to Former President Juan Orlando Hernandez who has been, according to many people that I greatly respect, treated very harshly and unfairly,” Trump wrote.
The former Honduran president once said that he wanted to “shove the drugs up the noses of the gringos,” is alleged to have been the head of “state-sponsored drug trafficking,” and is currently serving a 45-year sentence in prison in Brooklyn, New York, for drug trafficking.
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