{"id":324103,"date":"2025-11-30T00:14:46","date_gmt":"2025-11-30T00:14:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/uncategorized\/killing-helpless-men-is-murder\/"},"modified":"2025-11-30T00:14:46","modified_gmt":"2025-11-30T00:14:46","slug":"killing-helpless-men-is-murder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=324103","title":{"rendered":"Killing Helpless Men Is Murder"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>The\u00a0<em>Washington Post\u00a0<\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/wapo.st\/49KbUJ1\">reported<\/a> yesterday that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth did not merely order the initial strike on a boat off of believed to be transporting drugs, but gave the specific order to kill those on the boat. After the first strike hit the boat, a second strike was ordered to take out two survivors &#8220;clinging to the smoldering wreck&#8221; caused by the first.<\/p>\n<p>Jack Goldsmith posted on this report yesterday at Executive Function. His essay, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.execfunctions.org\/p\/a-dishonorable-strike\">&#8220;A Dishonorable Strike,&#8221;<\/a> begins:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>One can imagine stretching Article II of the Constitution to authorize the U.S. drug boat campaign. The wildly overbroad Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) precedents, as I have\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.lawfaremedia.org\/article\/olcs-meaningless-national-interests-test-legality-presidential-uses-force\" rel=\"\">written before<\/a>, provide &#8220;no meaningful legal check on the president.&#8221; And there are dim historical precedents one could cite. Arthur Schlesinger Jr.\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/books\/edition\/The_Imperial_Presidency\/ZkxlY4S2iWYC?hl=en&amp;gbpv=1&amp;dq=against+Indians%E2%80%94stateless+and+lawless+by+American+definition%E2%80%94pirates,+slave+traders,+smugglers,+cattle+rustlers,+frontier+ruffians&amp;pg=PA50&amp;printsec=frontcover\" rel=\"\">noted<\/a>\u00a0in\u00a0<em>The Imperial Presidency\u00a0<\/em>that in the 19th\u00a0century presidents unilaterally engaged in &#8220;[m]ilitary action against Indians\u2014stateless and lawless by American definition\u2014pirates, slave traders, smugglers, cattle rustlers, frontier ruffians [and] foreign brigands.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>One might also, possibly, stretch the laws of war to say that attacks on the drug boats are part of a &#8220;non-international armed conflict,&#8221; as OLC has\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/national-security\/2025\/11\/12\/trump-drug-boat-venezuela-legal\/?utm_source=chatgpt.com\" rel=\"\">reportedly concluded<\/a>. This line of argument likely draws on a super-broad conception of the threat posed by the alleged drug runners as well as the expansive U.S. post-9\/11 justification for treating as targetable (i) dangerous non-state actor terrorists off the battlefield; (ii) those who merely &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.war.gov\/News\/Speeches\/Speech\/Article\/606662\/the-legal-framework-for-the-united-states-use-of-military-force-since-911\/\" rel=\"\">substantially support<\/a>&#8221; the groups with whom one is in an armed conflict; and (iii) activities that provide economic support to the war effort, such as Taliban\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.army.mil\/article\/197282\/us_afghan_forces_target_taliban_drug_labs_hit_where_it_hurts?utm_source=chatgpt.com\" rel=\"\">drug labs<\/a>\u00a0or\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/ndupress.ndu.edu\/Media\/News\/News-Article-View\/Article\/1325943\/follow-the-money-targeting-enemy-war-sustaining-activities\/\" rel=\"\">ISIS oil trucks<\/a>. I don&#8217;t think this argument comes close to working without deferential reliance on a bad faith finding by the president about the non-international armed conflict and much greater stretches of precedent than the United States previously indulged after 9\/11. Still, the unconvincing argument is conceivable.<\/p>\n<p>But there can be no conceivable legal justification for what the Washington Post\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/national-security\/2025\/11\/28\/hegseth-kill-them-all-survivors-boat-strike\/\" rel=\"\">reported earlier today<\/a>: That U.S. Special Operations Forces killed the survivors of a first strike on a drug boat off the coast of Trinidad who, in the Post&#8217;s words, &#8220;were clinging to the smoldering wreck.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Whether Hegseth was aware of this second strike, or his initial order was properly interpreted to direct it is unclear, but it does not change the bottom line. Goldsmith writes:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>In short, if the Post&#8217;s facts are correct, it appears that Special Operations Forces committed murder when the &#8220;two men were blown apart in the water,&#8221; as the Post put it.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>The post concludes:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Hegseth has emphasized that he wants to restore the &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.war.gov\/News\/Transcripts\/Transcript\/Article\/4318689\/secretary-of-war-pete-hegseth-addresses-general-and-flag-officers-at-quantico-v\/\" rel=\"\">warrior ethos<\/a>&#8221; in the U.S. military. In the hours after the story, he\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/SecWar\/status\/1994552598142038358\" rel=\"\">signaled<\/a>\u00a0generic support for the boat strike campaign and chest-thumped\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/PeteHegseth\/status\/1994553202767700041?s=20\" rel=\"\">that<\/a>\u00a0&#8220;We have only just begun to kill narco-terrorists.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Yet the warrior ethos has always demanded honorable conduct in warfare. The Navy Seals, for example,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nsw.navy.mil\/NSW\/SEAL-Ethos\" rel=\"\">describe themselves<\/a>\u00a0as &#8220;a special breed of warrior&#8221; but the Seal Ethos thrice emphasizes the importance of honor, including &#8220;on . . . the battlefield.&#8221; And surely the warrior ethos, whatever else it means, doesn&#8217;t require killing helpless men clinging to the burning wreckage of a blown-up boat. The DOD Manual is clear because the law here is clear: &#8220;Persons who have been incapacitated by . . . shipwreck are in a helpless state, and it would be dishonorable and inhumane to make them the object of attack.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Read <a href=\"https:\/\/www.execfunctions.org\/p\/a-dishonorable-strike\">the whole thing<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The\u00a0Washington Post\u00a0reported yesterday that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth did not merely order the initial strike on a boat off of believed to be transporting drugs, but gave the specific order to kill those on the boat. After the first strike hit the boat, a second strike was ordered to take out two survivors &#8220;clinging [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[151303,151304,111856,151305],"tags":[53084,5089,228,3711,12903],"dealstore":[],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-324103","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-executive-power","category-law-of-war","category-trump-administration","category-war-on-drugs","tag-helpless","tag-killing","tag-men","tag-murder","tag-trump-administration"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Killing Helpless Men Is Murder - Som2ny Network<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=324103\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Killing Helpless Men Is Murder - Som2ny Network\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The\u00a0Washington Post\u00a0reported yesterday that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth did not merely order the initial strike on a boat off of believed to be transporting drugs, but gave the specific order to kill those on the boat. 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