Source: The American Prospect
by Harold Meyerson
“Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s scramble to avoid responsibility for his order to kill everyone on a boat allegedly transporting drugs, including two survivors treading water and clinging to flotsam after their boat had been blown up in mid-Caribbean, is a violation of law and a moral disgrace, but not without precedent. When things go visibly awry in our nation’s military actions (the key word in that clause is, of course, ‘visibly’), we have a long tradition of laying the blame on the underling. According to The Washington Post, Hegseth specifically ordered the operation’s commander, Adm. Frank Bradley, to have his sailors gun down those two survivors. According to The New York Times, Hegseth gave no such order, but he did issue the initial order to kill the people on that boat, which followed from President Trump’s order to the military to view such boats as enemy warships.” (12/02/25)
https://prospect.org/2025/12/02/war-department-mission-saving-secretary-hegseth/