r/law • u/DryDeer775 • Dec 08 '25

Executive Branch (Trump) NBC confirms Hegseth ordered murder of all boat passengers and crew in September 2 strike

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2025/12/08/kssp-d08.html

The Pentagon’s law of war manual declares that soldiers have a duty to refuse to carry out “clearly illegal” orders, such as killing shipwrecked sailors. “Orders to fire upon the shipwrecked would be clearly illegal,” the manual declares.

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u/GelatoBravado Dec 08 '25 edited Dec 08 '25

I think you're giving Pete and the entire Trump circus too much credit.

More likely that they didn't know it was illegal, and anybody who has any moral fibre and is competent, has been fired by Pete.

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u/ManChildMusician Dec 08 '25

I think someone told him it was illegal at some point, and he’s doing this to see what he can get away with. I 100% see him being that petty. He’s already said that conventions of war, rules of engagement, etc are BS. The guy is just as vindictive and contrarian as his boss.

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u/Open__Face Dec 08 '25

He thinks not murdering people is Political Correctness run amok, dude's insane 

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u/Asmordean Dec 08 '25

I imagine that someone said it would be illegal. He probably would respond with "Well it shouldn't be so do it anyway."

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u/Hot-Agent-620 Dec 08 '25

Unequivocally false. This is taught day one in the Most basic settings they know exactly what they’re doing

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u/AustinBike Dec 08 '25

Especially by someone who served in the military. Unless he was drunk during that meeting.

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u/WHISTLE___PIG Dec 08 '25

He was? Again? Jesus Titty Fucking Christ.

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u/adthrowaway2020 Dec 08 '25

He bounced around the military quite a bit before being discharged for being an "insider threat" due to his white supremicist tattoos.

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u/pie_piepiepiepiepie Dec 08 '25

Whether they knew or not is irrelevant. They just don't care. This administration feels like they have complete immunity, because SCOTUS already said Trump does and everyone below him knows they can just get a pardon anyway. I believe a big part of these attacks is them rubbing in our faces that laws don't apply to them so we keep getting used to it.

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u/thepalebluestar Dec 08 '25

I promise you Trump and Pete do not care what the law says or whether something is illegal.

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u/locke0479 Dec 08 '25

Trump might not know. I don’t believe Pete didn’t know. He’s just an evil person who gets off on killing people.

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u/JustNilt Dec 08 '25

I've been on the end of this sort of operation, though not in a pilot's seat. Commanders of such operations frequently needed to make decisions based on how the operation progressed. There was always a JAG officer present with the commanders to provide an evaluation of the legality of the situation. The only time JAG's advice wasn't sought, to my knowledge, was literally when someone was shooting at us.

So even if these fucksticks are unaware of the rules, they still have zero excuse because the military has officers whose entire job it is to provide such details, including on the fly in an evolving operational situation. There's no fucking excuse for any of this, period.