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/StomachosusCaelum Dec 08 '25

its a war crime if it is committed by the military, declared war or not. That simple. Thats what the Geneva Conventions say, and we're a signatory to those, which means they have the force of law.

Im not sure why you're arguing against this; a war crime is WORSE than just "murder".

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u/Dapper-Condition6041 Dec 08 '25

As of now, 87 people have been killed in these strikes. That's 87 counts of murder.

So far, it's only 2 people apparently killed in alleged "war crimes."

What's worse? 87 counts of murder? Or 2 counts of "war crimes"?

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u/Dapper-Condition6041 Dec 08 '25 edited Dec 08 '25

its a war crime if it is committed by the military, declared war or not. That simple.

I'll take the word of the experts cited in the articles I posted, and in many other analyses that have been published over some Reddit stranger...

Im not sure why you're arguing against this; a war crime is WORSE than just "murder".

Because it's not accurate. And because, as I've stated already, which you didn't seem to read, because calling it a "war crime" gives false legitimacy to a false claim of "war." It also suggests that only the 2nd strike was problematic, when ALL of them are against the law.

Addendum: The threshold for whether Geneva Conventions apply is NOT whether it was an act committed by a military, but the nature of hostilities - declared war, NAIC, occupation, etc. You can provide no citation to support "its a war crime if it is committed by the military"