Kill Everybody --- Illegal Order?

[pennstate10]

Back on topic. 
 

Here is a thoughtful summary of the relevant issues. 
 

Delivered without once using the word “fu*ktard”.

 

https://www.nytimes.com/video/us/politics/100000010560634/are-us-boat-strikes-near-venezuela-legal.html?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20251204&instance_id=167462&nl=the-morning&regi_id=116970848&segment_id=211780&user_id=f478ac3a0b1d975ab3972d2c3836ae01

[IYKYK]

12 hours ago, Orlando Buffalo said:

The amount of effort to defend the narco terrorists by some people here is astounding to me. The fact that not one of you had any issues when Obama was killing terrorists over in the Middle East while having collateral damage but this is where you draw the line tells me that your TDS is out of control. 

The same dirtbags on here. Bitching about drug dealers getting killed are the same scumbags who cheered Charlie Kirk’s death!!!!

The POS leftists on here can rot in hell for all I care!!!

[Joe Ferguson forever]

18 minutes ago, IYKYK said:

The same dirtbags on here. Bitching about drug dealers getting killed are the same scumbags who cheered Charlie Kirk’s death!!!!

The POS leftists on here can rot in hell for all I care!!!

i don't care where you rot,, just niimby.  I didn't cheer Kirk's death.  I also didn't cheer an extrajudicial war.

[Roundybout]

1 hour ago, JDHillFan said:

That was then. 

 

 

 

it’s nice when you guys admit to war crimes on camera 

Edited yesterday at 04:52 PM by Roundybout

[B-Man]

ANOTHER MEDIA INVENTION

 

No direct quote. No evidence. No wrongdoing. Just partisan operatives feeding rumors to desperate reporters hunting for another scandal that doesn’t exist.

 

Under his authority as commander in chief, the president can blow up pretty much anybody on Earth whom he deems a national security threat. He does not need permission from Congress, the media, or a panel of self-appointed commentators. The missile strikes on drug-running vessels operated by a designated terrorist group are lawful, routine, and predictable.

 

What made the episode explosive was that it enraged exactly the faction that always reacts this way: the political left.

 

Impeachment is the only real consequence available to the administration’s critics, and after two failed efforts, that prospect does not keep President Trump awake at night. Republican control of the House makes even a symbolic attempt unlikely.

 

The central allegation is that Secretary of War Pete Hegseth issued an order to “kill everybody” on the vessel. The Post framed it this way: “Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth gave a spoken directive, according to two people with direct knowledge of the operation. ‘The order was to kill everybody.’”

 

The headline amplified the accusation: “Hegseth order on first Caribbean boat strike, officials say: Kill them all.”

 

A “spoken directive” means no record. The quote is a paraphrase. Nothing indicates that the source actually heard the Hegseth say those words. This is an anonymous, secondhand characterization of an alleged statement — precisely the sort of raw material the Post loves to inflate into scandal.

 

If these anonymous sources truly believed the secretary issued an illegal order, they were obligated to report it through the chain of command. Their silence speaks louder than any paraphrase. The most plausible explanation is that someone misunderstood — or deliberately distorted — an aggressive statement by Hegseth and nothing more.

 

The United States targets terrorists. The implication behind the Post’s story is that survivors remained after the first strike and that either the secretary or JSOC ordered a second engagement to kill them. No evidence supports that claim. No one outside the direct participants knows what the surveillance picture showed or what tactical conditions existed immediately after the first blast.

 

It is time to put a moratorium on the online laws-of-armed-conflict “experts” who materialize whenever a strike hits a target they sympathize with. They insist that the presence of wounded combatants instantly transforms a hostile platform into a protected site and that destroying the vessel itself becomes a war crime. Even the New York Times — no friend of the administration — punctured that claim:

 

According to five U.S. officials … Mr. Hegseth’s directive did not specifically address what should happen if a first missile failed to accomplish all of those things … and his order was not a response to surveillance footage showing that at least two people on the boat survived the first blast.

 

The mobs demanding Hegseth’s scalp will be disappointed. The voters who supported this administration expected firm action against terrorist cartels and open-ocean drug networks. Another hostile vessel was reduced to an oil slick, and most Americans see that as a success.

 

https://www.theblaze.com/columns/opinion/turns-out-that-hegseths-kill-them-all-line-was-another-media-invention

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/01/us/hegseth-drug-boat-strike-order-venezuela.html

[Joe Ferguson forever]

5 minutes ago, B-Man said:

ANOTHER MEDIA INVENTION

 

No direct quote. No evidence. No wrongdoing. Just partisan operatives feeding rumors to desperate reporters hunting for another scandal that doesn’t exist.

 

Under his authority as commander in chief, the president can blow up pretty much anybody on Earth whom he deems a national security threat. He does not need permission from Congress, the media, or a panel of self-appointed commentators. The missile strikes on drug-running vessels operated by a designated terrorist group are lawful, routine, and predictable.

 

What made the episode explosive was that it enraged exactly the faction that always reacts this way: the political left.

 

Impeachment is the only real consequence available to the administration’s critics, and after two failed efforts, that prospect does not keep President Trump awake at night. Republican control of the House makes even a symbolic attempt unlikely.

 

The central allegation is that Secretary of War Pete Hegseth issued an order to “kill everybody” on the vessel. The Post framed it this way: “Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth gave a spoken directive, according to two people with direct knowledge of the operation. ‘The order was to kill everybody.’”

 

The headline amplified the accusation: “Hegseth order on first Caribbean boat strike, officials say: Kill them all.”

 

A “spoken directive” means no record. The quote is a paraphrase. Nothing indicates that the source actually heard the Hegseth say those words. This is an anonymous, secondhand characterization of an alleged statement — precisely the sort of raw material the Post loves to inflate into scandal.

 

If these anonymous sources truly believed the secretary issued an illegal order, they were obligated to report it through the chain of command. Their silence speaks louder than any paraphrase. The most plausible explanation is that someone misunderstood — or deliberately distorted — an aggressive statement by Hegseth and nothing more.

 

The United States targets terrorists. The implication behind the Post’s story is that survivors remained after the first strike and that either the secretary or JSOC ordered a second engagement to kill them. No evidence supports that claim. No one outside the direct participants knows what the surveillance picture showed or what tactical conditions existed immediately after the first blast.

 

It is time to put a moratorium on the online laws-of-armed-conflict “experts” who materialize whenever a strike hits a target they sympathize with. They insist that the presence of wounded combatants instantly transforms a hostile platform into a protected site and that destroying the vessel itself becomes a war crime. Even the New York Times — no friend of the administration — punctured that claim:

 

According to five U.S. officials … Mr. Hegseth’s directive did not specifically address what should happen if a first missile failed to accomplish all of those things … and his order was not a response to surveillance footage showing that at least two people on the boat survived the first blast.

 

The mobs demanding Hegseth’s scalp will be disappointed. The voters who supported this administration expected firm action against terrorist cartels and open-ocean drug networks. Another hostile vessel was reduced to an oil slick, and most Americans see that as a success.

 

https://www.theblaze.com/columns/opinion/turns-out-that-hegseths-kill-them-all-line-was-another-media-invention

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/01/us/hegseth-drug-boat-strike-order-venezuela.html

somebody gave the order, somebody followed it.  If you want to believe the admiral did it on his own, have at it.  I don't.  We'll find out when the audio and video of the attack is released and the testimony of the admiral to the congressional committee becomes public.

 

Regardless, declaring war without congressional authorization is unconstitutional and illegal.

[B-Man]

 

 

Have at it.

 

The kill them all hoax is dead.

 

Admiral Bradley's Testimony Delivers Devastating
Blow to Dem Narrative of Drug Boat Story

by Nick Arama

 

Democrats and the media have been trying to whip up a story about the Trump administration taking out drug boats. They thought they had something with a story from the Washington Post that claimed Secretary of War Pete Hegseth ordered a second strike on a drug boat when there were survivors in the water. 

[snip]

Instead, when Bradley testified on Thursday, he told the truth. "The admiral confirmed that there had not been a kill them all order and that there was not an order to grant no quarter," Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn., top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, told reporters after a briefing with the admiral.

 

https://redstate.com/nick-arama/2025/12/04/admiral-bradley-testimony-delivers-final-blow-to-wapo-story-n2196825#google_vignette

 

 

[leh-nerd skin-erd]

13 minutes ago, B-Man said:

 

 

Have at it.

 

The kill them all hoax is dead.

 

Admiral Bradley's Testimony Delivers Devastating
Blow to Dem Narrative of Drug Boat Story

by Nick Arama

 

Democrats and the media have been trying to whip up a story about the Trump administration taking out drug boats. They thought they had something with a story from the Washington Post that claimed Secretary of War Pete Hegseth ordered a second strike on a drug boat when there were survivors in the water. 

[snip]

Instead, when Bradley testified on Thursday, he told the truth. "The admiral confirmed that there had not been a kill them all order and that there was not an order to grant no quarter," Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn., top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, told reporters after a briefing with the admiral.

 

https://redstate.com/nick-arama/2025/12/04/admiral-bradley-testimony-delivers-final-blow-to-wapo-story-n2196825#google_vignette

 

 

I think we really need to wait until 51 former, current and/or imagined intelligence agency members declare hallmarks of Russian misinformation campaigns afoot, but that typically comes just prior to an election.   For now, rando anonymous reports daisy chained by major American media sources will simply have to do.  

[Joe Ferguson forever]

someone gave the order and even if only in retrospect, Hegseth condoned it.  Part of the testimony, according to an R on the committee included written specific instructions on the missions.  It would be great to see those and who signed them.

[leh-nerd skin-erd]

20 minutes ago, Joe Ferguson forever said:

someone gave the order and even if only in retrospect, Hegseth condoned it.  Part of the testimony, according to an R on the committee included written specific instructions on the missions.  It would be great to see those and who signed them.

“…even if only in retrospect…”. 
 

🙄

[BillsFanNC]

Ohhhhh. So you disagree with the policy and how it's being implemented?

 

So standard politics. Got it.

 

 

[Joe Ferguson forever]

3 minutes ago, BillsFanNC said:

Ohhhhh. So you disagree with the policy and how it's being implemented?

 

So standard politics. Got it.

 

 

Hegseth went from the second attack being fake news to “ I didn’t order it”. 

[The Frankish Reich]

 

[The Frankish Reich]

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/military/drug-boats-venezuela-are-mainly-moving-cocaine-europe-not-fentanyl-us-rcna244583