A lot happened this week. “The Somalis, I don’t want them in our country.” “President Trump says National Guard troops will be coming to New Orleans soon.” “Netflix has signed a deal with Warner Bros. Discovery.” This is one thing you shouldn’t miss. Defense Secretary Peter Hegseth has had a very bad week. That’s because last year, he landed a cushy job as a talk show host. “I got him, I got him.” This year he was charged with war crimes. It all started in September, when Minister Hegseth ordered the military to crack down on a ship he said was transporting drugs to the United States. Since then, he has ordered more and more attacks, proudly announcing that at least 20 of them resulted in the deaths of more than 80 people at sea. We could stop there, there’s a lot more to say, but things have gotten worse. Last week, The Washington Post reported that two survivors clung to the side of the ship during the first attack in September. But at the beginning of the attack, Secretary Heggs reportedly ordered “Kill them all,” which led the commander of the operation, Admiral Frank Mitchell Bradley, to order a second attack that killed those who survived. If this is true, it is almost certainly a war crime. “We’ve now heard from legislators. They’re very skeptical about a second strike. “Under military law, you can’t kill someone who no longer poses a threat to you. But the bigger problem is that all of these strikes may have been illegal to begin with. Just as the police cannot shoot a suspected drug dealer without due process, the military cannot determine from a distance that someone is a criminal worthy of death. But that appears to be exactly what President Trump and Secretary Hegseth are doing. To cover himself, President Trump claimed that the United States was in an official—“armed conflict——with drug cartels,” which actually made no sense since only Congress could declare war, and they had to vote on it. On Thursday, Congress finally provided some oversight. “Briefing lawmakers on Capitol Hill today -” “These events occurred far away from the United States. I question why the administration is engaging in this movement. “Everyone should be held accountable for their role, but we should remember that as Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth is responsible for the U.S. military. But whether he’s posting bizarre memes about his ship’s attacks or sending detailed military plans to a group chat in which journalists have accidentally joined, he can’t seem to get it: Our leaders must obey the law, and if they don’t obey the law, they should be removed.
