Ladies and Gentlemen of the Jury,
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth gave a spoken directive, according to two people with direct knowledge of the operation. “The order was to kill everybody,” one of them said.
A missile screamed off the Trinidad coast, striking the vessel and igniting a blaze from bow to stern. For minutes, commanders watched the boat burning on a live drone feed. As the smoke cleared, they got a jolt: Two survivors were clinging to the smoldering wreck.
The Special Operations commander overseeing the Sept. 2 attack — the opening salvo in the Trump administration’s war on suspected drug traffickers in the Western Hemisphere — ordered a second strike to comply with Hegseth’s instructions, two people familiar with the matter said. The two men were blown apart in the water...
“The U.S. is now directly targeting civilians. Drug traffickers may be criminals but they aren’t combatants,” the War Department official said. “When Trump fired the military’s top lawyers the rest saw the writing on the wall, and instead of being a critical firebreak they are now a rubber stamp complicit in this crime.”
The high-ranking Pentagon official is correct in that the strikes against boats in international waters are criminal attacks on civilians.
But the killing of survivors of such strikes is more than that. It is undoubtedly a war crime.
Hegseth’s order to kill survivors was clearly illegal. It was the duty of the soldiers in the line of command to reject the order. That they have not done so but followed the order is in itself a war crime... The Department of Defense’s LAW OF WAR MANUAL (LOWM) (pdf) says so:
18.3 DUTIES OF INDIVIDUAL MEMBERS OF THE ARMED FORCES
Each member of the armed services has a duty to: (1) comply with the law of war in good faith; and (2) refuse to comply with clearly illegal orders to commit violations of the law of war.
Further down the Manual uses the exact case in question, an order to kill survivors at sea, as an example of an illegal order:
18.3.2 Refuse to Comply With Clearly Illegal Orders to Commit Law of War Violations.
Members of the armed forces must refuse to comply with clearly illegal orders to commit law of war violations. In addition, orders should not be construed to authorize implicitly violations of law of war.
18.3.2.1 Clearly Illegal Orders to Commit Law of War Violations.
The requirement to refuse to comply with orders to commit law of war violations applies to orders to perform conduct that is clearly illegal or orders that the subordinate knows, in fact, are illegal. For example, orders to fire upon the shipwrecked would be clearly illegal.27
Every soldier down the line of command, from the commanding general receiving Hegseth’s verbal order down to the guys who pushed the button to launch the missile had the duty to reject the order. Those who have not done so are themselves guilty...
President Trump said that the two survivors of a U.S. military strike Thursday on a vessel in the Caribbean Sea will be returned to their countries of origin... One survivor is from Ecuador and the other is from Colombia.
Thursday’s strike marks the sixth known boat attack in the area since last month — and the first known attack with survivors. Mr. Trump said the strike was against a submarine carrying mostly fentanyl and other illegal narcotics... A Navy helicopter transported the survivors from the semi-submersible to a Navy ship, a source familiar with the matter confirmed to CBS News on Friday.
“It is the custom of the sea to save people who are at risk in international waters. You don’t sort of sail on. That’s against every principle of naval activity,” Eugene R. Fidell, a senior research scholar at Yale Law School, told CBS News on Friday. “You’re supposed to save people, even though the people here are people who are only in danger because the U.S. was attempting to kill them.”
On the very same day those survivors were rescued, October 16, the DoD announced that the head of its Southern Command was ‘stepping down’:
The military commander overseeing the Pentagon’s escalating attacks against boats in the Caribbean Sea that the Trump administration says are smuggling drugs is stepping down, three U.S. officials said Thursday.
The officer, Adm. Alvin Holsey, is leaving his job as head of the U.S. Southern Command, which oversees all operations in Central and South America, even as the Pentagon has rapidly built up some 10,000 forces in the region in what it says is a major counterdrug and counterterrorism mission.
It now seems clear that Admiral Holsey got fired for not following Hegseth’s illegal order and for ordering the rescue of the survivors of the strike.....There are signs that Congress is waking up to the issue (archived) and that Hegseth’s order may well have real consequences for him:
A top Republican and Democrats in Congress suggested on Sunday that American military officials might have committed a war crime in President Trump’s offensive against boats in the Caribbean after a news report said that during one such attack, a follow-up strike was ordered to kill survivors. https://www.moonofalabama.
“If that reporting is true, it’s a clear violation of the DOD’s own laws of war, as well as international laws about the way you treat people who are in that circumstance. And so this rises to the level of a war crime if it’s true,” Democratic Senator Tim Kaine from Virginia told CBS News on Sunday.
Kaine added that he and some of his colleagues were “deeply worried” about “the entire legal rationale for the strikes.” He had earlier attempted, unsuccessfully, to pass a bill that would bar Trump from attacking Venezuela without congressional approval.
Republican Representative Mike Turner from Ohio told CBS “there are very serious concerns in Congress about the attacks on the so-called drug boats down in the Caribbean and the Pacific, and the legal justification that has been provided.”
Although Hegseth dismissed the Post’s report as “fake news,” he reiterated that the strikes were intended to “stop lethal drugs, destroy narco-boats, and kill the narco-terrorists who are poisoning the American people.” https://www.rt.com/news/
Trump in his response declared that he has complete confidence in Hegseth in the top Pentagon post. While Trump said that he personally would have ordered a second strike on the boat, he explained, "I don’t know anything about it. He said he did not say that, and I believe him, 100 percent." https://www.zerohedge.com/
“This isn’t just about Maduro. This is the final nail in the coffin for the CIA-black-budget narco pipeline that’s been running since the 80s.”
- The Ghost of Ezra on “X”
..Mr. Trump hinted that US forces are going into Caracas “very soon” — apparently to seize the Smartmatic servers, cartel drug ledgers, and other evidence of long-running turpitude, and you have to wonder how many someones out of Langley, with names, titles, and offices will turn up in the mix.
Mr. Ratcliffe must know who they are by now. Some of them have been at it since the cowboy days of Mena, Arkansas, back when Bill Clinton was governor and the cocaine planes from Colombia were landing day after day on that little backwater airstrip...
..Wingo maintains its commercial operations towards Caracas, monitoring air safety and considering it safe to operate according to its risk analysts. Similarly, Satena continues to operate normally towards the Venezuelan city of Valencia.
Major Venezuelan airlines, including Conviasa, Estelar Latinoamérica and Laser Airlines, reported that their domestic and international flights are operating normally. https://www.telesurenglish.
Admiral Giuseppe Cavo Dragone, chair of the NATO Military Committee, told the Financial Times in an interview published on Sunday that member states have been weighing options to respond to what he described as Russia’s “hybrid war.”
“We are studying everything … being more aggressive or being proactive instead of reactive is something that we are thinking about,” Dragone said.
The commander added that a “pre-emptive strike” could be considered a “defensive action,” though it would be “further away from our normal way of thinking and behavior.” https://www.rt.com/news/
Energy independence is a crucial component of Chinese national security, and vast stockpiles for oil reserves have been built, with more coming.
Western analysts can only make educated guesses as to the true size of China’s oil trade and stockpiles. Huge trading volumes are done outside the US dollar, and with fleets of shadow tankers and pipelines. https://kdwalmsley.substack.
With autonomous guidance, evasive manoeuvres, and planned AI swarm capability, China’s new hypersonic missile program shifts the balance in the global arms race. https://
These ice-free ports became ideal bases for naval forces. The fleet was able to sail unhindered from European harbors and easily find berth in the natural deepwater ports of North America.
The Louisiana Purchase finally transformed the United States into a superpower. The Mississippi River basin is the best agricultural area in the world. Furthermore, this area is connected by a network of calm, navigable rivers. Most importantly, this entire system flows into the protected Gulf of Mexico.
All this provides the United States with direct access from the center of the country to the world's oceans, while simultaneously providing a powerful defense system. Nearly 5,000 kilometers separate the United States from Europe and more than 7,000 kilometers from Asia.
As scholars note, the four main geopolitical competitors of the United States simply lack the geographic power that the United States possesses. https://en.topcor.ru/66464-
Hadja Lahbib says Israel's refusal to grant permission 'deeply saddened us' because she wanted to see see situation in Gaza 'firsthand' https://www.aa.com.tr/en/
The activists were hospitalized, as three of them sustained moderate injuries and the fourth was critically wounded.
Illegal settlers stormed a house in a Bedouin community where the foreign activists have been residing in solidarity with Palestinian residents for a few days, and assaulted them.
The attackers also attempted to steal the activists’ passports, phones, and belongings, in addition to property from the house, the sources said. https://www.aa.com.tr/en/
Uncle of Juma and Fadi Abu Asi says they were killed while searching for firewood in IDF-held territory; army says troops in Rafah also eliminated ‘terrorist’ https://www.timesofisrael.
Citing informed sources, the newspaper said that concerns have intensified that troops will be compelled to use force against Palestinians, leading several states to withdraw offers to deploy units.
Indonesia, which had previously pledged to send 20,000 peacekeepers, is now considering sending a significantly smaller force, according to Indonesian officials who spoke to the WaPo on condition of anonymity.
"They want the international stabilizing force to come into Gaza and restore, quote unquote, law and order and disarm any resistance," a senior official in Indonesia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said. "So that’s the problem. Nobody wants to do that." ...
Jordan has said it will stay out of the peacekeeping force due to being "too close politically" to the situation, while Egypt has been keen to emphasise that the peacekeepers' role witll be "monitoring" - rather than enforcing - the ceasefire.
Earlier this month, the UAE's top presidential advisor Anwar Gargash said Abu Dhabi sees no "clear framework" for the force. https://www.newarab.com/news/
UNICEF warns life-threatening malnutrition among young children accelerating as winter deepens health crisis, calling for unrestricted humanitarian access https://www.aa.com.tr/en/
Palestinian group Hamas continues its patient approach to maintain it despite provocations, says Recep Tayyip Erdogan https://www.aa.com.tr/en/
'Hundreds of Palestinians are detained almost every week, subjected to field interrogations, and exposed to ill-treatment. Most are released after a few hours or a few days,' says group https://www.aa.com.tr/en/
A day after Border Police officers shot two Palestinians dead after they had raised their hands, National Security Minister Ben-Gvir visited their unit's base to 'strengthen and hug heroic fighters' and announce the promotion of their commander https://www.haaretz.com/
According to Lebanese reports, US officials fear that the bomb could fall into Russian or Chinese hands. https://www.yahoo.
“That’s not going to happen. Nobody suggests that that’s what I’ll do, and I certainly won’t do that,” he stated.
US President Donald Trump wrote to the Israeli president two weeks ago to request a pardon for Netanyahu, his long-time ally.
“I hereby call on you to fully pardon Benjamin Netanyahu, who has been a formidable and decisive War Time Prime Minister,” Trump wrote to Herzog.
As part of the pardon request, Netanyahu claimed he had the desire to “heal the rift among the people.”
In response, Israeli writer and journalist Yossi Melman wrote that the prime minister “made no mention of his own role in creating that rift, nor of his responsibility for the 7 October failure. And of course, he expressed no remorse and did not acknowledge the actions for which he is currently on trial.” https://thecradle.co/
The total reserves are announced to include 7.95 million tons of gold oxide ore and 53.1 million tons of gold sulfide ore; a figure that establishes the Shadan mine among the country's large gold reserves. https://en.mehrnews.com/news/
Homeland Security has not confirmed whether a raid had been planned after confrontation on edge of Chinatown https://www.independent.co.
The first U.S. election stolen using the following digital tools was Obama/Clinton in Cook County, Illinois's Primary in 2008. Since then? Everywhere. Ev. Re. Where...
His writer and fellow researcher is Ralph Pezzulo, with whom Gary wrote the best seller Jawbreaker, about Bernsten’s work as the CIA’s key commander coordinating the fight against the Taliban forces around Kabul.
Their research was methodical and is well founded, its logic and reasoning inescapable. This happened and is happening anywhere machines are used in the voting process.
The authors and investigators behind this book, Stolen Elections, the Takedown of Democracies World Wide. have appeared on several podcasts this month, including Lara Logan last weekend, and Sharyl Attkinson on November 4th. https://elizabethnickson.
“When they go down, traffic to the entire website can stop, and most of the internet uses Cloudflare. Without them, the internet would be really, really vulnerable to cyberattacks,” he continues.
“We’ve handed our entire lives over to the internet and to automation, banking, shopping, voting, talking,” he says. “These are all really fragile digital pipes.” https://www.theblaze.com/
Whilst the original firearms and stalking charges were dismissed, prosecutors pursued a public order offense regarding a separate social media post. Mr Richelieu-Booth was scheduled to face Bradford magistrates on November 25th for allegedly displaying material intended to cause distress, but this charge was also eventually withdrawn...
The Advisory Committee will also consider whether injected toxic adjuvants like aluminum contained in the hepatitis B vaccine are beneficial or potentially harmful for infants. https://www.globalresearch.ca/cdc-nuke-newborn-hepatitis-b-vaccine-recommendation/5907438

