{"id":45735,"date":"2025-12-23T12:46:02","date_gmt":"2025-12-23T20:46:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=45735"},"modified":"2025-12-23T12:46:04","modified_gmt":"2025-12-23T20:46:04","slug":"war-crime-murder-or-both-house-dems-demand-doj-probe-into-hegseth-order-to-kill-shipwrecked-sailors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2025\/12\/23\/war-crime-murder-or-both-house-dems-demand-doj-probe-into-hegseth-order-to-kill-shipwrecked-sailors\/","title":{"rendered":"War Crime, Murder, or Both? House Dems Demand DOJ Probe Into Hegseth Order to Kill Shipwrecked Sailors"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Pete<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth speaks during a Christmas service at the Pentagon on December 17, 2025 in Arlington, Virginia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0(Photo by Alex Wong\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGiving a general order to kill any survivors constitutes a war crime,\u201d wrote Reps. Jamie Raskin and Ted Lieu. \u201cOutside of war, the killing of unarmed, helpless men clinging to wreckage in open water is simply murder.\u201d<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Julia Conley<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dec 22, 2025 (CommonDreams.org)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Making clear that the Trump administration\u2019s \u201centire Caribbean operation,\u201d which has killed more than 100 people in boats that the US military<\/a> has bombed, \u201cappears to be unlawful,\u201d two Democrats on a powerful House committee on Monday called on the Department of Justice<\/a> to investigate one particular attack that\u2019s garnered accusations of a war crime\u2014or murder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Jamie Raskin<\/a> (D-Md.) and Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) wrote<\/a> to Attorney General Pam Bondi<\/a> four weeks after it was reported that in the military\u2019s first strike on a boat on September 2, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered service members to \u201ckill everybody\u201d\u2014prompting a second \u201cdouble-tap\u201d strike to kill two survivors of the initial blast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

RECOMMENDED…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Pete<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Legal Experts Accuse Hegseth of \u2018War Crimes, Murder, or Both\u2019 After New Reporting on Boat Strike Order<\/a><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"President<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

As Critics Condemn \u2018Murder, Plain and Simple,\u2019 Hegseth Backs Admiral Order to Kill Boat Attack Survivors<\/a><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

A retired general<\/a>, United Nations<\/a> experts<\/a>, and former top military legal advisers<\/a> are among those who have warned that Hegseth and the service members directly involved in the strike\u2014as well as the other attacks on more than two dozen boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific\u2014may be liable for war crimes<\/a> or murder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Raskin and Lieu raised that concern directly to Bondi, writing: \u201cDeliberately targeting incapacitated individuals constitutes a clear violation of the Department of Defense\u2019s Law of War Manual, which expressly forbids attacks on persons rendered helpless by shipwreck. Such conduct would trigger criminal liability under the War Crimes Act if the administration claims it is engaged in armed conflict, or under the federal murder statute if no such conflict exists.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The administration has insisted it is attacking the boats as part of an effort to stop drug trafficking out of Venezuela<\/a>, and has claimed the US is in an armed conflict with drug cartels there, though international and domestic intelligence agencies have not identified the country as a significant source any drugs that flow into the US. As President Donald Trump<\/a> has ordered the boat strikes, the administration has also been escalating tensions with Venezuela by seizing<\/a> oil<\/a> tankers, claiming<\/a> to close its airspace, and demanding<\/a> that President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro leave power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Critics from both sides of the aisle in Congress have questioned the claim that the bombed boats were a threat to the US, and Raskin and Lieu noted that the vessel attacked on September 2 in particular appeared to pose no threat, as it was apparently headed to Suriname, \u201cnot the United States<\/a>, at the time it was destroyed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDeliberately targeting incapacitated individuals constitutes a clear violation of the Department of Defense\u2019s Law of War Manual, which expressly forbids attacks on persons rendered helpless by shipwreck.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCongress has never authorized military force against Venezuela; a boat moving towards Suriname does not pose a clear and present danger to the United States; and the classified legal memoranda the Trump administration<\/a> has offered us to justify the attacks are entirely unpersuasive,\u201d wrote the lawmakers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Raskin and Lieu emphasized that Hegseth\u2019s explanations of the September 2 strike in particular have been \u201cshifting and contradictory.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSecretary Hegseth has variously claimed that he missed the details of the September 2 strike because of the \u2018fog of war,\u2019 and that he actually left the room before any explicit order was given to kill the survivors,\u201d they wrote. \u201cLater reporting suggests that he gave a general order to kill all passengers aboard ahead of the strike but delegated the specific order to kill survivors to a subordinate.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The facts that are known about the strike, as well as Hegseth\u2019s muddled claims, warrant a DOJ investigation, the Democrats suggested.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGiving a general order to kill any survivors constitutes a war crime,\u201d they wrote. \u201cSimilarly, carrying out such an order also constitutes a war crime, and the Manual for Courts-Martial explicitly provides that \u2018acting pursuant to orders\u2019 is no defense \u2018if the accused knew the orders to be unlawful.\u2019 Outside of war, the killing of unarmed, helpless men clinging to wreckage in open water<\/a> is simply murder. The federal criminal code makes it a felony to commit murder within the \u2018special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States,\u2019 which is defined to include the \u2018high seas.\u2019 It is also a federal crime to conspire to commit murder.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Raskin and Lieu also emphasized that two memos from the DOJ\u2019s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) \u201cdo not\u2014and cannot\u2014provide any legal protection for the secretary\u2019s conduct.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A 2010 OLC memo said the federal murder statute does not apply \u201cwhen the target of a military strike is an enemy combatant in a congressionally authorized armed conflict,\u201d they noted. \u201cIn stark contrast, in the case of the Venezuelan boats, Congress has not authorized military force of any kind.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A new classified memo also suggested that \u201cpersonnel taking part in military strikes on alleged drug trafficking boats in Latin America<\/a> would not be exposed to future prosecution,\u201d and claimed that \u201cthe president\u2019s inherent constitutional authority in an undeclared \u2018armed conflict\u2019 will shield the entire chain of command from criminal liability.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Democrats wrote, \u201cExperts in criminal law, constitutional law, and the law of armed conflict find this sweeping, unsubstantiated claim implausible, at best.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They also noted that even the author of the George W. Bush<\/a> administration\u2019s infamous \u201cTorture<\/a> Memo,\u201d conservative legal scholar John Woo, has said Hegseth\u2019s order on September 2 was clearly against the law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAttorney General Bondi, even those who condoned and defended torture in the name of America are saying that the Trump administration has violated both federal law and the law of war,\u201d wrote Raskin and Lieu. \u201cWe urge you to do your duty as this country\u2019s chief law enforcement officer to investigate the secretary\u2019s apparent and serious violations of federal criminal law.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Julia Conley<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Julia Conley is a staff writer for Common Dreams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Full Bio ><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth speaks during a Christmas service at the Pentagon on December 17, 2025 in Arlington, Virginia. \u00a0(Photo by Alex Wong\/Getty Images) \u201cGiving a general order to kill any survivors constitutes a war crime,\u201d wrote Reps. Jamie Raskin and Ted Lieu. \u201cOutside of war, the killing… Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45735"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45735"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45735\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45736,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45735\/revisions\/45736"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}