Wardonk3y
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That's "S" words, Mr. Connery. "S" words.
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/live-updates/trump-admin-live-updates/?id=127993391
Always a top shelf idea for any administration..... Alienate your flag officers. I admit that it's a bit of tea leaf reading, but considering the dumpster fire that I'm seeing....... In every direction, it would definitely be on brand for that entire lot to skirt law and put it on someone else's tab.
This puts Admiral Alvin Holsey's exit from southcom into perspective now. At least he's not dealing with this shit. He saw this coming.
toshach33
if they are lying about this, and hanging the Admiral out to dry to cover Hegseth's ass, who could very well be covering Trumps ass, it'll come out. Kelly's proclamation that members of the should military defy illegal orders will loom large over the incident.
morningxafter
The thing is, whether the orders came from Kegbreath or not, the admiral gave those orders to the commander in charge of the mission. He did give the unlawful orders. He’s going down, but he has a chance to pull Ol’ Whiskey Pete under the bus with him and he absolutely should.
Jimthebutler
And who gives orders to the admiral?
azazyel
Kind of wonder if Navy Admiral Alvin Holsey retired because of something like this
feltenix
As someone who resigned excepting shit like this to happen after the Supreme Court said POTUS couldn't be held accountable for official acts, I would guess yes.
zHurk777
*expecting?
feltenix
The only reason to say someone is above the law is to break it. As someone who would be there to carry out those orders I had to decide if I wanted to be a participant to some future unlawful order. I was also a staff officer so I would be a silent participant or adviser on whether or not to continue. My job was all about accountability when POTUS had that removed I didn't really feel like I had a choice and had to resign. I thought this would be slower and not a speed run though.
varonicaED
Oh look Admiral Bradley is suddenly finding out why Admiral Holsey retired rather quickly! This will echo through every single branch of the forces, follow their orders and you will end up in a court martial and probably prison for life for murder!
zHurk777
The admiral is probably a hard-core maga.
UnattendedDeviant
Admiral Bradley, meet bus. Hopefully other military leaders will see they will be quickly sacrificed if Trump cabal feels a need to.
OmnibusLatinName
They'll just retire, they won't fight.
UnattendedDeviant
You almost never hear a military leader's name in this small operations. They specifically named the military officer involved for one reason. To give someone else up to blame.
MeowWoof
The only reason why we got a name was because the Admiral went "um, I have the receipts" when Heggy said it didn't actually happen. So we blew past Deny and went to Deflect.
GoodChange
The us has no right to attack any boat outside their own territory. The first strike was a war crime just like all the previous attacks.
OmenJones
Rijtjeshuis
aaaaand under the bus you go, admiral
johnvilnis
That admiral better get copies of the orders coming from Hegseth quick before they are deleted and leaving the Admiral out to dry alone.
glovelyday
Remember: get those orders in writing, even if you are going to refuse them. Especially if you are going to refuse them.
CurbYourClassWar
Yeah I’m sure they’ll be happy to accommodate a request like that…
autofire
Remember kids "Just following orders" didn't work for the nazis at the Nuremberg trials. Use common sense before you follow illegal orders
REOJackwagon
*Admiral Bradley disappears, reappears with a Mustache as Adm Milton
alcamar
Bus, we have a few for those chompers.
Hopefully this actually dissuades anyone else from following illegal orders at all, especially those deemed was crimes
IamIntoleranceIntolerant
Let's assume this is true.
We know Hegseth gave the order to kill them all. We know two people were not killed in the first strike. We know they were vulnerable, and a second strike was ordered, let's assume, by Bradley.
This makes both of them guilty of a war crime.
zHurk777
There A Threat !!! - magas. obligatory maga spelling intended.
Wardonk3y
Yes. But he's hoping that fact will get lost in the three card Monty that this cheap, two-dimensional, characature of a bond villain / used car salesman clumsily put together A La, the three-year-old the broke something, and blames anything else but them.
Sixsystems
My sister would break something and blame me and parents always fell for it.
Lostedge
"they were vulnerable" ... how much more vulnerable are you when you are in a small bot against a missle vs. floating in water against missile?
tEMPuSER632
I would argue that the first strike on the boat without verifying they were terrorists or asking them to surrender was a war crime.
zHurk777
and, regardless, the 2nd strike most certainly was.
TonawandaBlue
wowzie
You should post this
DerpMeister
To add a bit of context: It was Eck's first tour as submarine commander and he was instructed, at length and multiple times before his tour started, that floating debris can be spotted by Allied airplanes and cause his ship to meet the same fate the *four* other submarines had met that tried to take the same route (around South-Africa) - that is they were sunk by enemy air planes. So when he sunk the Peleus, he used machine guns and hand grenade in an attempt to sink debris and life boats. It
DerpMeister
was verified during the trial that he - at no point - aimed purposely for survivors or gave the order to do so. He was found guilty nontheless because the court found he must have known that there were survivors clinging to the debris and that, by sinking that debris, he would condemn them to death. It is also noteworthy that, in fact, there were survivors of the Peleus that were picked up alive later by another ship. Imo what Hegseth ordered ("Kill them all") was worse than what Eck did.
Wardonk3y
https://media1.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2lkPWE1NzM3M2U1NGl2YWV6eHg4OWQzZ2VraGJzdGdqb2t2ZWI5Y2J1cDM3aTFqYnV3MCZlcD12MV9naWZzX3NlYXJjaCZjdD1n/GLbiGvv9qrpny/200w.webp
TheWombatStrikesAgain
That's different. His side lost.
trustworthyfart
Eventually they always do. That’s what happens when you staff every important position with someone who is loyal rather than competent.
Fentex
That admiral probably did give the order, for sailors wouldn't fire without it. But he also would have been under instructions. There's different levels of responsibility here.
DonkeyGoat
Suuuuuuure
StupidCanadianWolfBird
This administration is no longer a dumpster fire. It's a full on dump fire.
sadurdaynight
"folks are really pissed and threatening criminal action over this! Who can we throw under the bus?"
hazeUrselfforthatcomment
As someone who served under Bradley and in the command, he doesn’t have the organic assets to conduct strikes like this, nor would we be the one making that call. It would be the SOUTHCOM CC.
lostwalllet
I don’t understand how any of this can result in just punishment. tRump can pardon anything he’s convicted of and even grant a pardon to dismiss any charges before it goes to a military trial. His DoJ would never charge him and they don’t recognize the legitimacy of the UN. there’s essentially no court that would charge him and impeachment is a long shot.
The only hope is that GOP reps from military-heavy states get enough pressure to do something, anything, to restore accountability.
sadurdaynight
Trump's immune from breaking US law. He's not inmune from international law. If he ordered the killings then he's an international criminal
zHurk777
nothing is going to happen to trump. The year is almost 2026 and trump has never faced any real consequences while continuing to rack up the largest presidential grift in history.
TheCriticsWereConciseItOnlyTookFourLines
You aren't focusing on the positive. Contribute enough and you can get a pardon too, and you get a freebie on whatever you happen to do in the meantime.
zHurk777
ha ha. American Democracy is Dead. might as welll get used to it. The fact that 47% of American love trump and vote with a vengeance is all you need to know.
mrthewhitee
Not everyone is gonna get a pardon.
That said, one novel approach would be to extradite those guilty to Venezuela or the Hague, where pardons do not apply.
newdeckchairforthetitanic
Remember…..the soon to be Admiral under the bus, may not even exist!!ber
Skevoid
I hate it when journalists use direct quotes with no clarification that the source was lying: it wasn't a 'drug boat', it was a boat with unknown purpose and cargo.
Skawomplious
This is what they've been saying the whole time. Hegseth said "kill them all" when giving approval for the op, and the Admiral who was commanding was the one who gave the order for the doubletap.
ArgentXero
What makes the 2nd strike more illegal than the 1st illegal strike?
todayok
Not much but killing prisoners, those surrendering, those unable to fight (hospitals) is specifically called a war crime if there is a declaration of war and murder if there isn't.
Remember in the movie Fury when Pit's character shot the surrendering SS officer? War crime too.
Wardonk3y
If the first one was legal ( for sake of argument let's say that it was) the second one was in no way legal at all in any way shape or form. It's against the Geneva conventions to fire on defenseless people., even if they're an enemy combatant. If they survive the attack, and are incapacitated to continue battle, you cannot fire on them again. That is a war crime
Columbus43219
In some weird way, shooting the boat that was somehow, even remotely, possibly, involved in something against the US... it could maybe be considered a valid military target. At least there is the chance that the argument could be made there. Killing the survivors of that attack crosses the line into killing people who are no longer capable of causing harm. There is NO way to excuse it and it's considered a war crime, which is a terrible thing to even have defined, let alone have happen.
AlysObv
Columbus43219
oh noooo.... what is this from?
sirbartonslady
If this were a Democratic administration, we'd be holding that "secretary" accountable even if the military top brass really were going rogue.
zHurk777
VP Bowman (aka j.d. vance) said turkey tastes like $h!t and called American service members liars when some of them indicated that they like turkey. Can you imagine what fox and newsmax and their ilk would say if VP Kamala Harris or Bidne said that? They'd be losing their sh!t and say Biden/Harris hate America, that it's an attack on chritianity, and the turkey is an unofficial national bird and so on and so forth. for months you'd never hear the end of it.
zHurk777
cont'd. ps: vp bowman (aka vance) gave some stupid reasons, just because HE doesn't like turkey. "We only cook a 15# turkey once a year !!!"... well, dumbfuck, a big turkey is too much food for a normal family meal, but during holidays relatives come and visit so there are more mouths to feed.
sirbartonslady
also, turkey out of season is prohibitively expensive per pound so it's not cooked during any other time of year because of general supply and demand. but that means the poors, and we know vance and his ilk hate the poors.
kriswinters
Trump threw Hegseth under the bus, and the rest of the administration is trying to save him by throwing somebody else under the bus.
zHurk777
I don't take any responsibility at all. - trump.
iChase79
JFC how many layers does this pavement have?!?
BloodLoveRhetoric
"No more politically correct and overbearing rules of engagement, just common sense, maximum lethality and authority for warfighters." - Pete Hegseth, on camera.
Good luck passing *that* buck, Hiccy. You stood up in public and said war crimes were your deliberate policy.
MeowWoof
Don't feel badly for the Admiral who was just promoted to the position last October because the last guy suddenly retired when he realized what kind of orders Hegseth was going to give. He knew what he was selling his soul for.
Maverickaura
Yeah. It's a shame that kegsbreath is going to be protected from consequences by pinning it all on that guy, but let's not trick ourselves into thinking they are an innocent scapegoat. They are also still a war criminal for not disobeying an illegal order like they are legally required to do, as is every individual soldier from the top down that followed them ad I hope ALL of them see consequences. Every last grunt involved.
SocoFox
Saw this coming. At the end of the day the schmuck at the bottom of the totem pole will be the one with the blame hung on him.
johneventually1
Admiral is bottom of the totem pole to them perhaps.
Maverickaura
Because ultimately, we knew the top guys aren't getting consequences for this until they are removed. But mske this a wake up call for the rest of tge military, the admin will throw you under the bus to protect themselves so do NOT FOLLOW ILLEGAL ORDERS
mrthewhitee
What did trump say? I must have missed it.
kriswinters
A bunch of paraphrasing here, but Hegseth said, "Kill them all." A reporter asked Trump about that comment, and he said, "I wouldn't have said that."
Wardonk3y
Falling on swords.
BoogiesOogie
That would be falling on “s” words, Trebek, you and your dago mustache!
henryvk
More like taking the fall onto some swords
zHurk777
To be fair trump did say he wants all of his generals to be loyal just like Hitler's generals. To the magas: trump did say that and the statement would imply that trump wants ALL military commanders to be loyal to him, which would include admirals. And yes, the to-be-fair was sarcasm.
chefsoda
Trump did supposedly say this to Gen. Kelley when he was chief of staff. Kelley then informed him that Hitler’s generals tried to murder him, and said Trump became visibly confused.
dirtmarker
No this is being thrown on swords.
malbec
At least they set the sword on fires first… you know for aesthetics
ThorGodOfHammerz
This isn’t “falling on swords”. That is when you willingly sacrifice yourself. This is playing “let’s blame someone else because I don’t want to get in trouble”.
zHurk777
The admiral should have known that trump & co. would order him to do something illegal and that trump/hegseth would deny any responsibility, so yes, the admiral fell on his own sword.
Quixus
But why though? He should have refused the illegal order and then challenged any reprisal.
Quixus
The same goes for any and all below him executing that order.
BeardicPerformance
You can order someone to fall on their own sword.