December 2, 2025
War crime? Murder? Or completely legal?
That’s what we’re going ultimately to find out when it comes to those strikes conducted by the US military on boats in international waters allegedly carrying drugs. And in particular – the secondary strike on a boat in early September that killed two survivors of the initial strike. The White House confirmed – yes – that happened on September 2nd. Generally the US military does not conduct what are known as double tap strikes because they’re illegal through US military code, US law and also international law. That’s not to say it’s illegal to hit the same target twice. That is legal – but what’s illegal is targeting the wounded or defenseless. Doing that could be considered a war crime.
Now – there’s a lot in there and there’s definitely a lot we still don’t know – and what we don’t know is just as important as what we do know …so I’m going to get to in a second – but first – I want you to hear directly from the President of the United States and the Secretary of War – formerly the Secretary of Defense – when asked today about who gave the double tap strike order.
Ok – so the commander in chief of the United States says he didn’t’ know anything about the second strike on the same boat. All he knows is he gave the order to take out the boats. He’s pointing the finger at Pete – as in Pete Hegseth. Who is the next logical person in the chain of command who could have given the order. So did he?
Ok – so he’s saying a lot in there. He says he made the call to strike the boat. He watched the first strike happen live and then he says he walked away because he’s a busy person. And when he returned he learned there were two survivors of the first strike and the admiral in charge of the operation made the call to strike the boat again killing those two survivors. So what he’s saying is it was the admiral who ordered the double tap? And he wasn’t physically there?
Clearly – Hegseth is defending the strikes and saying he has the back of the military commanders he puts in charge of these missions but at the same time he is clearly distancing himself from the double tap order and then I guess blaming the media for reporting on it and politicians who are questioning it.
And there are a lot of questions that need answers before we can get a full picture of whether this is legal or illegal.
First there are questions about whether these boat strikes are legal at all. The president says he has designated these drug smugglers as terrorists because he says their drugs are killing hundreds of thousands of Americans. So he has every right to kill them and he’s going to continue to do so both on the water and on land if he has to. Now – many Democrats and some Republicans are questioning whether the president can even conduct these strikes. Congress has not authorized these strikes and they certainly have not approved a declaration of war. On top of that – the Trump administration has not provided one piece of evidence –publicly – that proves that these people in these boats are carrying drugs. Some absolutely could be but others definitely are not. And we know that because after another strike there were survivors who were not captured or arrested by the US military but were sent back to their home countries. If they were smuggling drugs, wouldn’t they be captured and put in prison? And the other question is — even if they are suspected of carrying drugs – can they legally be killed for that? Does the president or even the Secretary of War get to be the judge, jury and executioner? Those are real questions lawmakers are asking.
The second set of questions has to do with this double tap strike itself. Who was actually responsible for giving the order? How long was it between the initial strike and the second strike? Was it a double tap? Or was it an immediate follow up strike to eliminate a threat? And if it’s that – how did whoever was responsible determine the survivors clinging to the boat after the first strike were a threat?
Republicans and Democrats in both the House and the Senate are investigating this because someone, somewhere is going to have to take responsibility. The admiral and even Hegseth are going to ultimately have to testify about this mission and once congress gets to the bottom of it then we’ll know if this was legal or not. And remember – if this incident was found to be illegal – the supreme court says the president of the United States has immunity protections for any alleged criminal actions he takes while in office – but that criminal immunity does not get passed down the chain of command.
Watch the cabinet meeting here.
Watch the boat strike from September 2 here.
