Editors at National Review Online explore a recent media controversy involving the secretary of defense.
The Washington Post published a blockbuster report last week headlined, “Hegseth order on first Caribbean boat strike, officials say: Kill them all.”
The story concerned the first of a series of U.S. military strikes against suspected drug-smuggling boats in the Caribbean off the coast of Venezuela — strikes that have now killed more than 80 people.
The Post’s Alex Horton and Ellen Nakashima wrote that “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.” But, “as the smoke cleared,” the American observers “got a jolt: Two survivors were clinging to the smoldering wreck.” That’s when, Horton and Nakashima continued, “the Special Operations commander overseeing the Sept. 2 attack . . . 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 story, in effect, accused Hegseth of giving a “no quarter order” that would be unlawful under U.S. law, the Uniform Code of Military Justice, and international treaty. …
… Additional reporting from the New York Times, Hegseth’s public comments, and a close reading of the initial Washington Post report itself cast serious doubt on this damning narrative. …
… But of course these doubts do not remove all possibility that an inappropriate or unlawful order was given by Hegseth or his uniformed subordinates, and that’s why the House and Senate Armed Services Committees — under the bipartisan leadership of Chairman Mike Rogers (R., Ala.) and ranking member Adam Smith (D., Wash.) and Chairman Roger Wicker (R., Miss.) and Senator Jack Reed (D., R.I.) — should be commended for having quickly announced that they will conduct investigations into the strikes.
