The US Secretary of War is accused of committing war crimes

According to Isna, lawmakers from both the Republican and Democratic parties warned on Sunday that Secretary of War Pete Hegst may have committed a war crime after the Washington Post reported that he may have committed a war crime in the September attack on a foreign boat suspected of drug trafficking.

Politico reported: The Washington Post recently reported that Hogst authorized a highly unusual attack to kill all survivors of one of the Trump administration’s raids in recent months on suspected drug-carrying boats in international waters. Politico has not independently confirmed the report.
Sen. Chris Van Hollen, Democrat of Maryland, and Sen. Tim Kaine, Democrat of Virginia, both members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said on Sunday that such orders would amount to war crimes if the report is true.

In an interview with ABC News, Van Hollen argued that even if we accept the US government’s assumption that it is engaged in an “armed conflict” with drug cartels, the killing of the survivors is a war crime attack.

However, he noted that the authorities had not publicly justified the legal framework and warned that if the “war” theory was false, the incident was nothing more than “intentional murder”.

The senator emphasized that the war minister “must be held accountable for such orders.”

In this regard, Senator Kaine said in an interview with CBS: “If this report is true, it is a clear violation of the Pentagon’s laws of war, as well as international laws on how to treat people in those situations.” Therefore, if it is true, this action is at the level of a war crime.”
Arizona Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly also told CNN on Sunday morning that the order, if true, is “clearly illegal.”
Ed Markey, a Democratic senator from Massachusetts, also posted a message on social media in response to the Washington Post’s report: “Pete Hegst is a war criminal and should be fired immediately.”

The Pentagon declined to comment beyond a social media message Friday, in which Hoggest called the Washington Post report “false, inflammatory and offensive,” insisting that “our current operations in the Caribbean are lawful under U.S. and international law.”
Hegst has not denied that he issued the orders mentioned in the article.
Republicans, while casting doubt on the accuracy of the Washington Post report, also expressed concern that Hegst’s orders could be illegal if they happened as reported.

The bipartisan leadership of the armed forces committees in both parliaments pledged to investigate this issue. Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Mississippi, and Sen. Jack Reid, D-Rhode Island, on Friday promised “close monitoring to determine the facts surrounding these circumstances.”

“If this happened, it’s very serious, and I agree that it would be illegal,” Rep. Mike Turner, R-Ohio, told CBS on Sunday.
Also, Rep. Don Bacon, Republican of Nebraska, told ABC: “If it’s what the report says, it’s a violation of the law of war.”

“I don’t think he’s stupid enough to make that decision and say kill everybody, kill the survivors, because that’s a clear violation of the laws of war,” Bacon, who sits on the House Armed Services Committee, told ABC News. So I highly doubt that he would have done such a thing, because it is against common sense.”

The surveillance comes as Trump has clashed with congressional Democrats over a video that reminded the military of their duty to disobey illegal military orders. Trump because of what he called “rebellious behavior, deserving of the death penalty!” Named, infuriating Democrats, called for the arrest and prosecution of six lawmakers who appeared in the video.
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