This event has been covered in lots of places, including elsewhere on this board, so I’ll just quote Krugman’s statement in his Substack today:
On one side, the Trump administration is sinking small boats that it claims, without evidence, are smuggling drugs — and according to the Washington Post, Pete Hegseth, the self-styled Secretary of War, has personally ordered at least one follow-up strike to kill the survivors. A working group of former JAGs, that is, members of the military’s legal branch, issued a statement declaring that it
unanimously considers both the giving and the execution of these orders, if true, to constitute war crimes, murder, or both.
…
I don’t know about y’all, but the words “kill the survivors” makes my blood run cold.
What could/should have been the response of the crew members to that order at the time it was given to them? I’m not familiar with the specific details of how the whole episode might have looked or how it might have unfolded, but I’m guessing some of you would know or at least be able to speculate knowledgeably. If those ordered to shoot refused to do so right then, what would likely have happened to them at the time and later? I’m guessing someone in the crew would have carried out the order anyway. Would the one refusing have been put under arrest at the time and when they landed, be met by military police and locked up?
