Transcription
That's what has happened in the American military after every war crime committed by the American military. First, they lie. Somewhere in the chain of command, they lie.
That is what Donald Trump's incompetent defense secretary Pete Hgse did when first confronted with the Washington Post breaking news report of a second missile strike on a small boat that had already been destroyed and burst into flames after the first missile strike. The Washington Post reported that the second missile strike killed two people clinging to the wreckage, which would be a war crime in a war and is murder outside of war. There is no war in the Caribbean. There is no fog of war there.
So Pete Hexth lied and said that everything in the Washington Post article was quote the fake news delivering more fabricated inflammatory and derogatory reporting. That was Pete Hegsath's first lie about this story as soon as it came out. Pete Hgse himself has already turned himself in for lying about that, for telling that lie since he has changed his story multiple times since he told that lie on Sunday.
And Vietnam, the worst American military war crime of the 20th century was called a resounding success. Those are the words. Resounding success in the first afteraction report of what came to be known as the Mi massacre in which American soldiers commanded by Lieutenant William Cali summarily executed 347 people. And first they lied. But 18 months later, Lieutenant Cali was finally charged with personally murdering 109 civilians, babies, grandmothers, brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers. When one of the soldiers, Lieutenant Kelly, ordered to murder people, refused to do it, Lieutenant Kelly took that soldier's rifle and shot them himself. But first, they lied. The American military never wanted us to know that story. And when the suspicions built about a possible war crime, the lying didn't stop immediately. The lying does not stop immediately in these cases.
But based on the American military's history of lying about war crimes, the American military has earned exactly zero credibility to any defense or offered about a possible war crime if that defense does not include evidence. And that's for war crimes. What about crimes committed outside of war?
Ryan Goodman is now a professor of law at NYU who served as a legal counsel in the Pentagon in 2015 and 2016. He told the New York Times today, "Focusing on the shipwrecked is a distraction in so far as it suggests everything else preceding and after that strike was all legitimate. Even under a law of armed conflict, they were all civilians. And we are not actually in armed conflict either way. It was all murder. All murder." That is the considered opinion of a legal expert on this matter.
Today, the admiral in command of the mission met privately with the Republican and Democratic leaders of the House and Senate committees with some jurisdiction over this matter, House and Senate Armed Services Committee, the House and Senate Intelligence Committee, the House and Senate Appropriations Committee, including the Appropriations Subcommittees on Defense. Of the six Republicans who were offered that briefing today, only one of them stepped up to a microphone afterwards to offer what he saw in the video of the second strike that targeted for murder two people clinging to the wreckage of what used to be a small boat and was just debris at that point.
Republican Senator Tom Cotton, the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, believes that the two people clinging to the wreckage, in his view, needed to be killed. "I saw two survivors trying to flip a boat loaded with drugs down from the United States back over so they could stay in the fight and potentially given all the contacts we heard of other naroterrorist boats in the area coming to their aid to recover their caro and recover those narot terrorists. And just like you would blow up a boat off of the Somali coast or the Yemeni coast and you'd come back and strike it again if it still had terrorists and it still had explosives or missiles. Admiral Bradley and Secretary Had did exactly what we would expect them to do." >> No terrorists were killed in that attack.
No other Republican who was briefed today offered a specific defense of what they saw when they were shown the video of the second attack killing those two people clinging to the wreckage. Every Democrat who saw that video of the second missile attack today said they found it deeply disturbing. Tonight, Adam Smith, the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, made it very clear that Pete Hegsth was lying when he claimed that the second strike occurred during what Hegth called the fog of war. It turns out, there was no war and there was no fog.
"First of all, we need to be clear. There was no fog of war. They had a clear vision of these two people on top of what was left of their capsized boat for quite a while. I think it was somewhere between 45 minutes and an hour after the initial strike. So, they could see clearly what what was going on. First, second, I I saw Senator Cotton say that the two gentlemen were trying to turn their boat back up. I guess that is patently ridiculous. Um that boat wasn't going anywhere. And by the way, that's not the justification that Admiral Bradley even offered. So, it's two people sitting on a tiny little portion of a boat sticking out of the water that that's capsized. Now, the justification for this was that it was possible that the cocaine was still, I guess, underneath that small portion of the boat that remained. And these two people were not completely disabled. I mean, they were in the middle of an ocean sitting on, you know, a cap-sized boat. So, conceivably, they could quote get back into the fight. I mean that that's really really questionable in those circumstances, but it also underpins the entire problem with this mission. What is the fight exactly that these two were going to get back into? Yes, drugs are a major problem in the US, but these people were trafficking cocaine thousands of miles from the US with drugs that may or may not even have been headed to the United States. So yeah, the video is really troubling and if people see it, I don't think it's going to be good for Secretary Hath or this administration."
In the first report of this incident by the Washington Post, Admiral Bradley was as fully implicated in the order to kill those two people as Pete Hegsth was. The Washington Post reported the commander overseeing the operation from Fort Bragg in North Carolina, Admiral Frank M. Mitch Bradley told people on the secure conference call that the survivors were still legitimate targets because they could theoretically call other traffickers to retrieve them and their cargo according to two people. He ordered the second strike to fulfill Hegsth's directive that everyone must be killed.
If Admiral Bradley told the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth today in his discussions with congressional leaders, which was not under oath, he will be the first military commander suspected of involvement in illegal killing, who immediately told the full truth in his very first secret discussions about the incident. The only video we can show you of Admiral Bradley speaking to Congress is from his Senate confirmation hearing. "I pledge and I and I believe that uh throughout time we have always worked as a integrated inter agency to be able to bring the multiple levers of influence and power that the US needs to achieve its policy objectives and and if confirmed I would pledge to continue that."
If the Republican controlled committees in the House and Senate conduct real investigations of this incident, Admiral Bradley will face more difficult questions next time he testifies to Congress under oath on television. No matter what evidence comes out in this case, there will be defenders of every missile Donald Trump and Pete Hexath and Admiral Bradley have fired at every person they have killed on every one of those very small boats.
When Seymour Hirs began his investigative reporting on the Mi massacre in 1969, he found defenders of Lieutenant Cali everywhere. One officer told Seymour Seymour Hirs, "He's a good soldier. He followed orders." There was no amount of evidence that could change the minds of Lieutenant Kali's defenders in the American military and outside of the American military. And that's what will happen this time. No matter what we see on that video, there will be people like Tom Cotton telling us that they saw something else.
The criminal charge against Lieutenant Kelly was that he committed premeditated murder of 109 quote oriental human beings whose names and sex are unknown by shooting them with a rifle. Like the people the United States of America has been killing on those small boats far from the United States. Pete Hgsth doesn't know their names. Pete Hgsth doesn't know their sexes. Pete Hgsth doesn't know how old they are. He doesn't know if there was a 12-year-old boy or other children on any of those boats. Pete Hexath doesn't know if there were women on those boats.
And so now Donald Trump is facing a demand to release other information that he apparently wants to hide. And that includes the now secret video that was shown today only to congressional leaders and to no one else. And as an added insult to the American public, Donald Trump released another video tonight of another missile killing everyone on another boat somewhere in the Pacific Ocean this time thousands of miles from the United States of America. A small boat that can't carry enough fuel to reach the United States. If these small boats are carrying an as much cargo as Pete Hegseath says they are, they cannot possibly carry enough fuel to make it farther than the next island. They just couldn't possibly carry enough fuel for that if they're also carrying all that cargo. These are not oceangoing vessels. These are very, very, very small boats.
Donald Trump and Pete Hegsith want you to enjoy watching videos of them killing people in those boats. That's why they release those videos. They want you to be like them. They want you to love watching those people get killed. But for some reason, there's two people they don't want you to see get killed. For some reason, they don't want you to see the video of them killing two people clinging to the wreckage and what law professor Ryan Goodman, an expert on military law and civil law, says is just murder.
Leading off our discussion tonight is Democratic Senator Mark Warner of Virginia. He is the vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee and was in one of today's closed door briefings with Admiral Bradley. He's also on the Senate Finance Committee and the Senate Budget Committees. Senator, thank you very much for joining us tonight. Uh we have heard Thank you, Lawrence. Uh a few accounts now of what you all saw uh on that video today. Uh what could you add to our understanding of what's on that video?
>> Well, Lawrence, what I saw on the video was chilling, disturbing. Um I have a lot of questions. I've requested documents in terms of the execution order, the issue around the legal opinion and whether it was changed at all. The legal opinion, the legal decision was made late July. The opinion was not issued in writing until 3 days after this strike. Um, we're talking about charges that are beyond serious implicating potentially war crimes. and I feel an obligation to make sure that I have all the facts first before I render any judgments. Um, I think this video should be seen by at least all of Congress and frankly I think all of the country. I believe that the legal opinion that put this together should be shared with the full public. I finally got it shared with all of Congress. And I do believe one thing I do wholeheartedly agree is we have a pattern from Pete Hagath that is just not acce acceptable. You know from the signal gate to firing of uniform military officers to his charade at Quantico where he lectures them on um what it means to be a warrior and then when as opposed to accepting his responsibility now appears to be shifting this responsibility to Admiral Bradley. Um, this is a individual who is way beyond his capabilities. He should have been never confirmed. I've called for his firing or dismissal since the spring. Nothing has changed in my estimation of his lack of capability. But the very specific questions that you and others have a right to ask. I'm not going to draw any conclusion because the the ramifications of this are so serious in terms of how our military acts and what level of responsibility they're held to that I I just feel I we've got to get all of the data points. But um my the presentation today and I had the opportunity frankly to do this for more than an hour with no other members in the room. So, I got to probe both Admiral Bradley and General Kaine, who is the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at at length and on details. Um, and we got to get this additional information. This is not something that's going to end today regardless of what colleagues or regardless of what the administration may um try to say, case closed. This case is not closed by any means.
Did you have uh questions today that about specifically about that mission and about that attack that Admiral Bradley could not answer?
>> I had questions both on process >> that I've got to get answers for. But but the underlying theory of the case and and you mentioned this earlier in your opening that obviously these drug cartels are dangerous. We need to stop them. But the idea that they are now being classified as foreign terrorist organizations similar to al-Qaeda or ISIS and that anyone involved in a sense the argument is the drugs are the equivalent almost of bombs in terms of of previous actions, you know, is is I I think a legal theory that doesn't hold doesn't pass the smell test. I'm not sure that we can hold General Kaine or Admiral Bradley accountable for that underlying legal decision. And I also think there are there will be evidence particularly when these two individuals were on the boat and I obviously after it had been virtually destroyed um and even in some cases signaling um that they what some could interpret as efforts to surrender. Uh, there is a judgment call there that I've got real questions about in terms of subsequent action. But again, this is so serious in terms of our American military's reputation and how we are viewed both in America and around the world that I want all the facts. I don't want to uh race the judgment, but um it was a chilling chilling time.
>> So, you all saw the same video today. Uh and we hear Senator Cotton saying he thinks they were probably trying to turn over the boat. Uh, I I know enough about those boats to know there was no boat there. It's impossible for there be a boat after a missile hits that thing. There's debris left of that boat. Those outboard engines are on fire instantly because they're filled with fuel. The fuel tanks are all burning on fire. Those engines are probably at the bottom of the ocean by the time that second strike occurs. Um, but Senator Cotton says he he believes he saw them doing things uh that merited them being killed. Did you what you're you seem to be suggesting is what you saw them doing might have been a normal thing that people in distress like that do some kind of waving or signaling for help.
>> Right. And again, you ask a very appropriate question and I have a very different judgment than Senator Cotton, but I am not going to reach, you know, a full conclusion. Mhm.
>> Um, until I get all the facts, I just think, again, we're talking about the United States military and an action that could have constituted something that is illegal under the rules of of law. We have, you know, many thousands of sailors and troops deployed in the region, many of them homeported from my home state in Virginia. And, you know, I want more to see this. I want these facts to come out, but I want to be, if I'm being overly cautious, I just think the ramifications are so grave for all involved. I will say this, we have had this pattern from Pete Hagsf where I feel feel like he has treated our uniform military with disrespect from the outset when he was casual and not my words, but the inspector general put troops in harm's way and pilots in harm's way when he put information about the strikes in Yemen out on an unclassified line, frankly, to members of his own family. I think we've seen military leaders, uniform leaders like the head of the NSA, the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, I believe, fired for political reasons because they didn't reach the conclusion that this administration wanted. I think he frankly embarrassed the American military by bringing him to Quantico for his lecture. I think I was proud of our military that they sat there and made clear by their professionalism that they were loyal to the constitution first and then we have this incident again where this guy has a lot of bravado until I believe mistakes were made and he is now trying to run from that responsibility and whether he excuses through fog of war whatever terminology it is not it is I believe again disrespectful to the milit military service not only of Admiral Bradley who I've got questions about his judgment on this call but in terms of um how he has performed this job and again why I continue to call for his firing or willing she should be dismissed.
Um, Senator, in respect uh for your position as what is in effect a senatorial juror on this evidence as it will unfold uh without in without trying to pull you into a judgment about what you saw, but just an actual eyewitness uh of of what's on that video. When we see the video, will we see two people who are clothed? Will we see that they don't have shirts on? Will we see that they have life jackets on? Will we see their faces? Will we see a beard indicating that that one is male? Will what will we see in those two human beings clinging to that wreckage? And what will we come away thinking we might know about their age or their gender or what even just what they were wearing at that point? Were they did were they did is there any way of knowing whether they already suffered burns from the fire that broke out? That will that kind of detail be something we can pick out?
Cool. I think I think Americans it will be a chilling and extraordinarily disturbing video and you know this was a classified briefing so the details but I I don't think there was you I don't think I'm going beyond any barrier to say there was no doubt about their gender. There was no doubt about >> the fact that I believe they were incapacitated. But I I I think this is so serious that's not why that's why I'm not trying to rush to judgment. It's why I think that the Senate and the House and frankly I think the American public should see this video because it has, you know, implications not only about this incident, but it has implications about, I believe, how this administration is using or misusing uh the very brave men and women who protect our country.
Senator, final question about the video, and that is it sounds to me like the the quality of this video is going to be sharp enough for us to be able to make our own judgments about what we think is happening there. There's not going to be a fog of war. And it sounds to me like you're saying the resolution of this video, the clarity of this video will be very helpful to us.
ended with an inspector general's report unlike anything in the history of the inspector general system in the American government. A defense secretary who has endangered military personnel uh before they engaged in in uh in a mission. Uh what what is your reaction to this report that we knew would at some point would be coming, but to actually be reading the details of it remains shocking?
>> Well, it confirms everything. I I felt that when this broke, the callous, careless approach they take to classified information. Frankly, they took signals from Donald Trump himself who has disregarded classifications for years. We do this not, you know, we do this to keep people safe. And, you know, this secretary of defense, you know, gave this information before the the planes bombed, including family members on this and then magically says that, you know, it it was clearly classified information. The only reason there's anything classified in this report because it all came from this classified information about the strike. Then he suddenly claims Allah Trump that he magically um declassified it. He has that ability, but he didn't make any indication of that in the aftermath. He kept continuing to claim that there was nothing classified here. the inspector general totally contradicted that and then the inspector general, you know, reached the conclusion which is 100% accurate that he put potentially our troops and our pilots in harm's way. You know, I remember visiting NOFK and Virginia Beach where a lot of these sailors are homeported and hearing from their families. They were mad as hell and had a right to be and they wanted to know why Heath was not being held accountable. If any other officer, if any civilian member of the defense department had been this careless, sloppy, and irresponsible, they of course they would have been fired. But he continues >> along the way.
>> Senator, he refused to cooperate with the inspector general's investigation. Is he going to be able to do that with the Senate? You know, we have to have a willingness, you know, of my Republican colleagues to grow a backbone and grow a spine. You know, I've been accused by my Democratic friends many times of being way too bipartisan, but I have lost that when I at least I thought when it came to national security, when it came to these kind of items, whether it was strikes in the Caribbean or misusing or classified information about a strike in Yemen or a whole host of items that I've enumerated on the floor in terms of undermining of the integrity of our intelligence community, ability to speak truth to power or the politization of the FBI. I thank God we got that bomber today, but maybe we could have gotten him earlier if they hadn't fired the major leaders of all the parts in the FBI and frankly had not taken 45% of the FBI agents that were doing counterterrorism and put them on immigration detail. You know, we've never you you let in on this. We've never seen activity like this. And we will only hold accountable in our system if my Republican friends can find their spines or if the American people in the midterms vote in record numbers to say we've got to put a check on this irresponsible administration.
>> Senator Mark Warner, thank you very much for joining us tonight.
>> Thank you.
>> Thank you. Coming up, Lieutenant General Mark Hurtling says the fog of war is not an excuse. Now we know there was no fog of war. General Hurtling will join us next. Right now, living with COPD is hard.