A lightweight news hub to help decentralize the fediverse load: mirror and discuss headlines here so the giant instance communities aren’t a single choke-point.
Rules:
What a bunch of cowards. Hegseth couldn't take the heat so he found an admiral who would, and "self defense" is the best they could come up with to justify killing two guys who were floating on wreckage trying not to drown?
Absolutely ridiculous.
Asked to clarify whether Hegseth had ordered the second strike on the boat, Leavitt told reporters that Bradley — not Hegseth — gave the order and stressed that the veteran naval officer was “well within his authority and the law” when he did.
Cool, cool, more names please
“He directed the engagement to ensure the boat was destroyed and the threat from narco terrorists was eliminated,” she said.
Leavitt added that the strikes were “conducted in international waters and in accordance with the law of armed conflict.”
The strike on September 2, the first among more than a dozen attacks that have killed more than 80 people in recent months, “was conducted in self defense to protect Americans” and “vital United States interests,” she said.
TBF, while this probably was a war crime, AFAICT per Independent's own reporting the headline is sensationalist.
Leavitt didn't specifically say the second hit was "self defense", but rather that the operation as a whole is self-defense. (Which is itself another, separately specious, post-truth argument from this administration)
