Pete Hegseth Is Seriously Testing Trump's 'No Scalps' Rule

[demmiblue]

The suspected drug traffickers, the lone survivors of a U.S. airstrike, were sprawled on a table-size piece of floating wreckage in the Caribbean for more than 40 minutes. They were unarmed, incommunicado, and adrift as they repeatedly attempted to right what remained of their boat. At one point, the men raised their arms and seemed to signal to the U.S. aircraft above, a gesture some who watched a video of the incident interpreted as a sign of surrender. Then a second explosion finished the men off, leaving only a bloody stain on the surface of the sea. Footage of the two men’s desperate final moments made some viewers nauseated, leading one to nearly vomit. “It was worse than we had been led to believe,” one person told us.

The video was part of a briefing that Admiral Frank “Mitch” Bradley, the head of U.S. Special Operations Command, gave lawmakers yesterday about the September 2 attack. Bradley told legislators that, after consulting military lawyers, he authorized the follow-on strike, judging that the men still posed a threat because of what they could have done: radioed for help or been picked up with what remained of their cargo of suspected cocaine. The video suggested they didn’t actually do any of that, but Bradley defended his decisions in the first episode of the Trump administration’s newly militarized counternarcotics campaign.

Republicans and Democrats who watched the grainy footage drew different conclusions about whether Bradley’s actions were justified. But many also sounded exasperated that once again they were dealing with controversy sparked by Bradley’s boss, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. And after 10 months of turbulence under Hegseth’s leadership, the Republican-led Congress is now showing signs of exercising its oversight powers.

Hegseth has denied reports that he issued a verbal “no quarter” order—that is, an order to kill, not capture—in the September 2 attack, an assertion backed by Bradley. Hegseth also defended Bradley’s decision to launch a second strike—while insisting he wasn’t a part of it. But the congressional scrutiny is likely to continue, deepening the former Fox News host’s reliance on the one person responsible for his political rise: President Donald Trump.

https://www.theatlantic.com/national-security/2025/12/pete-hegseth-strikes-venezuela-congress/685156/?gift=SCYx-5scVta3-cr_IlgTyVoetjpsgppY3J2gQ54vst0

NEW: www.theatlantic.com/national-sec...

— Jonathan Lemire (@jonlemire.bsky.social) 2025-12-06T13:46:32.700Z

[ancianita]

1. Out of 22 military bombings that caused 86 deaths, when Hegseth takes credit for those but says

he's not responsible for this one second strike, he's lying.