Let's talk about Hegseth, giving quarter, checklists, and questions.... - Belle of the Ranch

[TexasTowelie]

Well, howdy there Internet people. It's Belle again. So, today we're going to talk about Hegseth giving quarter. Checklists. and questions.

After the recent video about Hegseth 's comment, the three-time Trump voting Marine vet who is apparently done with the entire Republican party over the comment. A bunch of questions came in about the checklist and the concept of no quarter.

If you missed all of this, the Secretary of Defense said, "We will keep pressing, keep pushing, keep advancing. No quarter, no mercy for our enemy."

So, one of the questions that came in over and over is a simple one. What is no quarter and is it illegal? Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona, that's one of the senators the administration was super mad at for reminding troops of their duty to disobey unlawful orders, said, "No quarter isn't some wannabe tough guy line. It means something. In order to give no quarter would mean to take no prisoners and kill them instead. That would violate the law of armed conflict. It would be an illegal order. It would also put American service members at greater risk. Pete Hegseth should know better than to throw around terms like this.”

Just in case you're one of those who don't trust Democratic senators. That is what no quarter means. And the regulations concerning the laws and customs of war on land, which the US ratified in 1909, says, "It is especially forbidden to kill or wound an enemy who, having laid down his arms, or having no longer means of defense, has surrendered at discretion."

It is also “especially forbidden to declare that no quarter will be given. No quarter is prohibited in a ton of other ways and places as well.

Just security actually put out what they called a hypothetical legal advice to Sec Def Hegseth on no quarter statement. If you want a pretty full breakdown, it's worth the read. I'll put the link down below.

Just in the first paragraph of the mockup of a memo to Hegseth lists out just a couple of laws that may be at issue and then says, "We recommend that you publicly retract this statement immediately and to clarify to all subordinates within the DoW that under no circumstances shall US forces order, threaten, or tolerate no quarter with respect to Iranian combatants under penalty of criminal investigation and potential prosecution.”

For those who already got your talking point that he didn't give an order, the same laws prohibit just threatening it. But you arguing that misses the point entirely and shows what's important to you. Your party's political fortunes are what matters. Hegseth’s statement will affect Iranian policy toward captured pilots or marines. As is typically the case, you'll support the troops as long as you can use them as a prop. Their lives mean nothing if it hurts the polls, right? At least take your hat off at the transfer next time.

Then we got a bunch of questions about what checklist the marine joked about. There is a lot of dark humor in military and veteran communities. The Geneva conventions are sometimes referred to as the Geneva checklist, which often just gets shortened to the checklist.

It's probably most used in the context of pointing out how brutal Canadian or French forces can be, but gets used in other ways as well. For Americans, the stereotype about French forces always surrendering doesn't exist in other parts of the world. Their forces have a bit of a reputation from the 1900s.

When Americans make the jokes about themselves, it's typically a deep historical cut or kind of gets teamed up with another American military meme. Something like, "They touched our boats. Go get the checklist back from Poland.” These jokes are sometimes in bad taste, but they aren't said in public by a Sec Def who said he wanted maximum lethality, not tepid legality again, indicating a disregard for the laws of armed conflict. This will come back to hurt US forces.

When it comes to Sec Def statements there's a lot of people trying to act like it was okay. It really wasn't and can have a lot of really bad effects down the line.

Anyway, it's just a thought. Y'all have a good day.

[The Roux Comes First]

1. But the Bloke Playing Solitaire 'Til Dawn with a Deck of 51 is a Genius Compared to Hegseth

He lives with Mom in order to get at least one of his shoes tied.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

2. Legal experts alarmed over Pete Hegseth's 'no quarter' statement

Foreign countries haven’t exactly rushed to answer the American president’s call for assistance. Imagine that.

So to sum up:
1. Trump alienates/insults allies
2. he launches an unnecessary war with no international legitimacy
3. he declares war “over,” dismisses need for allies’ help
4. he sees the war go sideways
5. he “demands” allies help us solve a problem he said doesn’t exist
www.ms.now/rachel-maddo...

— Steve Benen (@stevebenen.com) 2026-03-16T13:42:17.264Z

https://www.ms.now/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/after-alienating-allies-and-declaring-victory-trump-demands-foreign-help-in-war

During the first week of the war in Iran, multiple British news outlets reported that the HMS Prince of Wales aircraft carrier was preparing for possible deployment to the Middle East to assist the United States and Israel. Seven days into the conflict, however, Donald Trump, who has a habit of insulting and alienating our closest allies, used his social media platform to deliver a message to leaders in the U.K.: Don’t bother.

“The United Kingdom, our once Great Ally, maybe the Greatest of them all, is finally giving serious thought to sending two aircraft carriers to the Middle East,” the American president wrote. “That’s OK, Prime Minister Starmer, we don’t need them any longer — But we will remember. We don’t need people that join Wars after we’ve already won!”...

After claiming in an NBC News interview that unnamed countries had already committed to helping secure the strait — a dubious assertion, given the circumstances and available information — the Republican “demanded” that foreign nations step up and provide the U.S. with the kind of security assistance he recently said was unnecessary.

Trump on Strait of Hormuz: "Really, I'm demanding that these countries come in and protect their own territory, because it is their territory ... they should help us. You could make the case that maybe we shouldn't be there at all, because we don't need it. We have a lot of oil."

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2026-03-16T01:05:29.715Z

.....Indeed, the series of events seems preposterous. After spending the last year alienating U.S. allies, Trump launched an unnecessary war with no international legitimacy. He then prematurely declared victory, while simultaneously dismissing the need for international assistance, all while characterizing the Strait of Hormuz as a problem that’s already been solved.

It was at this point that the same American president, without explanation, turned on a dime and started demanding assistance from the same countries he’s insulted to address a problem he’s claimed doesn’t exist.

Foreign countries haven’t exactly rushed to answer Trump’s call for help, and Australian and Chinese officials have already rejected U.S. outreach. Imagine that.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

3. Why Pete Hegseth's talk about 'no quarter' could itself be against U.S. and international law

The secretary of defense is a military leader in the chain of command. Whether Hegseth appreciates it or not, his words alone have legal significance.

Why Pete Hegseth’s talk about ‘no quarter’ could itself be against U.S. and international law

www.ms.now/opinion/pete...

— Mike Walker (@newnarrative.bsky.social) 2026-03-17T11:23:17.383Z

https://www.ms.now/opinion/pete-hegseth-no-quarter-war-crime

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, during a televised press briefing at the Pentagon on the Iran war on March 13, vowed this about America’s response to Iran’s ruling regime: “We will keep pushing, keep advancing. No quarter, no mercy for our enemies.”

These words in themselves could be a violation of both U.S. and international law.

Hegseth’s declaration of “no quarter” implicates a foundational prohibition under the law of war. These are the binding rules agreed to by states that seek to mitigate the horrors and bloodshed of conflict through pragmatic balancing of humanitarian and military considerations. The prohibition of the denial of quarter is a paradigmatic illustration of the law of war advancing both sets of considerations.

Dating back to at least the Civil War, the denial of quarter has been forbidden. As articulated in the 1863 Lieber Code (Instructions for the Government of Armies of the United States in the Field, General Order No. 100), “It is against the usage of modern war to resolve, in hatred and revenge, to give no quarter. No body of troops has the right to declare that it will not give, and therefore will not expect, quarter.” (emphasis added) This rule would subsequently be incorporated into treaties to which the United States is a party, including in the regulations annexed to the 1907 Hague Convention IV, and as customary law binding on all states. Importantly, this law of war rule applies to air, land and sea warfare.

As reflected in the Lieber Code (and the Department of Defense’s own Law of War Manual), the ban on denial of quarter includes both: 1) a prohibition on conducting hostilities on the basis that legitimate offers of surrender by enemy personnel will not be accepted, but instead that there should be no survivors, and 2) a prohibition on simply declaring no quarter itself.

In other words, the law of war prohibits military leaders from the speech act of announcing “no quarter” alone.....

Denial of quarter is also a war crime under U.S. law. The War Crimes Act criminalizes violations of the following rule: “it is especially forbidden… [t]o declare that no quarter will be given.” Thus U.S. criminal law, like the international law of war, imposes individual liability for the speech act of declaring “no quarter” itself — regardless of whether the declaration is ever implemented.

A declaration of no quarter by a military leader is not only an unlawful order (the subject of a now famous video message from a number of Democratic lawmakers), but one that a court would likely find to be manifestly or patently unlawful. This means that if military subordinates were to execute a directive of no quarter, they would have no viable defense of following superior orders.

Hegseth is a pompous idiot who wants to be macho. Hegseth is endangering our troops with his pronouncements. Our troops will face additional risks is our countries follow Hegseth's example