Does Pete Hegseth even believe that war crimes exist? | Sidney Blumenthal

Pete Hegseth’s office is located on the third floor of the Pentagon, in the E ring, room 3E880, facing the Potomac River with a scenic view of the monuments and the Capitol. He posted a video on 5 September showing a new bronze plaque being affixed to his door reading: “Pete Hegseth Secretary of War.”

His splendid new designation, not established by the Congress as required by law, was purely notional and performative, announced by Donald Trump in an executive order that carried no legal weight, but befitted Hegseth’s self-conceit as warrior-in-chief. He now had the title to go with the tattoos: the crusader cross; “Deus vult”, or “God wills it”, the crusader battle cry; the sniper rifle against the background of an American flag; and the cross and sword inspired by Matthew 10:34: “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.”

Three days earlier, on 2 September, he was reported to have given a verbal order for a drone strike against two unidentified men desperately hanging on to the smoking pieces of their shattered boat in the Caribbean after nine members of their crew had already been blasted. “Kill everybody,” was the order, according to the Washington Post on 28 November. It was the first of 21 strikes that the Pentagon states have so far killed 82 people who are said to have been “narco-terrorists”, though their identities are unknown. Hegseth denied knowledge of the second strike.

The day after, Donald Trump posted a video of the strike blowing up the small boat. Hegseth appeared on Fox News to promote the attack and show the video. “That was definitely not artificial intelligence. I watched it live,” he boasted.

Hegseth’s account was the first in a series of constantly shifting stories, accompanied by his refusal to provide senators and House members with information for months, followed by rounds of finger-pointing from Trump and Hegseth about who gave the order or knew about it, and accusations of scapegoating claiming Adm Frank M “Mitch” Bradley, in charge of special operations, was being set up to take the fall. Bradley would later say that he gave the order.

The question of whether Hegseth had committed a criminal act was immediately raised in response to the Post report in a statement issued on 29 November by the Former Jags Working Group, which “unanimously considers both the giving and the execution of these orders, if true, to constitute war crimes, murder, or both.