Charlie Savage

So the day after Thanksgiving, the Washington Post published a very good story about the first of Trump's boat attacks way back on September 2nd.

Now, that had always been the most questionable of the 21 attacks that have happened so far.

And part of the reason for that is that there were some additional complicating details that had come to light in September, including that the boat had turned around before it attacked.

that there were more missile strikes on the boat before it sank than just the one that was shown in a video that Trump had put out.

And The Intercept had reported that there were initial survivors of the first missile strike that died in the subsequent strike.

But that was all kind of bare bones.

This new story added significant and rich detail about this strike.

And among the other things it reported was that Admiral Frank Bradley, who was running the operation, had ordered the second strike to kill the survivors of the first one.

Because Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth had said to kill...

Everyone.

And this set off a furor that had not happened back in September when the basic outlines of these facts had first come to light.

So to understand that, I think you have to work through the administration's explanation of what it's doing.

The administration has put forward a legal theory that this is an armed conflict.

This is a war that Trump has decided we're at war, even though Congress has not authorized one, a war with drug cartels.

and that the people on the boat smuggling these drugs supposedly for the drug cartels are not criminals, they are combatants.

And a lot of people do not think that is a legitimate interpretation of the law and think this is not an armed conflict.

But even if you accept it under the laws of armed conflict very explicitly,

You cannot fire upon people who are out of the fight, people who have surrendered, people who are incredibly wounded and unable to fight you back, or explicitly shipwrecked sailors cannot be fired upon.

That is a war crime.

So Hegseth has acknowledged from the beginning that he authorized a lethal strike on this boat.