Conservatives Discover 'War Crimes' When Pete Hegseth Says Them
The Independent breathlessly reports on Pete Hegseth’s hypothetical ‘kill everybody’ strike, noting former Fox News colleague Andrew Napolitano calling it a 'war crime.' It's truly fascinating, this sudden conservative concern for international law. One might wonder where this fervent adherence to war crimes legislation was when Senator Lindsey Graham, for instance, openly suggested in 2023 that
'there are no rules of war' for Hamas, implicitly sanctioning unlimited force. Or when Senator Tom Cotton called for 'no ceasefires' in Gaza, suggesting tactics that leave no distinction between combatant and civilian. These aren't hypotheticals on cable news; these are explicit policy endorsements from sitting lawmakers who, crucially, face zero 'war criminal' labels from their conservative
colleagues for their rhetoric. The media's focus on Hegseth's televised gaffe, rather than the bipartisan consensus that enables disproportionate military action, highlights a convenient distraction. The U.S. government has a long, documented history of rejecting the International Criminal Court’s jurisdiction over its citizens and allies, effectively giving tacit approval to actions that critics
argue could be considered war crimes. The outrage over Hegseth's bluster is performative, carefully deployed by the corporate press to imply robust debate, while the systematic backing for similar, real-world outcomes continues unabated.