Hegseth Warns Against War Crimes... in 2016
Pete Hegseth, the man currently holding defense portfolios, once stated troops shouldn't follow illegal orders to commit war crimes. He even suggested 'consequences' for such acts. This inconvenient truth resurfaces as the Pentagon faces scrutiny for questionable offshore strikes. (One might wonder how many 'illegal orders' would pass muster if this standard were consistently applied today, say,
regarding the supply of weapons to allies committing widespread civilian harm.) Hegseth’s 2016 wisdom about military standards being 'above what so many things that our enemies would do' is particularly poignant given recent events where the US has greenlit arms shipments to entities accused of war crimes by international bodies. The consistency, it seems, is less about upholding the law and more
about who is doing the 'doing.'