Global & US Headlines
Senate Opens Probe into Hegseth’s Alleged “Kill Everybody” Order in Sept. 2 Narco-Boat Strike
Following a 28-Nov-2025 Washington Post exposé, the Senate Armed Services Committee launched a bipartisan investigation into claims that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth verbally ordered U.S. forces to kill all 11 occupants of a suspected drug-running boat— including two shipwrecked survivors—during the first strike of Operation Southern Spear on 2 Sep 2025.
Focusing Facts
- Pentagon data seen by reporters show at least 23 boat strikes since 2 Sep, leaving 83 confirmed dead.
- Committee chairs Roger Wicker and Jack Reed publicly demanded the Pentagon turn over strike videos, legal opinions, and Hegseth’s directives after the department missed a statutory disclosure deadline.
- After the incident, protocols shifted: a 16 Oct strike rescued two survivors who were flown to a U.S. ship and later repatriated to Colombia and Ecuador.
Context
Great-power militaries have faced blowback before for killing those rendered hors de combat—e.g., Britain’s 1901 ‘no prisoners’ Boer War orders and the U.S. My Lai massacre in 1968—events that later reshaped doctrine and law. The Hegseth episode fits a century-long pattern of Washington stretching war authority (from the 1904 Roosevelt Corollary to the 2001 AUMF) into Latin America, now rebranding narco-crime as terrorism to bypass courts and Congress. If Congress acquiesces, it normalises lethal drone policing far from declared battlefields; if it pushes back, it may reassert waning legislative war powers. On a 100-year horizon the precedent matters more than the 83 deaths: it signals whether the U.S. will keep expanding “forever war” logic into realms—drug smuggling, cybercrime, piracy—once policed by judges, not missiles. Latin American memory of interventions from 1954 Guatemala to 1989 Panama suggests today’s strikes could harden regional resistance and invite future legal or diplomatic isolation for Washington.
Perspectives
National mainstream investigative outlets
e.g., Washington Post, ABC News — Report that Hegseth verbally ordered the killing of all aboard, framing the follow-up strike as possibly unlawful and exposing U.S. personnel to war-crime liability. Heavy reliance on anonymous sources and legal experts amplifies scandal angle and can underplay Pentagon denials, boosting readership and political impact.
Defense-friendly and Beltway publications
e.g., Military.com, The Hill — Recount the allegation but foreground Hegseth’s dismissal of it as “fake news,” stressing the stated mission to destroy narco-terrorists and asserting the strikes are lawful kinetic operations. Dependent on official statements and access to the Pentagon, these outlets tend to echo government framing and soft-pedal the legal critiques raised elsewhere.
Left-leaning/progressive media
e.g., The Guardian, Raw Story — Portray the directive as an unambiguous war crime amounting to premeditated murder, demanding prosecution of Hegseth and other U.S. officials. Ideological opposition to the Trump administration intensifies language and moral condemnation, occasionally glossing over evidentiary gaps or contrary legal opinions.