Embattled Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth faces a tough choice. He can protect his boss by resigning NOW, or keep hanging on hoping it will all blow over. The latter case is unlikely which means Trump will have to fire him, probably in late January or so. Oh, it will be couched in Hegseth resigning but everyone will know the truth – that Trump had no choice but to toss him under the bus. Word will get out and Trump will look even worse (yes, that can and will happen in multiple ways) and Hegseth could find himself expecting a pardon only to have Trump tell him ‘NO.”
Why would Trump say no pardon? Admiral Frank Bradley who was in command of JSOC (Joint Special Operations Command) and green lighted both the initial Sept. 2 attack and the second strike to kill the survivors has chosen to protect Trump. He chose to go to Capitol Hill and spin a narrative that the administration hopes will sell. It won’t and why is a long article that would make your eyes glaze over. My point is that Admiral Bradley is a professional with tons of experience. He worked out with a handful of trusted aides a story that Team Trump and Congressional allies could (temporarily) perhaps spin and went to the Hill to “Front” it. Hegseth is NOT on the Hill today. He’s probably stashed away in a safe house somewhere. I’ll get to why in a minute. The point is that as I’m writing this Bradley has chosen to fall on his sword and Hegseth isn’t willing to do the same.
Not on Capitol Hill at least. And for damned sure not under oath even in a closed door setting in a SCIF. No, Hegseth will talk tough sitting next to Trump in front of his hack Pentagon reporters but he’ll have to be dragged kicking and screaming to talk with legislators on Capitol Hill. The thing is, the line that Admiral Bradley is trying to sell today won’t hold up. He knows it but for whatever reason is trying to buy time for Trump. Why? We can only guess. But Trump will look at that and remember it when it counts. If Bradley sticks to what he’s supposedly going to be saying today Trump WILL pardon him.
Hegseth on the other hand is trying to weasel out of responsibility for any of this. He’s huffing and puffing his ‘warriors gonna war’ and saying the rules are stupid and so on. However the rules Hegseth blithely dismisses are quite specific when it comes to that second missile strike. It was not only a war crime, but a war crime where no war had been declared in the first place. An Executive Order might get Trump off the legal hook given the SCOTUS immunity ruling but not anyone else. It became well established in both U.S. and international law that “I was just following orders” doesn’t cut it.
Remember, Hegseth didn’t get his job not because he was qualified. He wasn’t even in the parking lot of the ballpark qualified. No, Trump thought he looked good on TV spouting stuff Trumpty likes to hear. Hegseth was a purported ‘expert’ on the military (not really as you can see here if you scroll down a bit) and that was enough. He wasted little time embarrassing his boss and should have stepped away long ago. Now, with the double whammy of the SignalGate report coming out during the controversy over that second strike against helpless survivors in the ocean Hegseth should have done what Admiral Black is doing – falling on his sword. Resigning in a statement that (if Trump will shell out enough money for a good writer) he was leaving because his continued presence would distract from ‘Trump’s great and ongoing work’ is what Trump needs.
I’ll bet that’s even been suggested to Hegseth, if not by Trump himself then someone Hegseth knew was speaking for the boss. Yet Hegseth remains and in an increasingly defiant way. He’s already cost Trump politically FAR more than benefitted this disastrous administration but he knows Trump has been too embarrassed to dump him. The longer he stubbornly sticks around the more it’s going to hurt Trump in the end. Hegeseth is clearly out to protect his own ass which he feels he can do as SecDef which does in fact shield him from legal accountability for a while. However as I keep saying the longer he’s around the more it will cost TRUMP. Trump has devolved a great deal but the part of his mind that still sort of works still I think knows how to keep score.
An issue of the orders cut by Hegseth’s Office to JSOC for the boat strikes might pass initial muster but not if you dig into it as I have. And yes, the issue of what to do if there were survivors came up. Bradley says there was no standing ‘make sure everyone is dead’ order either in writing or verbally. I call bullshit. I know I keep harping on this but the rules are different for survivors of a naval attack and OF COURSE as head of JSOC Bradley would have raised the issue with Hegseth. If Bradley sticks to his story that no verbal ‘go back and kill any survivors’ orders were issued even if evidence that’s a lie is produced (possible) Trump will pardon him.
Hegesth on the other hand has cost Trump so much already and clearly intends to cost Trump still more. It’s for THAT reason, that Hegseth hasn’t followed Bradley’s example and chosen to fall on his sword in a very public attempt to protect Trump there will be no pardon. His only hope is that Trump doesn’t last out his second term and Vance takes mercy on him. However, for all the laws of political physics Trump has managed (so far) to defy one thing that’s become apparent is that only Trump gets away with being Trump. Vance would have a tough enough time getting elected in 2028 without controversial pardons on his record.
I want to wrap this up. There is SO much I could say and want to say to back up what I’ve written but it would take digging into a lot of detail on more than one aspect of this. I’ve gotten indications from some I’ve become too long winded. So I’ll shut up for now but if enough people comment they want those details I’ll be happy to write one of my ‘classic old style dissertations’ with a disclaimer for those who don’t have time to indulge in such things.
Just know this: I’m laying down a marker that Hegseth is screwing himself out of a pardon for not resigning. Between ongoing discussion of war crimes and SignalGate if he cared about anyone (including and especially Trump) he’d have resigned before I even got the idea to write this. But he hasn’t and he won’t. Trump will have to force him to resign or outright fire him and because of THAT when the pardon doesn’t come and Hegesth asks when it will Trumpty will take great delight in telling him to f**k off.
Friends, I know everyone begs you for money. I promise, among all those asking for spare change, we are the smallest and the hardest working. We’re a group of old, disabled people, except for one writer in his mid-50s. The rest of us are in our sixties and seventies, and this is a labor of love. All we’re asking for is the chance to keep telling the truth about Trump and help ensure democracy survives. If you can help, please do. Thank you. Ursula
I did NOT want to have that happen to Bradley. I believe he was forced into it. And I’m afraid that he’s going to have a dishonorable discharge and lose all he worked for for so long. There is more to this. There *has* to be. Hegseth is in the middle of it.
I read some of the DoD Law of War Manual. Holy cow, that thing is dense. And it states in plain English that we are not to kill survivors. There’s another one that I can’t remember at the moment that fits right in with the Gaza mess and starving civilians. I haven’t found anything about genocide. Yet.
He SHOULD have said if ordered to carry out those missions which he knew were at best of questionable legality he would resign. And followed through.
This claim there was no “No Survivors” policy either written or spoken is bullshit. It might have been indirect, like ‘It would be best if anyone survives a strike is NOT rescued because we don’t want them in court someday’ but it was clear. if anyone survives keep an eye out and if they don’t slip under the surface and drown make sure they are dead with another strike order WAS conveyed. it would be easy enough to clearly infer the message.
THAT is why I have contempt for Bradley. It pains me to say that having known actual SEALS including the guy who conceived and established SEAL Tem 6. Granted it was a long time ago but as with some guys from Marine Recon I knew (I didn’t learn until later but when I was in grunt school some in my command wanted me sent down the road to become Recon myself) but I knew the breed. These are NOT ‘meatheads.’ They, and Army Special Ops too are a helluva lot smarter AND capable of thinking on their feet and making quick and correct decisions under serious pressure.
Admiral Bradly deserves no consideration as far as I’m concerned. He not only didn’t speak out when he SHOULD have, after this story broke and the administration was cycling through different explananations hoping to find one that would stick to the wall he sat down and like a professional worked up a line to sell to Congress. Bullshit but with just enough plausibility that it would take a while to sink if like a rubber SEAL insertion boat. It would take one of my classic long-winded articles to explain why.
But calling for resuce on a radio from the water or the wreckage of the boat they were on, even from an enemy in uniform in an actual war is not an act of war. The DOD Manual and the laws say such people are to be rescued if possible. To instead kill them is a clear cut war crime. This was I know damn well discussed by Bradley with his superiors before the strikes started. A decision was made to kill those guys. Whether the decision came from Hegseth, Bradley or was made by Naval Aviators flying hte mission a decision to kill those shipwrecked survivors was made. With Bradley telling Congress there were no “No Survivors” orders, and that neither Hegseth or he authorized the second strike THAT means he’s going to dump responsiblity on whomever fired that second missile.
THAT is an unforgivable thing for a commanding officer (or NCO) to do. Pass the buck down to the lowest person in the chain of command involved. So far no one is talking about how THAT is going to affect morale in the ranks.
I’m going to have to think about this some more. Thank you VERY much for the military information I did not have. Open mouth, insert foot. I certainly understand more about the situation, and I really appreciate you taking the time to explain!!! Kudos to you, Denis!
Very good Denis, and yes, I do appreciate your brevity lol. There are a couple of points however that I think you are overlooking. First is that these narcotics traffickers have been declared a terrorist organization. That, I believe, renders moot your argument for formal declaration of war and potential war crimes. And then with regards to Hegseth, he’s proven to be very loyal to Trump. As you know and have said before, Trump values that perhaps above all else. So I believe that there will be no charges, no problems, no need for a pardon and some dumb terrorists will continue to try their luck in the Caribbean…and lose.
Ok, you’ve raised your points in a thoughtful way and that merits a thoughtful response with no snark on my part. You are correct that Trump signed an EO designating drug smugglers narco-terrorists but the legality of that order is open to serious question. Believe it or not there are laws, both U.S. and international that govern such things and finding a lawyer who will write the legal justification asked for is easy for him these days. However, as with John Yoo’s infamous analysis justifying torture that doesn’t mean it holds up over time.
Add in the fact that as I said we have Coast Guard and Naval assets actually operating far closer to our shores that have regularly interdicted countless smugglers (not just drugs) and that as I said about one-fourth of the time when they stop a boat they turn out to be wrong the policy Trump created because he felt like the law doesn’t apply to him (well, thanks to SCOTUS it doesn’t!) further dilutes the legal legitimacy of what is now U.S. policy.
Think about this – countries around the world, not all of them friendly to us have been watching. What would you say if THEY saw smallish boats out of Guam, or Saipan or other places where there’s a strong American presence and blew them out of the water for alledgely smuggling weapons or ‘infiltrators’ to other countries? And what if there were survivors and that country went back and hit them with a second strike to make sure everyone was dead?
As with torture, the asshats beating their chests that by god we can be ‘tough guys too’ don’t think about that. However we’ve now given an excuse to other countries to do what we did and if WE complain (tell me you wouldn’t be outraged if Americans were targeted) they can say ‘Hey – you guys have made a big deal about YOU can do it so STFU.’
I have no use for those who make or sell illegal drugs. May they rot in prison till the end of their miserable lives. But summary executions make us the very kind of country Trump calls some shithole. Think about this. If summary execution based on suspicion, even some pretty well justified suspicion was sufficient evidence for lethal targeting here on U.S. soil how would you feel if LE, or some National Guard units fired LAW rockets or even a javelin into a house where drug trafficers were thought to be. Doing druggie stuff like cutting and bagging their product for sale, or making meth. Do you support LE or the Guard just blowing the structure and anyone in it away based on suspicion?
Perhaps I’m wrong but I don’t think so.
As for your statement about Hegseth’s loyalty to Trump you are correct. It’s in large part why he’s still in his job. But other’s have been totally loyal to Trump but dumped as soon as he felt they were more trouble than they were worth. Hegseth has cost Trump and ‘bigly.’ Even GOPers on the Hill are starting to break ranks and once that ‘Just because Trump says so doesn’t mean we have to go along’ ball starts rolling down the hill it will pick up speed. And it’s gotten pushed onto the downhill slope. Some are trying to stop it but from where I sit it’s too big and heavy.
Republicans in Congress are reluctant to say anything publicly but on issue after issue they know sticking with Trump will mean even if they keep their seats next November they’ll be in the minority and yes, that might well mean the Senate as well as the House. As you know even in normal, sort of okay times people are busy and don’t pay the kind of attention to political issues folks like you and I do. There’s a lot of ‘noise’ and not much breaks through.
Epstein has broken through and Trump has played it about as stupidly as he could have. THIS is also breaking through. I could be wrong but I think this is a story that will have legs. Admiral Bradley’s narrative won’t hold up over time which means even though Hegseth kicked out all the REAL journalists from the Pentagon it’s going to remain in the news. Loyalty or not, the moment Trump realizes Hegseth is costing him far more than the embarrassment he’s suffered for appointing him in the first place and not dumping his ass after SignalGate all that loyalty won’t mean jack shit.
Well, we’ll have to wait and see which of us turns out to be right.