I have refrained from jumping on the "Pete Hegseth ordered that a war crime be committed" controversy because it had all the hallmarks of a smear job.
And, unsurprisingly, it looks increasingly likely that the people who brought you the "Russia collusion" hoax are staying true to form. The only surprise here is that The New York Times is calling "shenanigans," actually telling their readers that the WaPo's story is a steaming pile of excrement.
If this account is true, the Washington Post story is a genuinely vile slander of both Hegseth and Bradley.https://t.co/6XQsQQT6Wd
— John Podhoretz (@jpodhoretz) December 2, 2025
You have probably heard already about the Washington Post "scoop" that Pete Hegseth ordered a "double tap" strike on a cartel boat, supposedly with the intent to ensure that even wounded and helpless narco-traffickers were executed in the strike.
Since the story broke, there have been a lot of barracks lawyers out there debating the legality of the order. There's a lot of talk about international law, the Geneva Convention, the UCMJ, and the finer points of interpreting facts that all come from highly motivated anonymous sources.
Again, on a routine basis, AC-130 gunships and Apache helicopters would routinely use infrared optics to target groups of Taliban in the mountains. The cannons would devastate groups of Taliban from a distance. After the first hits, the Taliban would scatter, drop weapons, and… https://t.co/Qw9PmXAmXo
— Wade Miller (@WadeMiller_USMC) December 2, 2025
Again, on a routine basis, AC-130 gunships and Apache helicopters would routinely use infrared optics to target groups of Taliban in the mountains. The cannons would devastate groups of Taliban from a distance. After the first hits, the Taliban would scatter, drop weapons, and run. Our pilots would methodically hunt them all down and destroy them. They are terrorists.No one claimed this was illegal, even though the footage has been widely available for a long time now. It’s functionally no different. The only difference is woke leftists want to elevate defending cartels above national security because it serves their political interests.
The story was perfectly timed. As controversy raged over the "Seditious Six," who warned soldiers not to follow illegal orders, suddenly, here was a potential example! Everybody was arguing about the example and what it meant, but few ever stepped back to wonder whether the whole story was actually true.
It is not surprising that the WashPost, which originated the Russia collusion hoax, the Kavanaugh hoax, and the first Trump impeachment hoax, would run another false info op. It IS a bit surprising that the NYT isn’t going along with it in their normal manner. https://t.co/7bPNMO1ISY
— Mollie (@MZHemingway) December 2, 2025
Yeah, well, it sure looks like the story wasn't true, at least as told by the Washington Post and their anonymous sources. Pete Hegseth never gave the order to strike the boat twice.
According to five U.S. officials, who spoke separately and on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter that is under investigation, Mr. Hegseth, ahead of the Sept. 2 attack, ordered a strike that would kill the people on the boat and destroy the vessel and its purported cargo of drugs.
But, each official said, Mr. Hegseth’s directive did not specifically address what should happen if a first missile turned out not to fully accomplish all of those things. And, the officials said, his order was not a response to surveillance footage showing that at least two people on the boat survived the first blast.
Admiral Bradley ordered the initial missile strike and then several follow-up strikes that killed the initial survivors and sank the disabled boat. As that operation unfolded, they said, Mr. Hegseth did not give any further orders to him.
The officials clarified the sequence of events amid the political and legal uproar that has followed a report in The Washington Post last week. It said that Admiral Bradley ordered the second strike to fulfill a directive by Mr. Hegseth to kill everyone. The reaction has included questions about whether Mr. Hegseth specifically ordered an execution of shipwrecked sailors in violation of the laws of war.
Democrats have been trying to make the argument that striking the drug smuggling boats is illegal, but that claim really doesn't hold water under the circumstances. One can like the policy or believe it is ill-considered, but President Trump clearly has the authority to designate the cartels as terrorist organizations that present a danger to US security and order these strikes.
Proceeds with more caution? The flaws the NYT pointed out were obvious from the beginning, but suddenly the two drug dealers in question were Robinson Crusoe, shipwrecked at sea because Orange Man Bad.https://t.co/jzHmO7tB6P
— Confessions of a Conservative (@TwisteChristian) December 2, 2025
So, creating a hoax was the obvious next step, and doing so as part of a coordinated campaign where trusted members of the Democratic Party who served in intelligence and the military warned ahead of time that this might happen was certainly very on the nose. First comes the warning, then the "I told you so."
Here is the post @realDonaldTrump was talking about.
— Jim Hanson (@JimHansonDC) December 2, 2025
The war crime hoax will not derail the winning strategy in the War on Drugs. https://t.co/ioH7e1G1nP pic.twitter.com/RVevfEIsW7
Now I don't want to suggest that there aren't "fine people" in both political parties, but that doesn't include hoaxers. (See what I did there?). Just as we spent years debating whether Trump's campaign communicating with Russian intelligence through a server attached to Alfa Bank was a threat to democracy, we are supposed to get spun up about another thing that never happened.
Step 1: plant questions in the minds of troops
— Dr Strangetweet or How I Learned to Love the RT (@lone_rides) December 1, 2025
Step 2: issue “just a reminder” statements
Step 3: threaten the troops
Step 4: blame the target
By now, the only interesting question for any rational person is why aThe ny living human being gives credit at all to media reports that so obviously undermine any Republican, especially one who has an obvious target on his back, like Donald Trump or Pete Hegseth. One doesn't have to believe that either man is a saint or any more incapable of committing dastardly deeds to understand that the people making the accusations are known liars who keep making allegations proven to be false.
It is the year 2025, almost 2026.
— Cynical Publius (@CynicalPublius) December 2, 2025
Our major American media is indistinguishable in terms of accuracy and impartiality from the Soviet Union's Pravda, circa 1970.
Fact.
It's like trusting Jussie Smollett when he claims another racist attack, or taking seriously the rantings of a schizophrenic who insists they are Albert Einstein.
Or believing that Candace Owens is being targeted by assassins sent by Emmanuel Macron. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, or 1000 times, shame on me. It's no different than Heaven's Gate members stick with the cult after all its predictions prove false.
Get your head examined if you believe a story like this from the Washington Post. And if you let them get you all spun up yet again based on a hoax, you should vow not to ever vote in an election again. You are too deranged.
Hey! Let's have a red flag law for voting! If you believe a Washington Post hoax, you are a danger to the Republic.
I've read all the back and forth from soldiers, JAGs, and political columnists whose expertise is selling absurd lies. I even read a conservative lawyer's ramblings about the Geneva Convention, which doesn't apply to illegal combatants. There were good arguments and bad ones, but few of them were on point regarding the most important issue: did what was claimed actually happen?
The answer appears to be "No." That should end the story, but it won't. The "fine people" hoax is still trotted out all the time. The "suckers and losers" hoax still gets trotted out.
Chris Van Hollen suggests Trump views National Guard troops as “suckers and losers” after regurgitating the hoax.
— Western Lensman (@WesternLensman) November 30, 2025
This is days after the DC shoot*ng.
Vile doesn’t begin to describe this. pic.twitter.com/MinoB4hSZT
The facts apparently don't matter in the least. As long as the Democrats can bait us into arguments about hypotheticals and total inventions out of whole cloth, they believe they are winning hearts and minds. They just keep repeating hoaxes as if they were true, and a good chunk of people are thrilled to see it, even knowing that they are choosing to believe con men.
Clearly, the lefty media isn't going to be limited by ethics, so the responsibility is on readers to doubt proven liars, regardless of whether they have a byline.
That doesn't mean everything you read is false, but it does mean everything is suspect. I have no doubt that public health officials often tell the truth. It turns out that washing your hands really IS a good idea! But since we know they are perfectly willing to lie, we shouldn't take everything they say seriously unless proven wrong. We should assume that anything they say may be false, and act accordingly.
Trotting out anonymous sources and endless "experts" shouldn't convince you of anything other than that you should be doubly suspicious. Could they be telling the truth? Perhaps.
Is it likely? Not in the least. At least not when the WaPo is trotting them out.
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