OUR PICKS: ILLEGAL ORDERSA Dishonorable Strike | Pete Hegseth Needs to Go—Now, and more

A Dishonorable Strike  (Jack Goldsmith, Executive Func)
Indulging all assumptions in favor of the administration’s boat strikes, killing helpless men is murder

A Sickening Moral Slum of an Administration  (George F. Will, Washington Post)
Regarding Venezuela, Ukraine and much more, Trump and his acolytes are worse than simply incompetent.
No operational necessity justified Hegseth’s de facto order to kill two survivors clinging to the wreckage of one of the supposed drug boats obliterated by U.S. forces near Venezuela.
The killing of the survivors by this moral slum of an administration should nauseate Americans. A nation incapable of shame is dangerous, not least to itself.

Unlawful Orders and Killing Shipwrecked Boat Strike Survivors: An Expert Backgrounder  (Michael Schmitt, Ryan Goodman, and Tess Bridgeman, Just Security)
An expert backgrounder on the reported Hegseth “no quarter” order to kill everyone aboard a suspected drug boat in the Caribbean on Sept. 2.

Killing Shipwrecked Survivors is Not Just Illegal—It Endangers U.S. Servicemembers  (Mark Nevitt, Just Security)
beyond the troubling legal issues associated with the strike, killing unarmed and vulnerable survivors is stunningly shortsighted. Killing survivors of a military strike is not just patently illegal and morally reprehensible; it is strategically reckless.
The United States, which has military forces deployed around the globe, cannot build a safer world for its own servicemembers by discarding basic laws of war. History shows that when America blatantly abandons humane norms and the law of war, it ultimately endangers its own people.
Compliance with international law—including the laws of war—is built, in many respects, on reciprocity. If the United States abandons these rules, it cannot expect its adversaries to follow them when Americans are the ones captured, isolated, shipwrecked, or shot down. And it’s not just reciprocity. Weakening the legitimacy of such fundamental rules also corrodes the underlying foundation of a system that serves U.S. servicemembers time and again. As the world’s most widely deployed maritime power, the United States relies on these protections more than any other nation. And what’s more, illegal orders create moral, reputational, and strategic harm long after the violations of law have ceased.

Pete Hegseth Needs to Go—Now  (Tom Nichols, The Atlantic)
A man with such contempt for the military should not run the Pentagon.