White House says admiral approved second deadly boat strike

The White House on Monday confirmed a second strike in September had killed wounded civilians after the first effort failed, and put responsibility largely on the naval commander leading the mission.

Spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said U.S. Special Operations Command head Adm. Frank Bradley was “within his authority and the law” in conducting the second strike on alleged drug traffickers in the Caribbean, after the force of the first strike tossed them from the boat.

Her comments appeared to try and defend Defense Secretary Pete Hegeseth, who came under fire over the weekend after The Washington Post reported that he authorized an elite military unit to kill everyone in the alleged drug boat. 

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/12/01/white-house-second-boat-strike-00671488

28 minutes ago, Alan Zweibel said:

White House says admiral approved second deadly boat strike

The White House on Monday confirmed a second strike in September had killed wounded civilians after the first effort failed, and put responsibility largely on the naval commander leading the mission.

Spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said U.S. Special Operations Command head Adm. Frank Bradley was “within his authority and the law” in conducting the second strike on alleged drug traffickers in the Caribbean, after the force of the first strike tossed them from the boat.

Her comments appeared to try and defend Defense Secretary Pete Hegeseth, who came under fire over the weekend after The Washington Post reported that he authorized an elite military unit to kill everyone in the alleged drug boat. 

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/12/01/white-house-second-boat-strike-00671488

Obviously a ploy to get Hegseth off the hook. Keep in mind that when news first broke about this, Hegseth didn't deny that he made the decision.

 "With indignation, but without trying to refute any of the factual claims in a Washington Post report about the strikes, Secretary Hegseth asserted, “As we’ve said from the beginning, and in every statement, these highly effective strikes are specifically intended to be ‘lethal, kinetic strikes.’” But the laws of armed conflict prohibit lethal, kinetic strikes against combatants who’ve been rendered hors de combat (i.e., out of the fighting); hence, it is not a defense to say, “But it was our intention all along to kill them.”

Not surprisingly, the White House figured out that this wasn’t going to fly, so we now have an actual defense."

https://archive.ph/H0Eco

The current claim is obviously suspect:

"Of course, if it is true that he didn’t give the order, how odd was it that Hegseth’s first two responsive posts over the weekend were exactly what you would expect from someone who did give such an order: first, the above unflinching declaration of intention to execute “lethal” strikes, and second, the cruder, “We have only just begun to kill narco-terrorists.”

https://archive.ph/H0Eco

Vocabulary words for this topic:

    Chain of command

    extrajudicial killing

    useful idiot

    

I heard a history teacher say that the difference between JFK and LBJ was that LBJ understood the advantage of having stupid people on his team.

In the coming years we'll continue to hear the names of these blackguards and clowns, the tribunals etc will run well into the 2030s.

 

But back to the WH, I think the boss is doing drugs (prescription, of course).  Sometimes he's just plain out of it, like the scene where the guy collapses in the Oval, he appears blissfully out of it.  Sedatives IMO.

Then he is stupidly giddy, like with Mamdani and MBS.  "Happy pills."

 

4 hours ago, Alan Zweibel said:

White House says admiral approved second deadly boat strike

The White House on Monday confirmed a second strike in September had killed wounded civilians after the first effort failed, and put responsibility largely on the naval commander leading the mission.

Spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said U.S. Special Operations Command head Adm. Frank Bradley was “within his authority and the law” in conducting the second strike on alleged drug traffickers in the Caribbean, after the force of the first strike tossed them from the boat.

Her comments appeared to try and defend Defense Secretary Pete Hegeseth, who came under fire over the weekend after The Washington Post reported that he authorized an elite military unit to kill everyone in the alleged drug boat. 

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/12/01/white-house-second-boat-strike-00671488

Holsey was smarter. He saw it coming and retired!