War Crime Clouds Over the Pentagon: Retired Gen. Hertling Ignites Firestorm Over Hegseth’s “Kill Everybody” Directive
In a searing indictment that has reverberated through the halls of power and the echo chambers of social media, retired U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling has unleashed a torrent of criticism against Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, accusing him of presiding over a “moral drift” that risks transforming America’s military into an instrument of unchecked brutality. Hertling’s blistering op-ed in The Bulwark, titled “Pete Hegseth, Moral Failure, and the Erosion of Military Legitimacy,” paints a harrowing picture of a September 2 strike on a suspected drug-smuggling vessel in the Caribbean—one that allegedly devolved into a potential war crime under Hegseth’s direct orders. As bipartisan lawmakers demand investigations and former Fox News colleagues call for prosecutions, the scandal threatens to fracture the Trump administration’s aggressive counter-narcotics campaign and expose deep fissures in the U.S. command structure.
The incident in question unfolded amid the Trump administration’s escalated “Operation Tidal Surge,” a high-stakes initiative launched in August 2025 to dismantle transnational drug trafficking networks linked to Venezuelan cartels and designated terrorist organizations. According to a bombshell investigative report by The Washington Post on November 28, U.S. Navy SEAL Team 6, operating under Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), targeted a 40-foot go-fast boat approximately 120 nautical miles off Nicaragua’s eastern coast. Intelligence intercepts had flagged the vessel as carrying upwards of 1,200 kilograms of fentanyl precursors bound for U.S. shores, piloted by operatives affiliated with the Tren de Aragua syndicate—a group the State Department labels a foreign terrorist organization.
The initial strike, executed at dawn with precision-guided munitions from an MQ-9 Reaper drone followed by a low-altitude strafing run from F/A-18 Super Hornets off the USS Abraham Lincoln, crippled the boat in seconds. Flames engulfed the hull, and debris scattered across the swells. Drone footage, later reviewed by Pentagon analysts, captured a grim aftermath: two figures—believed to be the boat’s Venezuelan crew—clinging desperately to chunks of wreckage, their silhouettes bobbing in the oily surf. They were wounded, unarmed, and hors de combat, military parlance for combatants rendered incapable of resistance under the Geneva Conventions.
What happened next, sources with direct knowledge of the operation told The Post, defies the ethical bedrock of modern warfare. Adm. Frank M. “Mitch” Bradley, then-head of JSOC, relayed real-time visuals to a secure video teleconference in the Pentagon’s National Military Command Center. Navy officers on scene advocated restraint: the threat was neutralized, the survivors posed no risk, and a second attack could create navigational hazards or escalate diplomatic tensions with Nicaragua. But according to multiple accounts, Secretary Hegseth—participating remotely from his Mar-a-Lago briefing room—interjected with chilling clarity: “Kill everybody.” The order, described as a “double-tap” follow-up, triggered a secondary Hellfire missile launch that obliterated the remnants, leaving no survivors and scattering the evidence to the depths.
Hertling, a 34-year combat veteran who commanded U.S. forces in Iraq and later oversaw the Army’s Initial Military Training Command, frames this not as an isolated lapse but as the poisonous fruit of Hegseth’s long-brewing disdain for military jurisprudence. In his op-ed, Hertling invokes Hegseth’s own Iraq War anecdotes as cautionary tales turned toxic. As a platoon leader in the 101st Airborne Division in 2005, Hegseth attended a rules-of-engagement briefing he later derided as “excessively restrictive,” a view he amplified in his 2016 book American Crusade and countless Fox News segments. He also referenced the 2006 Tharthar Island scandal, where soldiers from his unit were convicted of murdering captured insurgents— a case that led to brigade-level reprimands for “toxic leadership.”
“Secretary Hegseth’s public statements over the past decade reflect a belief that military legal oversight constrains warfighters, that investigations burden troops, and that commanders should be freer—rather than more disciplined—in the use of force,” Hertling writes. “Hegseth appears to hold these views sincerely. But sincerity does not equal sound judgment. Nor does it excuse decisions that may place the force, and the nation, at moral risk.”thebulwark.com
This “moral drift,” as Hertling terms it, echoes the darkest chapters of America’s post-9/11 wars: the Abu Ghraib tortures of 2004, where U.S. guards degraded detainees in a frenzy of dehumanization, or the 2006 Mahmudiyah killings, where soldiers raped and murdered an Iraqi teenager and her family, prompting a cascade of command reliefs. Hertling, who integrated ethical training into basic soldier prep after those scandals, argues that ethical erosion is “cumulative,” fostered by leaders who prioritize loyalty over law. Under Hegseth, he contends, the Pentagon has sidelined Judge Advocate General (JAG) officers—firing Lt. Gen. Joseph B. Berger III in February 2025—and imposed loyalty oaths on commanders, chilling dissent and fostering a culture where “unlawful orders” go unchallenged.
The legal fallout has been swift and bipartisan. On December 1, the Former JAGs Working Group—a consortium of retired military lawyers—issued a scathing memo declaring the strikes “war crimes, murder, or both,” regardless of whether the operation qualifies as a non-international armed conflict. “Orders to ‘kill everybody,’ which can reasonably be regarded as an order to give ‘no quarter,’ and to ‘double-tap’ a target in order to kill survivors, are clearly illegal under international law,” the memo states, citing Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions, which prohibits attacks on incapacitated persons. If not a war, the killings constitute premeditated murder under U.S. Code Title 18, exposing everyone from Hegseth to the trigger-pullers to prosecution.militarytimes.com
Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) branded Hegseth a “war criminal” on X, demanding his immediate firing. Even Republicans, like Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), expressed unease, warning against scapegoating military figures like Adm. Bradley, whom Hegseth reportedly tried to pin blame on. Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), a combat veteran, told reporters the double-tap “seems to be a war crime,” vowing Senate Armed Services Committee scrutiny. House and Senate oversight hearings are slated for mid-December, with subpoenas looming for JSOC logs and Hegseth’s communications.politico.com
Hegseth’s defenders, a phalanx of MAGA influencers and administration mouthpieces, have mounted a fierce counteroffensive. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, in a rare briefing on November 30, insisted the strike was “self-defense to protect Americans and vital U.S. interests,” framing the victims as “narco-terrorists” whose deaths saved countless opioid victims. President Trump, golfing at Bedminster, dismissed the uproar as a “deep state hoax” orchestrated by “failing media,” vouching for Hegseth: “He did not say that, and I believe him, 100 percent.” Fox News’ Jesse Watters ridiculed the coverage as a “coke boat hoax,” while Hegseth himself blasted The Post report as “fabricated, inflammatory, and derogatory,” reiterating that the strikes are “lethal, kinetic actions” against designated threats.the-independent.com
Yet cracks are showing even on the right. Andrew Napolitano, Hegseth’s former Fox News colleague and Newsmax analyst, stunned viewers on December 2 by labeling the order “a textbook war crime.” “Ordering survivors who the law requires be rescued instead to be murdered—there’s absolutely no legal basis for it,” Napolitano thundered. “Everybody along the line… should be prosecuted.” On X, the semantic storm has been unrelenting: Occupy Democrats’ viral post summarizing Hertling’s piece garnered over 3,000 likes, igniting threads where veterans and conservatives alike decry the “barbaric psychopath” at the helm. One user, @ProudSocialist, clipped Hegseth’s October pep talk to generals—”You kill people and break things for a living”—captioning it: “US Secretary of War.”thehill.com
The broader implications ripple far beyond one boat in the Caribbean. Operation Tidal Surge has sunk or seized 22 vessels since August, claiming 47 “narco-terrorist” lives and disrupting an estimated $450 million in fentanyl flows. But critics, including Human Rights Watch, argue the campaign blurs law enforcement with warfare, risking civilian casualties and blowback from Latin American allies. Nicaragua has lodged a formal protest with the OAS, hinting at UN Security Council escalation. Domestically, the scandal revives the “Seditious Six” controversy—six Democrats, including Reps. Hakeem Jeffries and Adam Schiff, who in October warned troops against illegal orders. Trump allies branded them traitors; now, their foresight appears prophetic.
Hertling’s clarion call cuts to the core: “These are not partisan questions. They are constitutional ones.” He urges an “immediate, bipartisan investigation” into whether unlawful orders were issued, if service members faced coercion, and if reporting was suppressed. “Criminal liability must be considered for all individuals involved, regardless of civilian position or military rank,” he demands. The general caps his piece with a haunting refrain: “What we as a nation should not accept is moral drift at the top of the chain of command.
As the probes loom, the U.S. military—once the world’s gold standard for ethical warfare—stands at a precipice. Will accountability prevail, or will loyalty to a mercurial commander-in-chief erode the very values that make America exceptional? In Hertling’s words, a military that “trades the Constitution for personal loyalty ceases to be American.” The reckoning has only just begun.
