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Pete Hegseth caught in unlawful US aggression scandal far bigger than one strike

It’s pleasing to see US war secretary Pete Hegseth panicking on TV — and so he should. Hegseth is one of the most buffoonish characters yet produced by the US political system and the War on Terror. This slicked-back fool with far-right tattoos is currently doing all manner of gymnastics. Basically, his killing of survivors of an early ‘narco-terrorist’ strike in the Caribbean has backfired. Now he’s being accused of war crimes — and it’s got him in a blind panic.

For context, the US has been carrying out strikes on targets in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific since September. It claims it is fighting a ‘war’ against ‘narcoterrorists’. So far the US has killed over 80 people across 21 strikes. Legal experts (we’ll return to these shortly) and politicians, including Republicans, have cited the absence of evidence to support either the Trump narrative or the killings.

Now, another group of lawyers has said the Hegseth/Trump narrative on Venezuela is bullshit — my words, not theirs.

Pete Hegseth’s buck passing antics

A lot of US rhetoric focuses on Venezuelan cartels. We note, not for the first time, that Venezuela produces very little fentanyl or cocaine, though it is a transit point for drugs being moved. Not that that means the US can attack Venezuela, because drugs are a criminal — not war-fighting — matter.

Venezuela does have proven oil reserves bigger than those of Saudi Arabia. You can do the extremely complex equation on ‘why the US is interested’ at home. You could also factor in that Trump just pardoned a convicted large scale drug dealer (who is also, funnily enough, the former president of Honduras). Juan Orlando Hernández was serving a 45 year sentence for smuggling 400 tons of cocaine into the US. Until two days ago on 2 November 2025, that is. Such is Trump’s concern about drugs, he just let this guy go scot free.

The current Hegseth row focuses on one strike on 2 September, after the first hit on a ‘narco’ boat Hegseth reportedly ordered survivors clinging to the boat to be killed with a follow-up strike. He now denies this. He has since claimed that US special operations admiral Frank Bradley ordered the strike. Some are saying that under pressure and fearful of legal charges, Pete Hegseth has changed his story and trying to pass the buck to Bradley.

Here’s a funny video someone made about Hegseth’s antics:

What a dweeb. But it’s also worth noting that the operation in question was carried out by the Joint Special Operations Command, known as JSOC. JSOC is a CIA-Special Forces juggernaut which is impervious to scrutiny and accountability. We won’t get all the details of these missions. But we can absorb the legal opinion.

The bigger picture on Venezuela

A hyper-focus on the legality — or not — of one single Trump administration strike, risks missing the point. Legal experts point to the bigger issue at stake: that the entire US build-up is unlawful. There have also been suggestions that the strike was a ‘war crime’. But that’s problematic too. Experts say what has happened can’t be a war crime: because there isn’t a war. Calling the spate of killings ‘war crimes’ may be giving the operation a ‘warrior’ legitimacy which Trump and Hegseth crave.

Lawyers from the NGO Just Security have been very clear about the lawfulness of the strikes. But also the broader military build-up. Asked if strikes were justified, they were unequivocal:

No. The United States is not in an armed conflict with any cartel or criminal gang. That means the law of armed conflict (LOAC), also known as international humanitarian law (IHL), does not apply to the military operations that began on Sept. 2.

All the killings, they emphasised, have been “unlawful”:

Domestic criminal law and international human rights law both prohibit these kinds of lethal strikes outside of armed conflict — such killings are known as murder and extrajudicial killings, respectively. All 21 strikes against suspected drug trafficking boats, killing 83 people to date, have been unlawful.

Pete Hegseth killing shipwreck survivors

Just Security also cleared up the questions about whether it was lawful to kill people clinging to a bombed boat. In case that was confusing for anyone… it’s not.

They said:

Killing shipwrecked survivors is clearly illegal and as unlawful as targeting those individuals with lethal force in the first place. If the United States were in an armed conflict (it is not), it would be illegal to target shipwrecked survivors at sea.

They also pointed out the killings were not ‘war crimes’, because there is not war underway:

…war crimes are committed only during an armed conflict, and the United States was not (and is not today) in an armed conflict with the reportedly targeted group.

Killing the two shipwrecked survivors should be considered an extrajudicial killing under international human rights law, or murder under U.S. domestic law. An order to kill them would be unlawful whether in armed conflict or not.

The crime of aggression

It’s not exactly wrong to question the lawfulness of that one ‘double tap’ strike on 2 September. But it can lead to myopia. The big picture is about unlawful aggression against Venezuela. And that context is vital. Asked if the buildup of U.S. forces and threats to attack were lawful, Just Security said: “No”.

Now bear with me for some turgid Legalese:

Shows of force, such as exercises, are legal if designed to show resolve, as in the case of demonstrating a willingness to defend against an unlawful armed attack. But Article 2(4) of the UN Charter and customary law prohibit States from even threatening to use force unlawfully if the threats are communicated to the threatened State, coercive, and capable of being carried out.

Senior U.S. officials, including the President, have openly and coercively suggested the forces could be used against Venezuela, and the U.S. military is obviously capable of mounting a large-scale attack against that State.

Since the United States has no legal basis for using force against Venezuela or any drug cartels operating there (see above), the build-up with the accompanying threats is unlawful.

In short, the entire mission, which Hegseth has named Operation Southern Spear, centres on an unlawful act of aggression. Drugs may be bad, Maduro may be bad, narco-terrorists may be a real thing in some sense: but none of that gives the US a licence in law to threaten, cajole, airstrike or invade anywhere — ever.

I don’t expect to see Pete Hegseth in court soon.

We may never know the full details of Trump’s dirty war in the Caribbean. As US reporter Ken Klippenstein has pointed out this week, we are dealing with the unaccountable CIA/Special Forces killing machine built during the War on Terror. But we can know the lawfulness of the strikes and the build-up. So let’s get those right, shall we?

Featured image via the Canary

By Joe Glenton

This post was originally published on Canary.