The administration navigates mounting concerns about the Caribbean strikes as lawmakers investigate who is truly responsible.
War crimes cover-up? Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is finding his way into trouble due to his handling of the legally suspect Caribbean boat strikes, which have killed over 80 people so far.
The reported on Friday that Hegseth gave verbal orders to kill everybody aboard a vessel believed to be carrying drugs off the coast of Trinidad back on September 2. At the time of the strike, there appeared to be two survivors clinging to the wreckage; the Special Operations commander overseeing the mission ordered another strike to kill the two men.
Now, lawmakers are trying to investigate those who made and carried out the orders; the Trump administration seems likely to scapegoat those below Hegseth, like Adm. Frank M. Bradley (the Special Ops commander). It also seems like legislators are not going to buy the Trump administration’s arguments on the legality of the boat strikes. The Justice Department says we are in a «non-international armed conflict» with cartel groups—deemed terrorist organizations—and that service members who carry out attacks are immune from prosecution, but it’s not clear that anyone is going to buy these far-fetched arguments.
The White House press secretary, who has been engaged in some Hegseth-culpability erasure (saying that Bradley «worked well within his authority and the law, directing the engagement to ensure the boat was destroyed»), is «throwing us, the service members, under the bus», one official told the Post. Another characterized it as «‘protect Pete’ bullshit.»
RFK Jr.’s vaccine committee meets: This week, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP)—assembled by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will meet and make recommendations for how the childhood immunization schedule might be changed. «Decisions by the group are not legally binding, but they have profound implications for whether private insurance and government assistance programs are required to cover the vaccines», reports The New York Times.
Many are apoplectic about this, but the actual suggested changes appear likely to be relatively minor this time around: The committee will likely consider changing the recommendations surrounding the Hepatitis B vaccine, which is administered to all infants right after birth. It’s unlikely that there will be a massive public health fallout from this: Hep B is rather rare (though serious), and there’s really no reason to be immunizing all infants. If mothers have failed to receive prenatal care, their Hep B status would be unknown, but otherwise all mothers are routinely tested during pregnancy. (And even if this vaccine has been around for a while and is widely regarded as safe, parents should not be pressured into giving their newborn children unnecessary vaccines.
