Hegseth ignored military officials when he slashed offices that limit risk to civilians

[pat_k]

Source: Politico

The Defense secretary's decision to cut offices that mitigate civilian harm faces renewed attention as the Pentagon investigates a strike that killed hundreds of Iranian children.

Top military officials warned the Pentagon unsuccessfully last year not to gut oversight offices that limit risk to civilian casualties and investigate responsibility for their deaths, such as the recent strike on an Iranian girls' school that killed hundreds of children.

Then-Central Command chief Erik Kurilla and Joint Chiefs Chair Gen. C.Q. Brown pushed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth not to slash the Civilian Protection Center of Excellence and other similar initiatives at American command posts, according to Wes Bryant, the Pentagon's former chief of civilian harm assessments and two other people familiar with the matter.

Opponents of the move, which also included Adm. Christopher Grady -- the former vice chair of the Joint Chiefs -- argued that the staff were critical to preventing risks to civilian populations before U.S. strikes and to probing deadly Pentagon attacks, according to the people, and would ultimately save resources for military operations. Hegseth instead chose to reduce the number of employees working on the issue from 200 to less than 40.

The high level of opposition to the cuts, which has not been previously reported, hints at the tension between top military officials and their civilian leader over the rules of engagement in combat, which the Pentagon chief has called "stupid." It also comes as preliminary reports suggest the U.S. may have accidentally targeted the elementary school, which killed more than 170 students and is the largest U.S.-led killing of civilians in decades.
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Read more: https://www.politico.com/news/2026/03/13/military-leaders-warned-hegseth-not-to-gut-offices-that-limit-risk-to-civilians-00827722

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Hegseth must be sent to the Hague to face justice. By dismantling 80% of the people and infrastructure responsible for preventing even a RISK of civilian casualties, he demonstrated a criminal disregard for civilian life. It seems to me that his declarations of "No stupid rules of engagement" and "'We will keep pressing, keep pushing, keep advancing - no quarter, no mercy for our enemy" are, by themselves, war crimes. And there is a straight-line connection between firing those responsible for protecting civilian life and the Shajareh Tayyebeh girls' elementary school atrocity

A declaration of "No quarter," has been defined as a war crime since, at least, 1863 in the Lieber Code during the Civil War:

"It is against the usage of modern war to resolve, in hatred and revenge, to give no quarter. No body of troops has the right to declare that it will not give, and therefore will not expect, quarter; but a commander is permitted to direct his troops to give no quarter, in great straits, when his own salvation makes it impossible to cumber himself with prisoners"

While the Lieber Code defined an exception, there were NO EXCEPTIONS to the prohibition against an order of "no quarter" in the 1899 Hague Regulations (Article 23) or under any modern international law. A 1907 revision to the convention strengthened the prohibition as follows: “it is especially forbidden … to declare that no quarter will be given”.

[groundloop]

1. Kegs Breath had a reason for gutting those positions.

He's a fucking criminal, just like his boss. I pray that this country survives long enough so that anyone who commits war crimes can be brought to justice.


Edit to add - What about the tRump-Epstein Files?

[underpants]

2. Are you sure? ARE YOU SURE???

This wasn’t the confusion of a firefight. This was a selected missile strike. Apparently they went with AI There were many other actual military targets just over the fence.

This is ridiculous and totally unnecessary & avoidable.

[pat_k]

5. Propagandists assertions that there is some doubt that the U.S. is responsible for this war crime are ridiculous indeed.

Those assertions are tragically laughable.

Even before proof of missile type, there was NO DOUBT that the U.S. struck the school.
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100221085421#post1

[Irish_Dem]

3. Killing civilians is part of Hegseth's manly fun.

Like trump, they get off on it.

[pat_k]

6. Beyond horrific. But you are probably right.

[Irish_Dem]

7. They are sadistic psychopaths.

It is a straightforward profile with predictable behavior.

[erronis]

4. I hope trump and hegsbreath understand what "no quarter" means when they are hauled in.

They'll be given "quarter" - in a well-secured barracks awaiting judgement.

[chowder66]

8. Traitor.

[yankee87]

9. Truth and Reconciliation

We need to do what South Africa and have a Nuremberg type of court.

[vapor2]

10. War crimes? No pass on this crap

[Initech]

11. These fuckers are sadistic and cruel.

And yet they keep peddling the fake Jesus megachurch bullshit. May they all answer to Satan.

[jfz9580m]

12. Does he think he is in a game world?

I increasingly wonder if kayfabe (a noxious concept I read about a few years ago on this creepy guy Freddie DeBoer’s atrocious substack.. I can’t really tell how it is different from WWE) has rotted these guys’ brains like that Mal woman in that awful movie Inception.

What is scary is the combination of genuinely not giving a shit plus the absence of the real safety that existed from the recognition that you simply cannot expect to escape consequences and would some day be tried for war crimes at this rate.

Constantly doubling down is suicidal madness, not just for everyone else but for them as well..
There is no safety for one’s own self in a world where the perception of the absence of consequences makes you double down and dig yourself in deeper and deeper.

How do they see it as a hippie, effete thing to fail to get the simple reality that war is hard to win and that is madness?

I get the not giving a shit about other people with these guys. I don’t get thinking that they can escape consequences.

The saner sleazy types know just how far to push something before retreating. David Sacks gets it ffs..and he is crazy.

They may be loathesome and awful, but they are less suicidally stupid. I think these guys should emulate less suicidally sleazy and less self defeatingly scammy types.

They will drop nukes at this rate and I am too close to it..Don’t drop nukes!

Can’t we all get along and be harmoniously sleazy and scammy, but non-suicidal? Let’s do that!
There is so much room to be sleazy, shady and scammy and other such tough, manly stuff without throwing nukes around.

I never expected to submit a paen to sleazy scamming, but times change. At this point Harry Harrison’s “Make Room! Make Room!” looks less scary. Accelerated races to the bottom. Do they take the mwt literally or something? Dear god..a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Isn’t there anyone left in there to sound an alarm?

That is all literal. No metaphors or games..

[pat_k]

15. I keep waiting for self-preservation to kick in among the trumpublicans...

...in the U.S. House and Senate....

And waiting...

And waiting ..

The only explanation is that they believe the felon will successfully turn elections into a 100% sham.

And it is up to the rest of us to stop them.

We MUST be better prepared to defend against the felon's / trumpublican's "whatever it takes to hold power" onslaught heading our way

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100221057403

[ShazzieB]

18. What does kayfabe mean outside of wrestling?

I googled, but all I got was how the term is used in pro wrestling, as a sort of synonym for fake. Try as I might, I can't figure out how that applies here.

[jfz9580m]

21. All politics being theatre

Just as pro-wrestling is fake, all politics is fake.

I think that is the idea. It is very cynical and almost self-loathing.

[IronLionZion]

13. Or it's deliberate and they use AI as the excuse

[Vinca]

14. Hegseth ignored military officials when (fill in the blank).

[maxsolomon]

16. The school building WAS part of the adjacent military base.

It was carved out and made into a school a decade ago.

That should have been known by US/Israel.

[pat_k]

17. Of course they should have known.

I think they DO have that intelligence, but the information was probably to be found in one of the operations shuttered, or the knowledge went out the door with some of those 160 or so people Hegseth sent packing.

[ShazzieB]

19. What does this mean?

From the article:

"...preliminary reports suggest the U.S. may have accidentally targeted the elementary school, which killed more than 170 students and is the largest U.S.-led killing of civilians in decades."

Does anyone else find the underlined wording to be confusing? To me "targeted" implies a deliberate act, not an accident. I know I can be too literal minded sometimes, but this is tripping me up. How can something be both targeted and an accident? If the school was targeted in error due to carelessness and sloppiness, wouldn't itbmake more sense to say it was "targeted by mistake"?

Sorty if I sound overly pedantic, but to me it makes a difference. This was a heinous act any way you slice it, but imo, knowingly choosing to hit an elementary school is even more heinous than carelessly getting it mixed up with another more "appropriate" location they meant to target. Considering how many other civilian "targets" have been hit (and how how deeply evil both Trump and Hegseth are), I wouldn't put it past them to do something like this on purpose. If so, they should not be allowed ro hide behind the claim that was just an "accident," imo.

I realize that we may not know which it was for a while yet, but I think using unclear wording like "accidentally targeted" muddies the waters.

[pat_k]

20. Clearly, they intentionally targeted the building.

And clearly it was the responsibility of U.S. forces to know what was in the building they were targeting.

By inserting "accidently," I think politico is attempting to extend the benefit of the doubt that those in charge of the operation knew it was an elementary school when they targeted the building.

The more accurate term for targeting a civilian target because they lacked the intelligence they had a responsibility to have would perhaps be "negligently targeted."