FUSA | INTERNATIONAL LAW & MILITARY ACCOUNTABILITY REPORT
The laws of armed conflict do not have a partisan affiliation. They do not care who won an election. And they have a very long memory.
By Elena M. Ostrowski
FUSA Senior Correspondent, International Law & Military Accountability
April 2, 2026
The factual incidents, legal citations, congressional records, and international organization findings documented in this article are verified through the Washington Post, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the Former JAGs Working Group, U.S. Senate records, ABC News, the New York Times, and cross-referenced through AI-assisted multi-source analysis. Assessments about potential future legal proceedings are analysis, not statements of guilt, and are clearly labeled as such throughout.
There is a version of American exceptionalism that Pete Hegseth appears to genuinely believe in. It goes something like this: the laws of war were written by other people, for other situations, and do not apply to American warriors who are doing necessary things. He has said as much in print, calling rules of engagement “stupid” and dismissing military lawyers, whom he called “jagoffs” in his 2024 memoir, as obstacles to victory. That worldview has now produced two documented incidents that legal experts, international human rights organizations, and members of Congress from both parties have described using the same word: war crimes.
The Caribbean boat strikes. In August 2025, the Trump administration deployed warships and military personnel to the Caribbean and eastern Pacific, claiming authority to bomb boats suspected of carrying narcotics. By February 23, 2026, at least 151 people had been killed across 44 strikes on 45 vessels. On September 2, 2025, in the first of those strikes, a boat carrying 11 people was hit by a US missile off the coast of Trinidad. Two people survived the initial explosion. According to reporting by the Washington Post, based on two people with direct knowledge of the operation, Hegseth gave a verbal order to “kill everybody,” prompting a second strike by SEAL Team 6 that killed the surviving two. Hegseth denied the characterization of his order and called the reporting fabricated. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt separately confirmed that Hegseth had authorized the strikes. One person briefed on the incident told The Intercept that Hegseth was “making murderers” up and down the chain of command.
The Former Judge Advocates General Working Group, composed of retired senior military legal advisers, stated publicly that if the Washington Post’s reporting was accurate, the killing of incapacitated survivors violated the Department of Defense’s own Law of War Manual, which explicitly prohibits attacks on persons rendered helpless by shipwreck. The New York Times later reported a separate accusation: that a US aircraft had been disguised as a civilian passenger plane to carry out one of the strikes, which international law experts identified as potential “perfidy,” a distinct war crime. The Guardian reported that governments and families of those killed in multiple strikes identified many of the dead as civilian fishers, not narco-traffickers. No public evidence to contradict those accounts was produced. Bipartisan Senate and House Armed Services Committee investigations were launched. The Republican controlled Senate rejected two separate resolutions that would have limited Trump’s authority to continue the operation.
The Minab school strike. On February 28, 2026, the first day of Operation Epic Fury, the US and Israeli military began a large-scale air campaign against Iran. At 10:45 in the morning local time, the Shajareh Tayyebeh Elementary School in the southern city of Minab was struck. The school sat approximately 600 meters from an adjacent Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps naval facility. Preliminary findings from the US military, reported by the New York Times on March 11, 2026, determined that the strike was the result of reliance on outdated targeting data. The IRGC had vacated the nearby compound years before, leaving only the school. The Pentagon confirmed the US was investigating whether American Tomahawk missiles caused the strike. Human Rights Watch analyzed satellite imagery and video evidence and concluded the attack was carried out with highly accurate guided munitions, deliberately aimed at specific structures. More than 170 people were killed, the majority of them girls between the ages of seven and fourteen.
Amnesty International called it a war crime and demanded accountability for those responsible for planning and executing the strike. Eight United Nations experts issued a joint statement calling for an independent investigation of the attack as a potential grave violation of international humanitarian law. Senator Chris Van Hollen and Senator Elizabeth Warren called jointly for Hegseth’s immediate firing. Senator Van Hollen’s letter to Hegseth noted directly that Hegseth had dismantled the Pentagon’s Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response program before the strikes began, fired senior military lawyers, and publicly stated that American forces would operate under “no stupid rules of engagement.” Legal scholars at Cardozo Law School and at Opinio Juris noted that Hegseth’s own documented statements about “maximum lethality over tepid legality” and his dismissal of rules designed to prevent civilian harm could be used against him in any future prosecution, as evidence that changes in targeting policy were his direct responsibility.
Additional documented accusations. Hegseth censured Senator Mark Kelly, a former astronaut and Navy combat veteran, and moved to reduce his military retirement grade and pension after Kelly appeared in a video advising military personnel to refuse clearly illegal orders. Kelly filed a federal lawsuit against Hegseth in January 2026, alleging violations of his First Amendment rights. Hegseth came to Trump’s attention as a Fox News host who led a years-long public campaign to pardon three US service members who had been convicted or charged with murdering civilians in Afghanistan, including a case in which the service member’s own subordinates had testified against him. His book questioned whether the Geneva Conventions remained relevant to modern warfare. He repeatedly championed a “warrior ethos” that, he argued, should override legal constraints on the use of lethal force.
The Hague question. It is important to be precise here because precision matters in law. The United States is not a member of the International Criminal Court and has historically maintained that the ICC holds no jurisdiction over American citizens. That legal position is real. What is also real is that the United States War Crimes Act of 1996 allows prosecution of US nationals for violations of the laws of war in American courts. The Uniform Code of Military Justice contains its own provisions for prosecuting war crimes committed by American service members and, critically, by civilian officials who give orders that violate the laws of armed conflict. Should the political environment in Washington change after future elections, the legal record now being built by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, the Former JAGs Working Group, and members of Congress does not disappear. Prosecutors, whether domestic or international, work from evidence. The evidence being assembled is extensive, documented, and not going away. Whether it ultimately leads to a courtroom is a prediction. That it exists is a fact.
References
1. Washington Post, “Hegseth order on first Caribbean boat strike: Kill them all,” November 28, 2025.
2. The Intercept, “Entire Chain of Command Could Be Held Liable for Killing Boat Strike Survivors,” December 2, 2025.
3. Former JAGs Working Group, public statement condemning Caribbean boat survivor killings, December 2025.
4. Wikipedia, “2025 United States military strikes on alleged drug traffickers,” cross-referenced against DoD, congressional records.
5. New York Times, disguised civilian aircraft used in Caribbean strike (perfidy accusation), January 2026.
6. Human Rights Watch, “US/Israel: Investigate Iran School Attack as a War Crime,” March 7, 2026.
7. Amnesty International, “Those Responsible for Deadly and Unlawful US Strike on School Must Be Held Accountable,” March 2026.
8. Amnesty International USA, full report on Minab school strike, March 2026.
9. US Senator Chris Van Hollen, letter to Secretary Hegseth on Minab bombing, March 11, 2026.
10. New York Times, Pentagon preliminary findings: US strike likely responsible for Minab school, March 11, 2026.
11. Common Dreams, “Pete Hegseth Needs to Be Fired Immediately,” citing Senators Van Hollen and Warren, March 12, 2026.
12. Al Jazeera, “US responsible for deadly attack on Iranian school,” citing Amnesty International, March 16, 2026.
13. Opinio Juris, “The Iranian School Strike: Excusable? A Violation? A War Crime?” March 30, 2026.
14. New Republic, lawsuit filed by Senator Mark Kelly against Hegseth, January 2026.
15. Common Dreams, House Democrats demand DOJ probe into Hegseth Caribbean orders, December 24, 2025.
16. US War Crimes Act of 1996, 18 U.S.C. Section 2441.