Thursday, December 04, 2025
The story behind ‘The Scourged Back’ photograph
The story behind ‘The Scourged Back’ photograph
By Christopher Wills
We recently posted on social media about a famous and horrifying Civil War photo known as “The Scourged Back.” It generated some questions and discussion, so we thought we would share more about the photo and its complex history.
As you can see, the photo shows an African American man with his face in profile and his back toward the camera. His back is a mass of crisscrossing scars from his shoulder blades down. The photo – in the form of small, inexpensive prints known as “cartes de visite” – began circulating in northern cities in the spring of 1863, shocking people and fueling support for the Civil War as a campaign against slavery. Abolitionist groups understood the power of the photo and helped circulate it far and wide.
The photograph got a huge boost in visibility when Harper’s Weekly featured it in the July 4th issue. Harper’s ran an engraving of the picture alongside two others in an article entitled “A Typical Negro,” which purported to tell the story of Gordon, a man who escaped slavery in Mississippi and eventually served in the U.S. Army. The Harper’s version stuck and the man in the photo was generally identified as “Gordon” for the next 150 years.
But was his name really Gordon? Did he serve in the Army? Where had he been enslaved?
Professor David Silkenat has sifted through the facts and myths to clarify what we know about “Gordon” – whose real name was Peter. You can read his paper here.
To summarize, the first version of the photo (there were three in all) was likely taken April 2, 1863, in Baton Rouge, La. Inscriptions on two copies of the photo give that date, as does a later newspaper article. One inscription gives the man’s name as Peter and gives a brief account of his story. Peter said he had escaped from a forced-labor camp owned by John Lyon near Washington, La. He said he had spent two months in bed recovering from the beating that gave him the shocking scars. Peter said he did not remember the beating itself or what led to it but that he was told he had gone crazy, burned his clothes and “tried to shoot everybody,” including his wife. “They said so, I did not know,” he said, adding “I did not harm anyone.”
Peter’s story on the back of a “Scourged Back” photo owned by the National Archives.
The other inscription, written by a military surgeon named J.W. Mercer, does not include a name but notes, “I have found a large number of the four hundred contrabands examined by me to be as badly lacerated as the specimen [r]epresented in the enclosed photograph.” (“Contraband” was the term for enslaved people who had escaped to U.S. Army lines or been liberated by U.S. soldiers. They were considered contraband of war, like any other property.)
Former slaves known as "contraband." These men worked as teamsters for the U.S. Army. (Library of Congress)
The picture’s popularity inspired Northern slavery sympathizers to respond. Some said the whipped man no doubt deserved the beating. Others argued that even worse offenses had been committed against supporters of the Confederacy, including women.
In defense of the “Scourged Back” photo, the New York Tribune printed a letter in December 1863 that offered a longer version of the “poor Peter” story. The letter writer, identified only as “Bostonian,” said four enslaved men had escaped on March 24 from John Lyons and Louis Fabyan of Clinton, La. They were pursued by search parties and “savage packs of hounds,” who killed one of the escaped men. The other three managed to reach Army lines in Baton Rouge, where they were interviewed. Two of them – Peter and a man named Gordon – were also photographed. “Bostonian” wrote that he had brought the photos of Peter and Gordon from Louisiana to New York himself.
Part of the “Bostonian” account of Peter’s beating and escape.
The Army Provost Marshal’s office in Baton Rouge, where Peter probably was interviewed. (Courtesy of Louisiana Digital Library)
Professor Silkenat believes Harper’s Weekly combined Peter and Gordon into a single composite character and added a third picture of an unconnected person. Then the paper concocted the story of this fictional “Gordon” serving in the Army. The weekly and its audience may not have taken the story as the literal truth, seeing it more as an idealized anecdote of triumph over the brutality of slavery. Whatever the goal, the story obscured the facts. “Although the image may have played a powerful role in persuading the Northern public about the merits of emancipation and the enlistment of black soldiers, it did so at the expense of the individual experiences of the real Gordon and Peter,” Silkenat writes.
The photo of Peter’s back is not the only one to document the cruelty of slavery or to be used by abolitionist groups. Another example is a photograph of Wilson Chinn, shown wearing a punishment collar, that revealed the initials of his enslaver, Volsey B. Marmillion, burned into his forehead.
Wilson Chinn (courtesy of National Gallery of Art)
The “Scourged Back” photograph, despite its murky origins, captured the physical horrors of slavery in a way few others have. It strengthened the resolve of slavery’s opponents during the Civil War and stands today as a powerful reminder of one of America’s darkest times. The ALPLM uses the photo as part of an exhibit on the human toll of slavery and how that influenced Abraham Lincoln.
Here are some other sources for information about the photo, although some still use the name Gordon:
- https://www.history.com/articles/whipped-peter-slavery-photo-scourged-back-real-story-civil-war
- https://scholarlyediting.org/2013/editions/nas.18630926.4b.html
- https://nmaahc.si.edu/object/nmaahc_2011.155.54
- https://www.nola.com/entertainment_life/for-first-hand-history-of-civil-war-era-look-back-through-lens-of-new-orleans/article_350057a5-092d-5391-88ca-26dce2fc4a89.amp.html
- https://web.archive.org/web/20130519235102/http:/www.civilwar.org/education/history/bound-for-freedoms-light/bound-for-freedoms-light.html
Wills is communications director at the ALPLM.
The Furor Over Trump’s Boat Attacks and a Particular Follow-Up Strike, Explained
The Furor Over Trump’s Boat Attacks and a Particular Follow-Up Strike, Explained
“The House and Senate Armed Services Committees are investigating a September 2 attack on a speedboat in the Caribbean Sea, ordered by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. The attack, part of President Trump’s lethal campaign against suspected drug smugglers, killed 11 people, including a follow-up strike on two survivors. Legal experts argue the killings were unlawful, as the U.S. is not in an armed conflict with drug cartels, and the survivors were not “shipwrecked” as defined by the Pentagon’s law of war manual.
Bipartisan congressional oversight is underway, but for now is focusing on narrow details about one missile instead of broader legal issues.
The House and Senate Armed Services Committees are scrutinizing a Sept. 2 attack by the U.S. military on a speedboat in the Caribbean Sea that the Trump administration has claimed was smuggling drugs — and especially whether a decision to fire a second missile at the vessel, which killed two survivors of the first blast, was a war crime.
The oversight effort is dissecting the specific orders of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and the Special Operations commander overseeing the attack, Adm. Frank M. Bradley. The admiral and Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, are scheduled to go to Capitol Hill on Thursday to answer questions about the strike.
A broad range of legal experts argue that the killings have been murders.
The Trump administration insists that its lethal campaign, including the second strike on Sept. 2, is lawful.
Here is a closer look.
What is the boat attacks operation?
President Trump has ordered the military to kill people on boats in international waters who are suspected of smuggling narcotics on behalf of drug cartels. Since Sept. 2, the administration has announced 21 such attacks in the Caribbean Sea and the eastern Pacific Ocean that have killed 83 people.
This is a change from the longstanding U.S. approach of having the Coast Guard intercept such vessels and, if suspicions prove accurate, seize illicit cargos and arrest the people on board. The legality of the new policy has been widely disputed.
What is the legal dispute?
The Trump administration says the operation is lawful because Mr. Trump “determined” that the United States is in a formal armed conflict with drug cartels, even though Congress has not authorized one, and that people suspected of running drugs are “combatants.”
A Justice Department memo endorses Mr. Trump’s claims and, relying on the premise that this is an armed conflict, says the suspected drug cargos aboard the boats are lawful targets.
Legal experts have rejected the idea that there is any armed conflict with drug cartels. The military is not permitted to target civilians who do not pose an imminent threat of violence, even if they are suspected of committing crimes.
Why is the Sept. 2 attack now in focus?
Basic facts about the Sept. 2 attack — including that the boat had turned back before the attack — were reported that month.
But since then, the administration has announced its disputed theory that the United States is in an armed conflict with cartels, and a group of Democratic lawmakers recorded a video telling members of the armed service that they could refuse illegal orders, prompting a furious White House response.
Against that backdrop, on Nov. 28, The Washington Post published a more detailed account of the Sept. 2 attack. It said Admiral Bradley had ordered the second strike to fulfill a spoken directive from Mr. Hegseth to kill everyone, prompting bipartisan questions about war crimes. The administration has denied certain aspects and implications of that account.
What makes the follow-up strike different?
Even if one accepts Mr. Trump’s claim that the United States is in an armed conflict and the boat attacks are generally lawful, the Sept. 2 follow-up strike might still be a war crime. The Pentagon’s law of war manual says that “orders to fire upon the shipwrecked would be clearly illegal.”
And while the administration has defended the entire attack, which killed 11 people in all, Mr. Trump has distanced himself from the second strike. He told reporters on Nov. 30 that he thought the first strike was fine but that he “wouldn’t have wanted that, not a second strike.”
What seems clear?
It appears to not be in dispute that Mr. Hegseth was the “target engagement authority” who signed an execute order telling Special Operations forces to sink boats, destroy their suspected cargo and kill their crews. It also appears clear that he gave the go-ahead order to Admiral Bradley for the Sept. 2 attack.
Admiral Bradley was the commander in control of the mission, which was carried out by SEAL Team 6 operators. He gave them an order to strike the boat. After the smoke cleared, surveillance video showed the disabled vessel was still afloat and two people were still alive. He ordered follow-up strikes that killed them and sank the vessel.
Were the initial survivors ‘shipwrecked’?
Their boat was wrecked, but there is a complication.
The Pentagon’s law of war manual says that “to be considered ‘shipwrecked,’ persons must be in need of assistance and care, and they must refrain from any hostile act.” A naval commander handbook says combatants “qualify as shipwrecked persons only if they have ceased all active combat activity.”
Two U.S. officials have said the military intercepted radio communications from the survivors to suspected cartel members, raising the possibility that any drugs on the boat that had not burned up in the first blast could have been retrieved. The military, they said, interpreted the purported distress call as meaning the survivors were still “in the fight” and so were not shipwrecked.
What did Mr. Hegseth order?
Mr. Hegseth has denied that he ordered the killing of the two survivors, and officials have told The New York Times that he gave his orders before the attack commenced and did not communicate further ones to Admiral Bradley when there turned out to be survivors.
The officials said that Mr. Hegseth’s execute order was explicit that the mission was a lethal one, but that it did not address what should happen if the first strike did not kill everybody.
They also said he did not give a spoken directive, in a meeting with Admiral Bradley about the order, that went beyond its written terms. It is not clear whether they spoke outside of that meeting.
However, the officials also said Mr. Hegseth had reviewed and approved contingency plans the military had developed that included scenarios in which there were survivors. They described those plans as saying the military would attempt to rescue survivors who appeared shipwrecked and out of the fight, but would try again to kill the survivors if they committed hostile acts.
What are the limits of this analysis?
The laws of war were written for fighting between organized armies and armed combatants trying to kill each other.
The rules do not fit attacks on small, unarmed boats suspected of smuggling cocaine, or address what counts as being in or out of “the fight,” when the crews on the boats were not actually fighting anyone in the first place.
“Focusing on the shipwrecked is a distraction insofar as it suggests everything else preceding and after that strike was all legitimate,” said Ryan Goodman, a New York University law professor and former Pentagon lawyer. “Even under a law of armed conflict, they were all civilians, and we are not actually in armed conflict. Either way, it was all murder.”
Julian E. Barnes contributed reporting.
Charlie Savage writes about national security and legal policy for The Times.”
New York Times Sues Pentagon Over First Amendment Rights
New York Times Sues Pentagon Over First Amendment Rights
“The New York Times sued the Pentagon, alleging that new press restrictions violate the First Amendment. The lawsuit claims the restrictions, effective October, limit journalists’ ability to gather information and ask questions, potentially punishing reporting of information not approved by the Pentagon. The suit seeks to halt enforcement of the rules and declares them unlawful.
The lawsuit said the Defense Department’s new set of rules for journalists “violates the Constitution’s guarantees of due process, freedom of speech and freedom of the press.”
The New York Times accused the Pentagon in a lawsuit on Thursday of infringing on the constitutional rights of journalists by imposing a set of new restrictions on reporting about the military.
In the suit, filed in the U.S. District Court in Washington, The Times argued that the Defense Department’s new policy violated the First Amendment and “seeks to restrict journalists’ ability to do what journalists have always done — ask questions of government employees and gather information to report stories that take the public beyond official pronouncements.”
The rules, which went into effect in October, are a stark departure from the previous ones, in both length and scope. They require reporters to sign a 21-page form that sets restrictions on journalistic activities, including requests for story tips and inquiries to Pentagon sources. Reporters who don’t comply could lose their press passes, and the Pentagon has accorded itself “unbridled discretion” to enforce the policy as it sees fit, according to the lawsuit.
The suit said that “reporting any information not approved by department officials” could lead to punishment, “regardless of whether such news gathering occurs on or off Pentagon grounds, and regardless of whether the information at issue is classified or unclassified.”
The complaint sought a court order halting enforcement of the rules and a declaration that the provisions “targeting the exercise of First Amendment rights” were unlawful. The Times has retained Theodore J. Boutrous, a First Amendment lawyer who has argued major media access cases in federal court. Julian Barnes, a Pentagon reporter for The Times, is listed as a plaintiff alongside the company.
The Pentagon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The new rules are the latest step in a monthslong effort by Pete Hegseth, the defense secretary, to curtail the access and privileges of the Pentagon press corps.
Mr. Hegseth arrived at the Pentagon in January after a bruising confirmation process that surfaced allegations of excessive drinking and sexual assault, which he said were untrue. Early in his tenure, Mr. Hegseth proposed evicting from the Pentagon a veteran reporter at NBC News who had contributed to some of the coverage.
The department later stripped several national news outlets of their workspaces in the Pentagon, offering them mostly to conservative outlets. Mr. Hegseth has also added limits on where reporters can roam in the complex.
A draft of the new restrictions first emerged in September, and was revised after pushback from lawyers representing news organizations. The final rules were released on Oct. 6, and more than a week later, dozens of credentialed journalists — including six from The Times — surrendered their badges instead of signing the document. The departing outlets have continued reporting on the military despite the access limits.
Many major news organizations released statements in October condemning the Pentagon policy as an incursion on the First Amendment. “The policy is without precedent and threatens core journalistic protections,” said a statement from ABC News, CBS News, CNN, Fox News Media and NBC News.
In a press briefing on Wednesday, a senior Times lawyer said that there had been discussions with other news organizations about joining the suit but that the newspaper had decided to proceed alone.
The suit took issue with multiple provisions of the new policy, including one that empowered the Pentagon to deem a journalist “a security or safety risk.” Such a determination could hinge on whether the journalist engaged in unauthorized disclosure of classified information or certain unclassified information, among other considerations.
The policy’s wording on “solicitation” has been a particular worry of media lawyers. It asserts that the First Amendment does not protect reporters when they “solicit government employees to violate the law by providing confidential government information” and could apply to “calls for tips” that encourage Defense Department employees to share “nonpublic” agency information.
Providing channels for sources to send information, the suit said, was a “routine” practice for journalists.
Legal clashes between journalists and the government over access to federal buildings have arisen repeatedly across President Trump’s two terms.
During his first administration, the White House pulled the press passes of two White House correspondents. The journalists regained those passes after litigation. This year, The Associated Press sued the government after being excluded from White House press pool events in cramped spaces such as the Oval Office; litigation challenging that move is ongoing.
In each of those cases, the government targeted one journalist or outlet for punishment. The Pentagon restrictions, on the other hand, seek to bind an entire press corps. And those restrictions, the suit argued, would suppress the work of news organizations “with perceived viewpoints the department disfavors.”
After the departure of the legacy press corps, the Pentagon announced that a new group of outlets had agreed to the restrictions and would work from the press space in the building. The new arrivals feature an array of pro-Trump outlets that have echoed administration talking points and show little inclination to investigate its actions.“
Wednesday, December 03, 2025
Judge blocks widespread immigration arrests in DC made without warrants or probable cause | US immigration | The Guardian
Trump says he does not want Somalis in US as ICE plans Minnesota operation
US President Donald Trump has said he does not want Somali immigrants in the US, telling reporters they should "go back to where they came from" and "their country is no good for a reason".
"I don't want them in our country, I'll be honest with you," he said during a cabinet meeting on Tuesday. Trump said the US would "go the wrong way if we keep taking in garbage into our country".
His disparaging comments came as immigration authorities were reported to be planning an enforcement operation in Minnesota's large Somali community.
In response, the prime minister of Somalia said he would not give Trump's comments importance and suggested they should be ignored.
Officials in Minnesota have condemned the reported plan for an immigration enforcement operation, arguing it could unfairly sweep up American citizens who may appear to be from the East African nation.
Minneapolis and St Paul, which together are known as the Twin Cities, are home to one of the largest Somali communities in the world and the largest in the US.
The reported plan, and Trump's comments, represent an intensification of the president's recent attacks on Minnesota's Somali community, whose decades-long protected status in the US he recently pledged to revoke, and its Democratic politicians.
Trump has also recently expanded his months-long immigration crackdown in the wake of last week's shooting of two National Guard members in Washington DC, which was allegedly perpetrated by an Afghan who moved to the US. Trump did not refer to that incident while speaking about Somalis.
During his remarks, which came at the end of an hours-long televised cabinet meeting, Trump said: "I don't want them in our country. I'll be honest with you, OK.
"Somebody will say, 'Oh, that's not politically correct.' I don't care. I don't want them in our country."
He also said: "With Somalia, which is barely a country, you know, they have no, they have no anything. They just run around killing each other. There's no structure."
He then turned to criticising Representative Ilhan Omar, a Democrat and the first Somali-American to be elected to Congress with whom he has clashed repeatedly for a number of years.
"I always watch her," Trump said, adding that Omar "hates everybody. And I think she's an incompetent person".
"His obsession with me is creepy," Omar responded in a social media post. "I hope he gets the help he desperately needs."
ReutersUS Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has been directed by the Trump administration to target undocumented Somali immigrants in the Twin Cities, a person familiar with the planning told the BBC's US partner CBS News on Tuesday.
Hundreds of people are expected to be targeted when the operation begins this week, the official said. The New York Times first reported the operation.
A spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, declined to comment on planned operations and denied that any people would be targeted based on race.
"Every day, ICE enforces the laws of the nation across the country," said Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin.
"What makes someone a target of ICE is not their race or ethnicity, but the fact that they are in the country illegally," she said.
In a news conference, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said that an operation by ICE "means due process will be violated".
According to local leaders, there are about 80,000 people living there who are originally from Somalia, and the vast majority are American citizens.
Last month, Trump said he planned to end the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) - a programme for immigrants from countries in crisis - for Somali residents living in Minnesota. A few hundred immigrants would be affected by that order.
TPS for Somalis has existed since 1991, resulting from conflict in the nation.
Earlier this week, Trump's Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem suggested her agency would target visa fraud in Minnesota.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced an investigation into allegations that tax dollars from the state may have been diverted to the al-Shabab Islamist militant group in Somalia, which is part of al-Qaeda. The probe follows unverified media reports in the US, which have been denied by the militants.
Somalia is one of the poorest nations in the world, and many of the migrants who moved to the US left in the 1990s during the country's decades-long civil war.
Asked by a reporter about Trump's comments, Somali Prime Minister Hamza Abdi Barre said he not personally heard them but had been briefed about them. He pointed out that Trump had not only spoken about Somalia, but had made similar remarks about other African countries, notably Nigeria and South Africa.
The prime minister said his government preferred not to elevate the issue.
"There are things you pass with 'Salaaman'," he added, using a Qur'anic expression meaning responding to offence with peace rather than confrontation.
"Making an issue out of it and giving it importance is more harmful than simply moving on," he said.
Meanwhile, local leaders in Minnesota have directly condemned the Trump administration's reported plan for an ICE operation.
Minnesota state Senator Zaynab Mohamed said on X that "when ICE agents interact with Somalis here, they will find what we've been saying for years: Almost all of us are US citizens".
Democratic Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, who was Kamala Harris's running mate in the 2024 presidential election and who has been sparring with the president in recent days, said: "We welcome support in investigating and prosecuting crime. But pulling a PR stunt and indiscriminately targeting immigrants is not a real solution to a problem."
The recent broadening of Trump's immigration crackdown comes after National Guard member Sarah Beckstrom, 20, was killed in last week's shooting in Washington DC, and Andrew Wolfe, 24, was seriously injured.
Officials said the suspect entered the US in 2021 as part of a programme for Afghans who worked with US troops during their 20 years in Afghanistan, and who were considered to be at risk of reprisals after the US withdrew.
On Tuesday, Noem said she would recommend a travel ban on several countries which she claimed were "flooding" the US with criminal activity.
Earlier, all US decisions on asylum requests were halted, and a review was announced into green cards that were issued to individuals who migrated to the US from a number of countries. Trump has also threatened to "permanently pause migration" from what he calls "third world countries".
Additional reporting by Abdinasir Ali
Judge blocks widespread immigration arrests in DC made without warrants or probable cause | US immigration | The Guardian
Judge blocks widespread immigration arrests in DC made without warrants or probable cause
"Injunction was sought by civil liberties groups in lawsuit against Department of Homeland Security
A federal judge late on Tuesday blocked the Trump administration from making widespread immigration arrests in the nation’s capital without warrants or probable cause that the person would be an imminent flight risk.
The US district judge Beryl Howell in Washington granted a preliminary injunction sought by civil liberties and immigrant rights groups in a lawsuit against the US Department of Homeland Security.
Officers making civil immigration arrests generally have to have an administrative warrant. Under the Immigration and Nationality Act, they may make arrests without a warrant only if they have probable cause to believe the person is in the US illegally and is likely to escape before a warrant can be obtained, according to Howell’s ruling.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and other plaintiffs’ attorneys argued that federal officers were frequently patrolling and setting up checkpoints in Washington DCneighborhoods with large numbers of Latino immigrants and then stopping and arresting people indiscriminately.
They provided sworn declarations from people they say were arrested without warrants or a required assessment of flight risk and cited public statements by administration officials that they said showed the administration was not using the probable cause standard.
Attorneys for the administration denied it had a policy allowing such arrests.
Howell, who was nominated to the bench by Barack Obama, a Democrat, said the plaintiffs had “established a substantial likelihood of an unlawful policy and practice by defendants of conducting warrantless civil immigration arrests without probable cause”.
“Defendants’ systemic failure to apply the probable cause standard, including the failure to consider escape risk, directly violates” immigration law and the Department of Homeland Security’s implementing regulations, she said.
In addition to blocking the policy, Howell ordered any agent who conducts a warrantless civil immigration arrest in Washington to document “the specific, particularized facts that supported the agent’s pre-arrest probable cause to believe that the person is likely to escape before a warrant can be obtained”.
The judge also required the government to submit that documentation to plaintiffs’ attorneys.
The ruling is similar to two others in federal lawsuits that also involved the ACLU, one in Colorado and another in California.
Another judge had issued a restraining order barring federal agents from stopping people based solely on their race, language, job or location in the Los Angeles area after finding that they were conducting indiscriminate stops, but the supreme court lifted that order in September."
Hegseth Says He Did Not See Survivors of Boat Attack Clinging to Wreckage
Hegseth Says He Did Not See Survivors of Boat Attack Clinging to Wreckage
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth stated he did not observe survivors clinging to wreckage during U.S. military strikes in the Caribbean on September 2nd. He supported Admiral Frank M. Bradley’s decision to order a second strike, eliminating the threat. Lawmakers are questioning the legality of the strikes, while President Trump praised the decision and suggested expanding strikes to land targets.
The defense secretary supported the admiral he said called for the second strike on Sept. 2 against a boat the administration says was smuggling drugs.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on Tuesday that he had not noticed survivors in the water during U.S. military strikes that killed 11 people in the Caribbean in September.
His remarks, at a cabinet meeting at the White House in which he cited the “fog of war,” were the latest from Trump administration officials meant to address questions about whether the U.S. military committed a war crime when it launched a second strike on a boat on Sept. 2, killing two survivors of the initial attack who were clinging to the burning wreckage.
Mr. Hegseth had said that he watched the operation live on video before he “moved on” to his next meeting. But following news reports about the second U.S. strike, Mr. Hegseth said he “didn’t stick around” to see it.
The defense secretary said Adm. Frank M. Bradley, the commander of the operation, “made the right call,” in ordering the second strike.
“He sunk the boat, sunk the boat and eliminated the threat, and it was the right call,” Mr. Hegseth said.
The United States has killed scores of people on vessels it accuses of attempting to smuggle drugs into the country, starting with the Sept. 2 strikes, in a legally disputed campaign of killing suspected smugglers at sea as if they were combatants in a war.
But now, lawmakers in both parties are demanding answers about Mr. Hegseth’s take-no-prisoners, leave-no-survivors approach.
Mr. Hegseth continues to maintain that the Sept. 2 strikes were carried out as they should have been. But on Sunday, Mr. Trump suggested otherwise.
Asked about the second strike on the survivors who were clinging to the burning wreckage, Mr. Trump said: “I wouldn’t have wanted that. Not a second strike.”
On Tuesday, Mr. Trump stood by Mr. Hegseth and praised Admiral Bradley.
He went on to say his administration would “start doing strikes on land, too.” He said the strikes may not be limited to Venezuela. Anyone manufacturing drugs or “selling it into our country” is subject to attack, Mr. Trump said.
Helene Cooper is a Pentagon correspondent for The Times. She was previously an editor, diplomatic correspondent and White House correspondent.“
Tuesday, December 02, 2025
Pete Hegseth told US soldiers in Iraq to ignore legal advice on rules of engagement | Pete Hegseth | The Guardian
Pete Hegseth told US soldiers in Iraq to ignore legal advice on rules of engagement
"Defense secretary shares anecdote in The War on Warriors and rails against ‘rules and regulations’ governing war
Pete Hegseth, the US defense secretary, told soldiers under his command in Iraq to ignore legal advice about when they were permitted to kill enemy combatants under their rules of engagement.
The anecdote is contained in a book Hegseth wrote last year in which he also repeatedly railed against the constraints placed on “American warfighters” by the laws of war and the Geneva conventions.
Hegseth is currently under scrutiny for a 2 September attack on a boat purportedly carrying drugs in the Caribbean, where survivors of a first strike on the vessel were reportedly killed in a second strike following a verbal order from Hegseth to “kill everybody”.
Hegseth has denied giving the order and retained the support of Donald Trump. The US president said Hegseth told him “he did not say that, and I believe him, 100%”. But some US senators have raised the possibility that the US war secretary committed a war crime.
In the book, The War on Warriors, Hegseth relates a story about a legal briefing at the beginning of his service in Iraq, in which he told the men under his command to ignore guidance from a military judge advocate general’s (JAG) attorney’s guidance about the rules of engagement in the conflict.
Hegseth writes that “upon arrival in Iraq”, the men were briefed “regarding the latest ‘in theater’ rules of engagement”, adding: “Needless to say, no infantrymen like army lawyers – which is why JAG officers are often not so affectionately known as ‘jagoffs’.”
He added of JAG lawyers: “Most spend more time prosecuting our troops than they do putting away bad guys. It’s easier to get promoted that way.”
Hegseth writes that in explaining the rules of engagement, the JAG officer “used the example of an identified enemy holding a rocket-propelled grenade”, asking Hegseth’s platoon: “‘Do you shoot at him?’”
“And my guys were like, ‘Hell, yeah, we light him up,’” Hegseth writes.
According to Hegseth, the JAG officer responded: “‘Wrong answer, men. You are not authorized to fire at that man, until that RPG becomes a threat. It must be pointed at you with the intent to fire. That makes it a legal and proper engagement.’”
Hegseth writes that in response: “We sat in silence, stunned.”
He then instructed his men to ignore the legal advice.
“After this briefing, I pulled my platoon together, huddling amid their confusion to tell them, ‘I will not allow that nonsense to filter into your brains. Men, if you see an enemy who you believe is a threat, you engage and destroy the threat. That’s a bullshit rule that’s going to get people killed. And I will have your back – just like our commander. We are coming home, the enemy will not.’”
The Guardian contacted the Department of Defense for comment.
Prof David M Crane, a former chief prosecutor of the UN special court for Sierra Leone, distinguished scholar in residence at Syracuse University College of Law and an army veteran with 20 years’ service, including stints as a JAG attorney, said obeying rules of engagement was crucial and that those who break them should face sanction.
“After the tragedy of My Lai in 1968, we have tried to avoid another one and prosecute those that do in fact stray. And that happened particularly in Iraq, at Fallujah, and other places in defense, where we had some marines go south and commit war crimes, and they’re prosecuted for it,” he said.
He added: “These rules go all the way up the chain of command. I mean, it goes all the way to the president of the United States, who is the commander-in-chief of the armed forces of the United States.
“So if there’s an illegal order that goes all the way down, then all of them have committed a war crime. It’s not just a single guy in the airplane, the jet aircraft, firing those missiles at the boat. Yes, they are following an illegal order, but it goes all the way up all the way to the president.”
In his book, however, Hegseth called into question the entire edifice of laws of conflict, writing: “If our warriors are forced to follow rules arbitrarily and asked to sacrifice more lives so that international tribunals feel better about themselves, aren’t we just better off winning our wars according to our own rules?! Who cares what other countries think.”
In Trump’s first term, Hegseth successfully campaigned for the pardon of two army officers and the reversal of disciplinary measures on a Navy Seal, each of whom were either charged with or convicted of war crimes. He has expressed admiration for his former commanding officer, the now retired army colonel and, according to Hegseth, “certified badass” Michael Steele, who was reprimanded after reportedly ordering soldiers in 2006 in Iraq to “kill all military age males” in a raid.
Crane said of Hegseth’s portrayal of a fundamental antagonism between JAG lawyers and soldiers that it was “absolutely not true”, and that “the bottom line is that judge advocates are soldiers who are lawyers, [and] whose job is to make sure soldiers don’t commit violations of the laws of armed conflict, and the soldiers appreciate it”.
He added: “I have deployed around the world in some very scary places with my unit as their lawyer, but I did everything that my unit did: jumping on airplanes, scaling cliffs, doing all the things that you know about these very specialized organizations. I did it too. I was right there with them. They respected me. I respected them. And they listened to me.”
‘Certified badass’
In the same passage of the book as his anecdote, Hegseth praises his then commander, who was later reprimanded for his own role in an incident in which unarmed Iraqis were killed by US soldiers.
He commends “Colonel Michael Steele … our brigade commander” as “a certified badass”, adding that Steele incentivized the killing of Iraqis: “He suffered no fools. If you engaged the enemy and destroyed it under his command, you got a ‘kill coin’.”
Hegseth adds: “Colonel Steele would have been a horrible gender studies professor at the University of California, but there was nobody you wanted more in a combat situation.”
Steele was commander of the 3rd Brigade, 187th Infantry Regiment in the 101st Airborne Division between 2004 and 2006, under whom Hegseth served as a platoon commander.
In 2006, four soldiers under his command were charged with the murder of unarmed Iraqis during a raid in Salahuddin province, and in sworn statements the men said Steele had “ordered them to kill all military-age males”.
Media reports at that time indicated that Steele had promoted body counts as a measure of performance, with the New York Times reporting of Steele that “in Iraq, as a commander involved in harrowing assaults against insurgents, he inspired the use of ‘kill boards’ to track how many Iraqis each soldier had killed over time”.
In 2007, the New York Times reported that Steele had been formally reprimanded for issuing improper orders for the raid, effectively blocking his further promotion, and had been rotated out of Iraq to an administrative assignment.
Crane said: “You know, we have commanders who are ‘badasses’ – and most of them don’t go into higher rank, because they’re quietly removed from the service, or they’re court-martialed and removed, or reprimanded, or put in jail.”
He added: “Colonel Steele was completely outside the bounds. That mentality is frowned upon, and that’s why he was reprimanded and his career was ended.”
He said: “This shows you the mindset of this secretary of defense: that’s the kind of person, that’s the signal they’re sending the commanders – kill them all and let God sort them out.”
‘Fidelity to the warfighter’
In the book, Hegseth ventilates more general grievances about legal restraints placed on soldiers in combat.
At one point, Hegseth writes: “We send men to fight on our behalf, and then second-guess the manner in which they fight. I saw it every day.”
Hegseth adds: “In some cases, our units were so boxed in by rules and regulations and political correctness, we even second-guess ourselves. That needs to end. Count me out on the Monday-morning quarterbacking – I’m with the American warfighter, all the way.”
Elsewhere, Hegseth appears to argue that American soldiers should proceed without any constraints whatsoever.
He writes: “If we’re going to send our boys to fight – and it should be boys – we need to unleash them to win. They need them to be the most ruthless. The most uncompromising. The most overwhelmingly lethal as they can be. We must break the enemy’s will.”
Hegseth adds an apparent call for virtual impunity for serving soldiers, writing: “Our troops will make mistakes, and when they do, they should get the overwhelming benefit of the doubt.”
The idea that soldiers should be given the benefit of the doubt echoes comments Hegseth made in November 2019, after Trump pardoned Clint Lorance, then serving a 19-year sentence for the murder of two civilians; Maj Mathew Golsteyn, who was facing murder charges over the killing of an unarmed Afghan civilian; and reversed the demotion of Navy Seal Edward Gallagher, who in July 2019 was found not guilty of murder over the death of an IS captive, but was convicted for posing for photos with the man’s corpse.
At that time, Hegseth, still a news presenter but widely credited for influencing Trump to clear the men, told the Fox News audience that Trump had shown “fidelity to the warfighter”.
“The president looks at it through that lens, a simple one, and important one. The benefit of the doubt should go to the guys pulling the trigger.”
Crane said that such pardons “cheapen the profession. Having been in the military myself there’s a great amount of pride among the professionals within the US armed forces, and they take great pride in following the law and doing things appropriately under law.”
He added: “The force is irritated now and embarrassed because they truly believe in separating themselves from politics, and they are America’s armed forces, not the president’s armed forces.”