Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is facing heavy criticism after he made light of his deadly attacks on alleged drug-smuggling vessels in the Caribbean by turning the scandal into a meme featuring Franklin the Turtle, the protagonist of the popular Canadian children's book series authored by Paulette Bourgeois and illustrated by Brenda Clark.
The meme, which Hegseth inexplicably captioned "for your Christmas wish list," features a doctored book cover titled Franklin Targets Narco Terrorists and shows Franklin firing a bazooka from a helicopter at boats in the water below.
You can see Hegseth's post and the image below.
@PeteHegseth/X
Hegseth’s post followed a Washington Post investigation published last week alleging that in September he directed a U.S. strike unit to eliminate everyone aboard a single vessel. According to the report, after two people were later spotted alive in the wreckage, commanders authorized a follow-up “double tap” strike to ensure their deaths.
The account has drawn sharp criticism from legal experts and human rights advocates, some of whom say the actions described, if accurate, could constitute serious violations of international law and potentially amount to war crimes or unlawful killings.
U.S. officials and outside specialists also dispute the administration’s claim that the suspected traffickers were engaged in an “armed conflict” with the United States or posed an imminent threat.
In the absence of a legitimate state of war, the killings “would amount to murder,” said Todd Huntley, a former military attorney who now directs the national security law program at Georgetown Law and previously advised Special Operations forces during the height of the counterterrorism campaign.
Huntley added that even in a recognized wartime context, an order to kill all occupants of a disabled vessel would effectively be an instruction to “give no quarter,” which itself would qualify as a war crime. Huntley now directs the national security law program at Georgetown Law.
Many have condemned Hegseth's action.
In the aftermath of that initial strike, the Trump administration formally informed Congress that the United States was engaged in what it called a “non-international armed conflict” with unnamed “designated terrorist organizations.”
That position was reinforced by a legal opinion from the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, which argued that because the U.S. was operating within an armed conflict, military personnel carrying out strikes in compliance with the laws of war would be shielded from criminal prosecution.
Huntley criticized that framework, warning that the laws of armed conflict give the state enormous unchecked power. “The government ends up acting as judge, jury, and executioner when it uses force,” he said.
Since the first strike, U.S. forces have carried out at least 22 additional attacks on boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific, including one semisubmersible vessel. According to officials and internal Pentagon records reviewed by The Washington Post, those operations have resulted in the deaths of 71 people accused of drug trafficking.
Hegseth has rejected the allegations. After the report was published, Hegseth appeared to publicly stand by the strategy in a pair of social media posts on Friday. He described the missions as intentionally “lethal, kinetic strikes” and insisted that the operations were justified and “lawful under both U.S. and international law.”
