In apparent response to allegations that his lethal strikes targeting alleged drug traffickers amount to extrajudicial murder, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth posted an image of children’s book character Franklin the Turtle firing a rocket launcher from a helicopter.
On his personal X account on Sunday night, Hegseth posted an AI-generated book cover with the title Franklin Targets Narco Terrorists, with the titular turtle wearing combat gear and hanging outside a military helicopter as he takes aim at three boats below.
“For your Christmas wish list,” Hegseth wrote in the caption. He tagged U.S. Southern Command, which is overseeing American military operations targeting boats accused of smuggling drugs into the United States. More than 80 people have been killed in more than a dozen attacks over the last several months.
In response, X users posted AI-generated Franklin covers of their own, with titles like Franklin Goes to The Hague, Franklin On Trial at the ICC, and Franklin Goes to Jail.
The Independent has requested comment from Franklin publisher Kids Can Press.
Hegseth’s post follows reporting in The Washington Post that Hegseth ordered military personnel to not leave any survivors behind.
On September 2, military personnel fired a missile striking a vessel in the Caribbean that carried 11 people accused of trafficking drugs into the United States. When two survivors emerged from the wreckage, a Special Operations commander overseeing the attack ordered a second strike to comply with Hegseth’s instructions to “kill everybody,” according to The Washington Post, citing officials with direct knowledge of the operation.
After the smoke cleared, the two survivors were then “blown apart in the water,” according to the report.
News of Hegseth’s alleged command follows growing legal scrutiny from international investigators and members of Congress alleging that the Trump administration’s deadly campaign amounts to illegal extrajudicial killings, which law-of-war experts speaking to The Independent have labeled outright murder and a war crime.
Democratic and Republican members of both the Senate Armed Services Committee and the House Armed Services Committee are pledging “vigorous oversight” of the Pentagon in the wake of the news.
Senator Roger Wicker, the GOP chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and Senator Jack Reed, the top Democrat on the committee, said they have “directed inquiries” to the Defense Department “and we will be conducting vigorous oversight to determine the facts related to these circumstances.”
The Pentagon initially declined to comment on Hegseth’s alleged command, but the secretary later issued a lengthy statement on X defending the campaign without denying whether he ordered officials to “kill everybody” on the boats despite not posing any immediate threat to the United States.
“As usual, the fake news is delivering more fabricated, inflammatory, and derogatory reporting to discredit our incredible warriors fighting to protect the homeland,” he wrote on Sunday. “Our current operations in the Caribbean are lawful under both U.S. and international law, with all actions in compliance with the law of armed conflict — and approved by the best military and civilian lawyers, up and down the chain of command.”
In remarks to reporters Sunday night, Trump said he has “great confidence” that Hegseth did not verbally order military personnel to leave no survivors.
The president said Hegseth told him that “he did not say that, and I believe him, 100 percent.”
Following The Washington Post’s reporting, former national security officials and military lawyers have determined that, if true, Hegseth’s order and the “double-tap” strike that allegedly killed surviving crewmembers are serious violations of U.S. and international law.
The Former JAGs Working Group, composed of former military lawyers, “unanimously considers both the giving and the execution of these orders, if true, to constitute war crimes, murder, or both.”
The National Security Leaders for America — which includes roughly 1,400 retired admirals, generals, diplomats and other officials — said the administration’s alleged actions “would violate a core principle of military ethics and the law of armed conflict, which prohibits targeting people who are no longer a threat or cannot defend themselves.”
“If the strike is viewed as a law enforcement action, killing rather than detaining a defenseless individual could constitute a host of crimes, up to and including murder,” the group said in a statement Monday.
“Orders to kill survivors of an attack at sea are ‘patently illegal,’ anyone who issues or follows such orders can and should be prosecuted for war crimes, murder, or both,” added Retired Major General Steven Lepper, a former Air Force Deputy Judge Advocate General.
In September, the Trump administration told Congress that the United States is formally engaged in an “armed conflict” with drug cartels that the president has labeled “unlawful combatants.”
The administration has labeled cartels “nonstate armed groups” whose actions “constitute an armed attack against the United States” and are now engaged in a “noninternational armed conflict” — or war with a non-state actor.
In the weeks that followed, the Trump administration directed more than a dozen strikes that have killed more than 80 people on vessels in the Caribbean and Pacific Ocean but officials have not publicly provided sufficient evidence or legal justification for their deaths, according to lawmakers and civil rights groups.
Last month, members of Congress received closed-door briefings on the attacks from administration officials, who were “unable to provide any credible explanation for its extrajudicial and unauthorized” attacks, according to Rep. Gregory Meeks, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
The legal justifications are “dubious and meant to circumvent Congress’ constitutional power on matters of war and peace,” he said in a statement.
