It’s a dangerous concoction: anonymous sourcing, widespread confusion around military actions, and Trump administration hypocrisy. So it’s no surprise that the “kill everybody” controversy has spilled over, creating a mess across Washington.
It’s exemplified by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s recent rant against the media:
“You sit in your air conditioned offices or up on Capitol Hill, you nitpick and you plant fake stories in the Washington Post about ‘kill everybody’ — phrases on anonymous sources, not based in anything, not based in any truth at all. And then you want to throw out really irresponsible terms about American heroes, about the judgment that they made.”
What happened exactly? In the new episode of They Stand Corrected, I break it down for you.
The allegation
It stems from a U.S. attack on suspected drug traffickers near Trinidad. The first missile damaged the boat, but there were apparently visible survivors; the military launched another strike, killing them.
The Washington Post published a story based on anonymous sources. The headline read, “Hegseth order on first Caribbean boat strike, officials say: Kill them all.”
But did multiple “officials” tell the Post that? The story itself reads, “Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth gave a spoken directive, according to two people with direct knowledge of the operation. ‘The order was to kill everybody,’ one of them said.”
One of them. So, did two people or one person say that Hegseth specifically ordered that everyone be killed? This matters. In a podcast, The Post reported that according to “people that were actually in the room,” Hegseth said to “kill them all.”
But then, the New York Times weighed in. The story cited five anonymous officials, none of whom quoted Hegseth as instructing the military to kill everyone.
In this field of anonymity, We the People have no clue what’s true. Anonymity should be used very sparingly, but is all too common these days.
You might hear this, and think Hegseth is right to be upset. Maybe he is, about this specifically. But…
Hypocrisy alert
The Trump administration itself uses anonymous sourcing all the time. In this episode, I bring you examples.
This have-it-both-ways mentality isn’t unique to Trump. The Obama administration was notorious for this double standard— using the 1917 Espionage Act to prosecute leakers with unprecedented vigor while simultaneously leaking favorable stories anonymously when it suited them.
But Trump took open attacks on the media to new levels. Railing against journalists in his first term, he called anonymous sources “bulls—-.” At the same time, of course, his administration was leaking information anonymously, in his favor, all the time.
This episode also addresses:
Legal questions surrounding the second strike
How the media ignored Obama’s use of ‘double-tap’ strikes
A Washington Post op-ed takes on the Post’s own news coverage
What the Pentagon’s own Law of War Manual says about shipwrecked people
and much more.
Thoughts? Questions? Supporters can weigh in with the links below.
JL
P.S. ICYMI:
Michigan massacre averted
If a massive terrorist attack against LGBTQ+ clubs was thwarted, you’d expect to hear about it, right? You’d expect wall-to-wall news for days, with the potential targets centered in the coverage.
