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Melissa Corrigan and David Shuster report on a US military strike on a boat on 17 October when two survivors were retrieved from wreckage and brought on board USS Iwo Jima:
"What transpired after those individuals were brought on board proves that we are in an entirely new paradigm within the US military," (continued in /2)
(continued from /1)
"one in which video and photographic material is deleted, US military service members are asked to defy standing protocol and code, and human beings disappear from record as they are summarily and without trial returned to what is purported to be their native countries."
Official policy requires photo and video documentation of such prisoners.
But in this case when shipboard personnel insisted on following this policy, the Marines staffing the Iwo Jima protested, saying that their commander had forbidden the documentation.
Video was taken, but less than two hours later was deleted. The prisoners were classified as unprivileged belligerents. Though the US is not at war, this classification allows circumvention of policies governing treatment of prisoners apprehended by the military.
The classification of the prisoners as "unprivileged belligerents" means that they were "therefore deemed not worthy of the basic protections of photo and video footage of their treatment while in the care of the United States Navy and Marine Corps."
"Although [Hegseth] has produced no evidence to Congress to justify these actions or the classification of these individuals, much less requesting and gaining approval for acts of hostility upon those individuals, he has then proceeded with lethal strikes on civilians in open international waters."
"If the evidence were as overwhelming as DoD claims, following established legislative, legal, and military protocol would not present a problem and would have been followed by SECDEF. His refusal to follow established protocols, code, and international law, as well as essentially redefining what constitutes 'hostile action', places our entire military in an extraordinarily compromised position."
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