Killing of suspected traffickers at sea was already abhorrent. Hegseth may have made it a war crime. | Editorial

Donald Trump has been quick to post videos and brag about the heinous boat strikes on suspected drug traffickers by the U.S. military.

But now comes a report by the Washington Post that a live drone feed showed two survivors from the first attack clinging to the wreckage.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who a year ago was working weekends at Fox News, reportedly gave a spoken directive to “kill everybody.”

To comply with Hegseth’s instructions, the Special Operations commander overseeing the attack ordered a second strike, and the two men were then blown apart in the water, according to the Post.

The initial strikes are barbaric enough and violate international law, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.

The second strike appears to be a war crime.

The boat strikes have been ghastly from the start. The U.S. military doesn’t even know who is being summarily killed. One man was a fisherman, according to his family. The legality is shaky at best, hinging on a secret U.S. Department of Justice memo that no one in the Trump administration has been willing to publicly defend.

» READ MORE: By killing suspected drug traffickers at sea, Trump’s lawlessness enters a grim new phase | Editorial

Even if the boats are carrying drugs, those on board should be arrested and prosecuted, not assassinated. The killings are akin to if the Philadelphia police decided to gun down suspected dealers standing on the corner in Kensington.

How does Trump reconcile summarily executing alleged drug runners while pardoning the former president of Honduras, who was convicted last year of taking bribes from drug cartels in return for helping to move hundreds of tons of cocaine to the U.S.?

What do the drone killings have to do with making America great, let alone making it more affordable, as Trump promised last year?

The boat strikes must stop, and Congress should conduct a full investigation before the United States loses whatever is left of its moral authority to lead the free world.

Hegseth should be fired and held accountable for any wrongdoing.

He was woefully unqualified to oversee the U.S. Department of Defense, given his lack of experience and previous allegations of excessive drinking, carousing, and financial mismanagement.

Hegseth, who called the kill order report “fabricated, inflammatory, and derogatory,” has continued to demonstrate why he remains supremely unfit.

He previously texted classified war plans to a journalist in advance of a separate military strike — a security breach that would get other military personnel court-martialed. Hegseth’s purging of career military leaders without cause is making America weaker.

He initially celebrated the first boat attack. “We smoked a drug boat, and there’s 11 narco-terrorists at the bottom of the ocean, and when other people try to do that, they’re going to meet the same fate,” Hegseth told reporters in September.

Since then, he has overseen more than 20 additional boat strikes, killing more than 80 people. In a social media post, he appeared to call the report fake news before adding, “Biden coddled terrorists, we kill them.”

» READ MORE: We’re executing people with impunity. Why are so many of us OK with this? | Luis F. Carrasco

To underscore how unserious he is, Hegseth made light of the boat strikes by posting a mock cover of a Franklin the Turtle children’s book with a made-up title, Franklin Targets Narco Terrorists.

Trump, who handpicked Hegseth after watching him on TV, said his defense secretary told him he never gave the verbal order.

“He says he didn’t do it,” Trump said.

That may be good enough for Trump, but it falls far short for anyone who values the truth, international law, or the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Recall Trump also shamefully sided with Vladimir Putin, a foreign adversary, who claimed he didn’t interfere in the 2016 election. But a Republican-led Senate review and eight U.S. intelligence agencies found Russia meddled in the election.

At least one top Republican in Congress said American military officials might have committed a war crime in the boat strike. “If that occurred, that would be very serious, and I agree that would be an illegal act,” said Rep. Mike Turner (R., Ohio), who is a former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.

Republicans and Democrats on two congressional committees promised to increase scrutiny of the boat strikes in the Caribbean and Pacific. Let’s hope that happens soon.

The best way to get to the facts is to have Hegseth, the Special Operations commander, and other military officials involved in the boat strikes testify under oath. One benefit of recording extrajudicial killings is that there are videos and transcripts for all to see and hear.

Let’s get all the facts out and hold any wrongdoers accountable. And let’s end the government-sanctioned killings and return to following the law.