U.S. President Donald Trump speaks while U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, FIFA President Gianni Infantino, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Senior advisor to FIFA president Carlos Cordeiro stand near him, as he meets with the White House Task Force on the FIFA World Cup 2026 in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., November 17, 2025. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY
In MAGA media outlets, the Trump Administration's Venezuela policy is repeatedly defended as a willingness to put American interests above "wokeness" — including a series of military strikes against Venezuelan boats in the Caribbean that U.S. President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth claim were being used to smuggle illegal drugs to the United States.
Hegseth insists that his priority is defending the U.S., not being "woke." But in a biting column published on December 4, the New York Times' David French counters that there is nothing "woke" about obeying the "rules of war" that the Pentagon has adhered to over the years.
"In their military campaign in South America," the Never Trump conservative explains, "Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth aren't just defying the Constitution and breaking the law. They are attacking the very character and identity of the American military.
French points to the July 2023 update of the Department of Defense Law of War Manual, which states that "orders to fire upon the shipwrecked would be clearly illegal" and that "it is forbidden to declare that no quarter will be given."
"A no quarter order is an order directing soldiers to kill every combatant, including prisoners, the sick and the wounded," French notes.
On September 2, two strikes were carried out against a Venezuelan boat in the Caribbean. The second strike, according to French, was illegal under Pentagon policy because: (1) the people on board the boat had been rendered shipwrecked by the first strike, and (2) targeting the two survivors for a second attack was a "no quarter" violation.
"There are now good reasons to believe that the United States military, under the command of President Trump and Hegseth, his secretary of defense, has blatantly violated the laws of war," Hegseth warns. "On November 28, the Washington Post reported that Hegseth issued a verbal order to 'kill everybody' the day that the United States launched its military campaign against suspected drug traffickers. According to the Post, the first strike on the targeted speedboat left two people alive in the water."
French continues, "The commander of the operation then ordered a second strike to kill the shipwrecked survivors, apparently — according to The Post — 'because they could theoretically call other traffickers to retrieve them and their cargo.' If that reporting is correct, then we have clear evidence of unequivocal war crimes — a no quarter order and a strike on the incapacitated crew of a burning boat."
The Never Trump conservative stresses that obeying the "rules of war" is vital to the U.S. Armed Forces' wellbeing.
"The laws of war aren't woke," French writes. "They're not virtue signaling. And they're not a sign that the West has forgotten how to fight. Instead, they provide the American military with a number of concrete benefits. First, complying with the laws of war can provide a battlefield advantage…. Second, the laws of war make war less savage and true peace possible."
David French's full New York Times column is available at this link.