Fox News Military Analysts Says Commanders Often Must Reattack to ‘Kill the Rest of the People’

Fox News anchor Martha MacCallum spoke to Fox News military analyst Jack Keane, a retired four-star Army general, on Tuesday and asked him to weigh in on the growing scandal surrounding Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Hegseth is under fire and being accused of war crimes by critics after it was revealed that the military carried out a second strike to kill survivors on an alleged drug smuggling boat.

MacCallum asked Keane, “On the way out here, general, if you can hear me okay, your thoughts on this issue of the strike. Jacqui Heinrich just got us up to speed on the reporting there with regard to the Secretary of Defense’s decision and the admiral who made the decision in the moment on those boat strikes on September 2nd.”

“Yeah, well, first of all, I think we should just hold our fire here a little bit and let’s get on with an investigation. I think the Pentagon should do the investigation. They do a lot of these things in the past, and they’re very good at getting the facts out with all the variables and complexities that are involved here. And things are flying around by people that just don’t know what they’re talking about,” Keane replied, adding:

A couple of examples: if you have an operation on the ground and you have wounded soldiers as a result of it, of course, we don’t kill those wounded soldiers because we’re in control. Actually, the obligation is to take them prisoner and, after our wounded are treated, treat those wounded and evacuate them. But these are isolated events.

Airstrikes done sometimes on the ground or sometimes at sea—and there’s nobody there in control of the situation. So if the target is people or it’s a facility and both of those are important, the objective is to kill the people and destroy the facility. If the target is a boat and people, the mission is to destroy the boat and kill the people. In about 25% of these kinds of attacks, we do reattack—either if the facility was the objective, to destroy the rest of the facility; if the people are the objective, to kill the rest of the people.

That’s just the reality of what we’re dealing with, and people have got to get their head around this, and they’re misinterpreting what is taking place here. And certainly when we reattack on the ground or at sea, many of those people—they may have been armed, but they’re going to be in a disarrayed state. But the target is the people, and if we can’t get to those people and take them prisoner, then I think the commander is likely acting properly. But I don’t even know all the facts and circumstances, certainly. I’m just basing it on my years of experience.

MacCallum replied, “Well, yeah.”

Keane repeated, “Need an investigation here. I just wish people would hold their emotions and their fire and let that take place.”

MacCallum concluded, “Very good advice. As always, General, thank you so much for being here, and I apologize. I know we had a little bit of an audio issue. I hope you could hear everything okay, but we heard you, and we thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you, General Keane.”

Watch above via Fox News.

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