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Just weeks after the Trump administration’s likely illegal boat strike campaign began, the military official tasked with overseeing the operation was ousted by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, who was apparently incensed with the admiral for raising concerns about the strikes and other egregious demands made of him, new reporting finds.
The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that Admiral Alvin Holsey’s shock departure in October, less than a year into his three-year post as the head of the U.S. Southern Command, came as a direct result of pressure by Hegseth, Pentagon officials said.
Holsey did not elaborate on the reasons for his departure when he announced it, and the move sparked confusion and uncertainty. It came as lawmakers were raising alarm about the administration’s secrecy surrounding the campaign, and just as the administration was escalating the campaign with a CIA authorization to conduct lethal operations in the Caribbean and Venezuela and undertaking a buildup of troops around the region.
“Having [Holsey] leave at this particular moment, at the height of what the Pentagon considers to be the central action in our hemisphere, is just shocking,” said Todd Robinson, former assistant secretary for international narcotics and law enforcement affairs. Other officials and lawmakers noted the highly unusual nature of the departure at the time.
According to The Wall Street Journal, Hegseth asked Holsey to step down, marking a “de facto ouster that was the culmination of months of discord” between the two. When Holsey first took over Southern Command, Hegseth effectively demanded full compliance from the 60-year-old military official.
“You’re either on the team or you’re not,” Hegseth reportedly told him on a video conference. “When you get an order, you move out fast and don’t ask questions.”
Then, in March, Hegseth was suspicious that Holsey was leaking plans for the military to “reclaim” the Panama Canal, as President Donald Trump had commanded. Hegseth felt that Holsey wasn’t developing the plans to carry out the illegal plan quickly enough, The Wall Street Journal found.
When the military brass began planning for the boat strike operation, Holsey was “concerned about murky legal authority for the boat strike campaign,” the publication reported. This lines up with other publications’ reports that Holsey had disagreements over the campaign.
Expert opinion has repeatedly vindicated those reported concerns, with human rights and military legal experts saying that the strikes amount to murder, breaking both international human rights and domestic law. New revelations of a “double tap” strike, carried out in the military’s first publicly reported attack on September 2, have also raised alarm that the orders for the strikes are patently illegal and may be exposing people up and down the chain to legal recourse.
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