PITS and Operation Southern Spear
by Christy Yao Pellicioni
As I was sitting down to write on this very subject, I got an alert on my phone from CNN saying four more people were killed by the US striking vessels allegedly carrying drugs. I went to open the news outlet’s main website on my computer, and that news story did not even have top billing. Instead, this article flashed on my screen, describing what an admiral told lawmakers about a September 2 strike on a vessel allegedly carrying cocaine from Venezuela.
After this boat was originally struck and capsized, two survivors were identified. Military officials originally claimed that a second strike in this attack was justified since a radio was seen with the two survivors after their boat capsized. The second strike, they said, was to prevent any communication calling for an attack on the US vessel.
Thursday, December 4, however, Admiral Frank “Mitch” Bradley, who ordered the second strike, admitted there was no radio, giving credence to the claim that the second strike was in fact a war crime, as it is a war crime to kill shipwrecked people. After a video of the attack was shown during the Thursday briefings, there was debate on how desperate the survivors were and their intent following the attack.
This is just the latest twist in Operation Southern Spear, which has been going on since early September. The alleged goal of this operation is to stop illegal drugs from flowing into the US, but the legal murkiness and questionable effectiveness of the operation has made some question that, wondering if the US is trying to overthrow the socialist left-wing Venezuelan government. It is feared that this will escalate into a greater international conflict.
A USA Today opinion piece from Retired Commander Dave Petri, a former Navy Surface Warfare Officer and communications director for National Security Leaders for America, and William Bombgartner, former commander of the 7th (Southeast) Coast Guard District and the military’s former judge advocate general and chief counsel, gives solid arguments against the attacks.
What struck me is the argument that this disrespected the men and women in uniform asked to carry out these attacks. This reminded me a lot of Consistent Life Network Vice President Dr. Rachel MacNair’s theory of “Perpetration-Induced Traumatic Stress,” also called “Participation-Induced Traumatic Stress” (PITS). PITS is a subset of the more commonly known PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder). It occurs when the perpetrator of the violence experiences PTSD.
Dr. MacNair’s book Perpetration-Induced Traumatic Stress: The Psychological Consequences of Killing describes how veterans are often among the largest groups of those who suffer from PITS. The more horrific the killing, the more likely the veteran is to suffer. Killing men who are already shipwrecked sounds like a pretty horrific killing.
The book discusses perhaps the most infamous war crime perpetrators in modern history, the Nazis. Not only did the Nazis suffer from PITS, Dr. MacNair poses the theory that the origins of the Nazis lie in PITS as well. Many of the Nazi leaders’ attitudes about violence and killing were shaped during World War I, where it was thought the best treatment of those who suffer from PTSD were to send them back into battle.
I think I can safely speak for the vast majority of Americans when we say that we do not want to be thought of as committing injustices similar to those of World War I and II era Germany. Even many with favorable views of the military don’t want its members to commit inhumane war crimes. Getting illegal drugs off the street is a noble goal, but we cannot use unethical means to accomplish this.
Of course, from a Consistent Life Ethic perspective, we would like to see the drug flow problem tackled without any violence at all. The lives of others are not more expendable because they are not American or work on a vessel used to transport drugs (even if there were evidence that that’s what they were doing). One’s place of birth or the ethics of their occupation do not determine the value of one’s life.
=========================================
Addendum: Rachel MacNair compiled these recent quotes from media commentators:
David Brooks, PBS Newshour, December 5, 2025
I think what appalls me most of all about it is what they’re posting, both Trump and Hegseth, on social media. You look at the pictures of Abraham Lincoln at the end of the Civil War. You look at the pictures of Franklin Roosevelt at the end of World War II. The burden of sending human beings into battle and causing death and suffering on both sides was something they bore with incredible heaviness. And Hegseth treats it like it’s a video game. And it’s just like a — it’s just morally offensive.
Phil Klay (Marine Corps veteran of the Iraq war)
What Trump Is Really Doing With His Boat Strikes
The New York Times, December 5, 2025
In lieu of careful analysis of the campaign’s legality, detailed rationales for the boat strikes and explanations of why they couldn’t be done with more traditional methods, we get Mr. Hegseth posting an image of himself with laser eyes and video after video of alleged drug traffickers being killed. The cartoon turtle is just one example in an avalanche of juvenile public messaging about those we kill. I suspect the question the administration cares about is not “is this legal,” “is this a war crime,” “is this murder” or even “is this good for America,” but rather, “isn’t this violence delightful?” . . .
The Trump administration’s celebration of death brings us far from discussions of the law of armed conflict, the constitutionality of the strikes or even the Christian morality that would eventually push Augustine to formulate an early version of just-war theory. We’re in the Colosseum, one brought to us digitally so that we need not leave our homes to hear the cheers of the crowd, to watch the killing done for our entertainment and suffer the same harm that injured Alypius more than 1,600 years ago.
David French
Pete Hegseth Is Doing Something Even Worse Than Breaking the Law
The New York Times, December 4, 2025
In fact, when I first read the Washington Post story, I thought of the terrified pair, struggling helplessly in the water before the next missile ended their lives. But I also thought of the men or women who fired those missiles. How does their conscience speak to them now? How will it speak to them in 10 years?
===========================
Our list of all blog posts has an extensive list of similar analyses under the heading “War Policy.”
Another post that involves Pete Hegseth is: Signal Chat: The Media Misses the Actual Scandals
Leave a Reply