pete hegseth franklin war crimes

Franklin the Turtle Becomes an AI Meme After Pete Hegseth Jokes About War Crimes

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pete hegseth franklin war crimes

The Washington Post released a damning report over the holiday weekend that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was ordering the military to commit war crimes in the Caribbean. Hegseth responded by posting X, which appears to be an AI-generated meme of the children’s book character Franklin shooting at people in boats. And now AI-generated Franklins have taken over social media, and they’re coming from both sides of the political aisle.

“For your Christmas wish list…” Hegseth wrote alongside an image on the X, which shows the Franklin character firing from a helicopter at people in boats below.

The Franklin the Turtle books were written by Canadian author Paulette Bourgeois and first illustrated by Brenda Clark in 1986. The character has also been adapted for TV movies and a series. If it needs saying: There is no book called “Franklin Targets Narco Terrorists”.

Hegseth’s use of the character is particularly troubling when you consider the allegations against him based on what he has actually done. US forces have killed at least 80 people in 21 attacks on boats in the Caribbean and Pacific Ocean since the beginning of September. President Donald Trump says he is targeting drug dealers, whom the US regime describes as “narco terrorists”.

But even if every one of those killed were drug traffickers – and there are serious doubts that they were – those people are not legitimate combatants who could be killed casually, even if war had been properly declared. A November 28 report by the Washington Post provided new details about the first attack on September 2, in which 11 people were targeted and two survivors clung to a boat.

An anonymous source who spoke to the Post said that Hegseth’s orders were to “kill everyone”, so a second attack was ordered to kill defenseless targets. The legal consensus appears to be that the first strike was legal only if the US was properly at war, and the second strike is illegal no matter what. You can’t kill people who are injured and pose no threat to anyone. Those are war crimes.

The existence of survivors was first reported by The Intercept, but Hegseth’s order to kill everyone was not previously known to the public, and even some elected Republicans have called for an investigation. House and Senate committees have now launched investigations. Trump was asked Sunday about the Sept. 2 incident aboard Air Force One, and the president acknowledged that a second attack would be very problematic. But he insisted that Hegseth had not ordered the second attack.

“I didn’t want that. Not a second attack. The first attack was very deadly. It was OK,” Trump said.

Reporter: If there had been another attack in which the injured people were killed, would it have been legal?

TRUMP: I don’t know if that happened and Pete said he didn’t even know what people were talking about. I didn’t want another hit. The first attack was very fatal. It was okay.

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– Acyn (@acyn.bsky.social) November 30, 2025 at 3:17 pm

The Washington Post spoke to several people within the military on condition of anonymity, including at least one person who witnessed the killings in real time. “If video of the September 2 explosion, which killed two survivors, was made public, people would be horrified,” the Post quoted its source as saying.

Hegseth, the most inept Secretary of Defense to serve in that role, is often aggressive on social media and apparently tried to lighten the mood about his potential crimes on X with this Franklin image. It’s unclear whether he created the seemingly AI-generated image himself or found it elsewhere online. But it sparked a wave of turtle-based images among both left-wing critics and right-wing supporters.

Critics have created images of him showing Franklin in The Hague, where the International Criminal Court in the Netherlands is located.

Another fake book was titled “Franklin Learns About LOAC”, using the acronym for Law of Armed Conflict.

Hegseth supporters have even created their own Franklin memes. Some counterfeit books include titles such as “Franklin Defends the Border with Force” and “Franklin Questions Kentaji”. [sic] Brown’s reputation.”

Another fake book was titled “Franklin Explains What Fauci Deserves” and included pictures of medieval torture devices. Right-wing extremists believe that Anthony Fauci was somehow responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic and is often the target of conspiracy theorists who wish to harm him.

Others animated the Franklin book covers, something that can be done as fast as creating 2D drawings thanks to AI software.

The U.S. government’s pledge to target drug traffickers began to look even more ridiculous over the Thanksgiving holiday when President Trump wrote on Truth Social that he would pardon former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez. Hernandez was convicted in US federal court of drug trafficking and is serving a 45-year sentence for helping move more than 400 tons of cocaine into the country.

It seems like everyone is realizing at this point how serious the allegations against Hegseth are, with even some Republicans calling for an investigation. But it remains to be seen whether the Defense Secretary will actually face any consequences. The Trump regime operates under a different standard than normal governments, and Hegseth paid no price for incidents like Signalgate, when he spoke openly about highly sensitive military information while a journalist was present on the unencrypted chat.

But no matter how serious the accusation, you can bet the internet will turn it into a meme. What’s strange is that Hegseth himself is participating in the meme, which we’ve seen with other official government accounts like the Department of Homeland Security. Over the weekend, DHS posted a response meme featuring the father’s character from the 1990s sitcom dinosaur,

The image has become a favorite on far-right social media to express surprise that extremist ideas are finally being embraced by the mainstream. And whether it’s anti-Semitic slurs or Nazi dog whistles, you can bet DHS will be joining in on the fun.

Honestly, the surprising thing about all this is that DHS hasn’t created a Franklin meme yet. But it seems inevitable that we’ll see it at some point soon.





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