1. United States
2. Ariz.
3. Letter

From a Pentagon podium, in an official government briefing, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said this: “We will keep pressing. We will keep pushing, keep advancing, no quarter, no mercy for our enemies.” The line appears in the official Pentagon transcript. That is not just thuggish rhetoric. It is not just chest-thumping. It is not just one more example of the coarsened language of Trump-era politics bleeding into national security. “No quarter” has a specific meaning in the law of war. It means refusing to spare the lives of enemy fighters even if they are wounded, helpless, or trying to surrender. The Pentagon’s own law-of-war system says the U.S. military must comply with the law of war, and under that body of law a ‘no quarter’ order is unlawful. Secretary Hegseth must be called before Congress and answer for his words and be held accountable.