"It’s what you do when you’re planning to break the law." How good journalism warned us about the war crimes we’re now witnessing.

Too many Americans are surprised by their country's own depravity. It doesn't have to be this way.

Back in February, Pete Hegseth framed his purge of JAGs, the military’s top lawyers, as a simple “reset.” But if you had a healthy media diet at that time, full of reporting and commentary that scrutinizes the actions of those in power, the country’s best journalism allowed you to see what was happening: the purposeful destruction of independent military legal oversight to clear the path for unlawful uses of force.

Long before Hegseth’s ‘kill everybody’ directive reported in the Washington Post this week, the warnings about military lawlessness were already there.

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Journalism Told Us What This Meant

Military.com captured the February mood inside the JAG corps with the headline, “People are very scared: Trump Administration Purge of JAG Officers Raises Legal, Ethical Fears.”

Current military lawyers and legal experts told Military.com the administration’s firings of the Air Force, Army and Navy‘s top judge advocates general politicizes and sets an alarming precedent for a crucial job in the military, all as President Donald Trump has mused about using the military in unorthodox and potentially illegal ways.

Business Insider interviewed military law specialists to deliver the stark headline: “The most shocking Pentagon firing wasn’t the top general, legal experts say. It was the lawyers.”

“These firings with the JAGs are more concerning than the firings of the four stars that accompany them,” Franklin D. Rosenblatt, a retired US Army JAG officer and president of the National Institute of Military Justice, told Business Insider in a phone interview on Monday.

“I don’t want to engage in hyperbole, but I do see this as one of the bigger threats to the rule of law that the Pentagon has faced in a long time.”

…Mark Nevitt, a former Navy JAG, said in a Just Security post that “summary removals” of these lawyers are “unprecedented in modern times.” He said the “firing without apparent cause of the service JAGs is particularly disturbing.”

…JAGs are the military equivalent to general counsels at large companies that advise CEOs on the legality of policies and practices, often recommending courses of action to avoid unnecessary liabilities.

Perhaps the most devastating warning of all came from retired Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall in his February 24th op-ed for the New York Times. For Kendall, one of the Pentagon’s most respected civilian leaders, the meaning was unmistakable: the administration was stripping away the only officers who could credibly tell the White House that an order was unlawful.

If you were reading Rolling Stone headlines in February, the purge of the JAGs wasn’t ambiguous at all.

Their reporting cut straight through the euphemisms and official talking points, highlighting the line that defined the entire episode. According to legal scholar Rosa Brooks, firing the JAGs was “what you do when you’re planning to break the law: you get rid of any lawyers who might try to slow you down.”

Fred Wellman shared his perspective from his time working as Public Affairs Officer for the U.S. military in a piece headlined, “This is the most dangerous move yet,” on his Substack, On Democracy.

When I was the Public Affairs Officer for six different general officers in the latter part of my career in the Army, my best friend was always the Judge Advocate General of the command.

We were the bearers of bad news and the word “no” to our commanders. We were the ones that would walk into the office together and the boss would groan and say, “shit…now what?” It was a basic part of the job. You have to be able to stand up to a person who outranked you by multiple grades and say, “you can’t do this because it is illegal and the public will say X, Y, and Z.”

It’s a common refrain when judging JAGs if they are a “commander’s JAG” or not. What that means is a lawyer that has been in the thick of it and understands that rules of war, rules of engagement, and regulations are often opaque and need interpreting for the leaders and troops. A “commander’s JAG” would do that in a way that allowed us to conduct the mission as close to the edge of those things as possible.

In the end nearly every commander at some point is angry at their JAG for telling them they cannot do something or that their action will blow up in their face. There isn’t a commander in history who isn’t looking for a JAG that will allow them to do what they want with little interference.

The good JAGs are unafraid to speak truth to power and ensure the law is followed to the letter. Pete Hegseth hates those JAGs. This is a man that openly supported and campaigned for the pardons of multiple war criminals who were justifiably prosecuted and convicted based on evidence from fellow service members for the torture and murder of civilians in combat.

Did Your Media Diet Warn You About This?

Americans with healthy media diets saw this lawlessness coming. The reporters above made sure we understood the stakes clearly and immediately. In February, their reporting told us the purge of JAGs was unprecedented, the motive was removing “roadblocks” to questionable orders, and legal scholars saw it as a threat to rule of law. If you relied on serious journalism, you heard all of it. If you relied on partisan infotainment, what you heard of it was packaged in a way that allowed you to continute to support Trump.

Right wing media tells Americans that Trump is a god-like figure doing great things for our country. Journalism tells us, based on evidence, that Trump is unfit for office.

Americans with healthy media diets even knew about Trump’s plans to use the military against Americans and his desire for generals who would do his bidding before heading to the ballot box in November of 2024. Here’s a sampling:

Trump Aide’s Sinister Military Plan Exposed in Alarming Report The New Republic

‘I need the kind of generals that Hitler had’: The reporting behind Trump’s comment NPR

This wasn’t hidden. It wasn’t subtle. It wasn’t ambiguous. Unless you consume an unhealthy media diet.

American’s toxic media diets, full of hyper-partisan propaganda and served with a heaping portion of distrust in media, led to Trump’s second victory even as great journalists were warning us of his plans.

Now over 80 people are dead, murdered by the United States of America. Citizens are left to ponder how many more the government will kill in their name, and whether the JAGs who were fired would have ever let these illegal strikes occur in the first place.

We ignore journalism at our moral peril.