David French

there are some very concrete military benefits that we have always gotten when we have complied with or upheld the law of war.

And I talked about the way in which, for example, at the end of World War II, German soldiers and civilians were desperate to surrender to us, that they were fighting fanatically to stop the Soviet Red Army, which was raping its way across in murdering its way across Eastern Europe.

And one of the reasons they were fanatically fighting the Red Army wasn't

because they thought Hitler was going to win, almost everyone knew it was all over at that point.

They were fighting a delaying action so that more people could surrender to us.

And so think about how many lives were saved, how much territory we gained, because by the end of the war, in many ways, we were advancing unopposed.

And the Soviet army was facing ferocious resistance because they were so brutal.

In my own deployment to Iraq, Tim,

When we really turned the tide against al-Qaeda in my area of operations, by the end, they were surrendering to us in droves.

And they were seeking us out to surrender to us rather than the Iraqi army.

Why?

Because we treated them with decency and dignity.

And so I saw the concrete benefits of treating detainees decently in my own deployment.

Right.

We have never, we have never fought a war in total compliance with the laws of war.

There have been individual soldiers and commanders and units that have gone rogue, that have done the wrong thing.

But people were prosecuted as a result of Abu Ghraib.

There have been many war crimes prosecutions.

And then, you know, not all of them are, some are more solid than others, but it really seemed as if even going into the Office of Secretary of Defense that

Hegseth was kind of indiscriminately behind these guys and supporting these guys who'd been accused of war crimes and in some cases convicted.