Rep. Duncan Hunter, speaking out in support of Green Beret Major Matthew Golsteyn, who faces charges of murdering a suspected Taliban bomb maker in 2010, said he thinks the case is a matter of what the government would call "compassionate combat."
"The U.S. government in the last five years under President (George W.) Bush and crystallized under President (Barack) Obama wanted us to kill the bad guys, but in the right way," the California Republican, a U.S. Marine Corps combat veteran, told Fox News' "Fox and Friends."
"They wanted us to kill guys compassionately and only under the rules of engagement that they say if you kill the bad guys, that we actually say are bad guys, the wrong way, the U.S. government is going to try you for murder and put you in jail, even if you are a decorated Green Beret or Navy SEAL," Hunter added. "That's the umbrella that all this falls under."
President Donald Trump has said he is reviewing the case, but Hunter said he's not spoken with him.
"Our job is to close with, to destroy the enemy through fire and close combat," said Hunter. "That's it. If you don't like how we do that and if we kill the bad guys the wrong way, that makes the lawyers upset, or the bureaucrats upset or the business people upset, then maybe we should pull out of Iraq, pull out of Afghanistan and pull out of Syria."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.