Washington DC - Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth posted a disturbing image of cartoon character Franklin the Turtle shooting and killing people in boats while smiling gleefully.

Hegseth on Sunday posted a picture on X, captioned "For your Christmas wish list," which showed Franklin taking a ride in a military helicopter while shooting a rocket launcher.

Franklin's targets are a number of people in flimsy boats, wielding assault rifles while protecting large piles of what are assumed to be drugs and money.

The violent image was framed in the same design as the children's books that feature Franklin and featured a title that read "A Classic Franklin Story: Franklin Targets Narco Terrorists."

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Franklin is a character created by Canadian author and journalist Paulette Bourgeois, who wrote the first book while pregnant in the mid-1980s. It has since spawned multiple cartoon shows and even some films.

The post came after a report surfaced last week revealing that the Pentagon "does not know" who it is killing when deciding to bomb boats off the coast of Venezuela and in the East Pacific.

A separate report released over the weekend further claimed that Hegseth ordered a second strike on an alleged drug boat in an attempt to kill all remaining survivors.

Hegseth reportedly gave a vocal order to "kill everybody" when two people were seen clinging to the side of the boat in September.

Both President Donald Trump and Hegseth denied the report, and the Defense Secretary said that "the fake news is delivering more fabricated, inflammatory, and derogatory reporting to discredit our incredible warriors."