"Don't Give up the Ship"

Say it aint so said:

Lots of elements can effect weeds. One of them is the action that takes place in the clouds.

Be well.

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Looking up at the clouds, you miss the trip wire. Attend to what is in front of you.

Also: When the elephants are dancing, the mice leave the dance floor.

RDKirk said:

A whole flock of general officers retired over the invasion of Iraq...and nobody outside the military noticed. The Army chief of staff got fired pushing back against the invasion of Iraq...and nobody outside the military noticed.

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Yes, no one noticed. We didn't have the media writing about it all the time as if it were illegal to do so. We didn't have congressmen putting out videos suggesting the military personnel didnt have to follow illegal orders.

There were military men who questioned whether or not we should get involved in WWII.

The fact that some may question or wonder should not be a surprise to anyone.

rjs330 said:

Yes, no one noticed. We didn't have the media writing about it all the time as if it were illegal to do so. We didn't have congressmen putting out videos suggesting the military personnel didnt have to follow illegal orders.

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Perhaps they ought to have - all we got were the John Yoo torture memo and the Abu Ghraib prosecutions.

rjs330 said:

There were military men who questioned whether or not we should get involved in WWII.

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People were arrested for pacifism during WWI.

rjs330 said:

The fact that some may question or wonder should not be a surprise to anyone.

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Remember, "Mine is not to question why; mine is but to do or die"?

RDKirk said:

Looking up at the clouds, you miss the trip wire. Attend to what is in front of you.

Also: When the elephants are dancing, the mice leave the dance floor.

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Don't forget that the public perception of all this has been influenced by high-profile war crimes trials in which "we were only following orders" has not been accepted as a defence.

wing2000 said:

To be clear. Our military serves the U.S. Constitution - not the President of the United Sates. The UCMJ clearly indicates military members are to obey lawful orders. Should the President issue an illegal order, military members may disobey the order.

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There is no justification for this behavior. None of these so called leaders define what an unlawful order is . They are only inviting behavior that could lead to court martial. This is Trump hatred on steroids. At the very least all of these traitors should be censured if not removed from the positions they have disrespected by failing to honor their oath.

BCP1928 said:

Don't forget that the public perception of all this has been influenced by high-profile war crimes trials in which "we were only following orders" has not been accepted as a defence.

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I mentioned this earlier, but what a lot of people don't realize is that Germany had already agreed in the Geneva Conventions that actions such as those personnel committed would be considered crimes under German law. They were convicted for actions that were crimes under their own government.

That would be similar to a US soldier today--such as William Calley--committing crimes that the US government had already passed as law by the US, which was the case for Calley.

The point I'm making: These men were convicted for actions that were already specified as criminal in their national legal codes. These men did not have to make any philosophical judgements about their actions.

RDKirk said:

I mentioned this earlier, but what a lot of people don't realize is that Germany had already agreed in the Geneva Conventions that actions such as those personnel committed would be considered crimes under German law. They were convicted for actions that were crimes under their own government.

That would be similar to a US soldier today--such as William Calley--committing crimes that the US government had already passed as law by the US, which was the case for Calley.

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What about the enlisted men who followed Calley's orders?

RDKirk said:

The point I'm making: These men were convicted for actions that were already specified as criminal in their national legal codes. These men did not have to make any philosophical judgements about their actions.

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I don't think that philosophical judgements are being called for and that for most soldiers the problem does not even arise, but it might, and it puts the soldiers themselves in a difficult position. It's not merely a "philosophical position" that a National Guard soldier should not shoot his own unarmed fellow citizens, even they they have gotten away with it in the past.

BCP1928 said:

What about the enlisted men who followed Calley's orders?

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Some of them faced court-martial, but none of them was convicted.

The Calley case was the specific issue that caused the DoD to greatly enhance its Law of Armed Conflict training as I knew it (and taught it) during my career. Immense emphasis was placed on the soldiers understanding what an "illegal order" specifically is, what an "illegal order" would look like in their specific military specialties, and that they had a duty to disobey an illegal order.

For instance, the specific kinds of things that would be criminal in my task of targeting nuclear weapons in a major command headquarters are different from the kinds of things that would be criminal for an infantry soldier in the field.

The military judicial system has some interesting differences from the civilian judicial system, and one of them is that justifiable ignorance of the law is a defense. That's why military leadership advises troops of their duties "nine ways from Sunday and on every Monday," because if the troop can prove his ignorance or confusion was reasonable, he may walk.

In the case of Calley's soldiers, the military courts realized that there was too much confusion of who did what and who knew what in that moment of "fog of war" to convict anyone else.

BCP1928 said:

I don't think that philosophical judgements are being called for and that for most soldiers the problem does not even arise, but it might, and it puts the soldiers themselves in a difficult position. It's not merely a "philosophical position" that a National Guard soldier should not shoot his own unarmed fellow citizens, even they they have gotten away with it in the past.

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I keep saying: You are posting things for which specific laws already exist. There are already specific laws covering "shooting his own unarmed fellow citizens." So, no, that would call for philosophical judgments. Y'all keep doing that. Everything you think of is already covered by existing laws and would be "illegal orders."

My point continues to be: Trump is never going to issue a clearly "illegal order." His lawyers are smarter than that. They are going to nuance the hell out of his orders, so that they will call for philosophical judgments from Corporal Snuffy Smith.