(Dobbs) “You must refuse illegal orders"Donald Trump is a traitor to principles that over the years, despite some exceptions, have kept America’s moral standing high.
Maybe with the direction we’re going with the war in Iran, it’s time to bring back that video recorded back in November by six members of Congress, including Senator Mark Kelly, the video that spoke to every member of the military, from private to general, telling them, “You must refuse illegal orders. No one has to carry out orders that violate the law or our Constitution.” They made the video and spread it on social media after the United States started carrying out extrajudicial executions with no due process against suspected narcotics smugglers in the Pacific and the Caribbean. For the record, 47 boats have been sunk and 163 men on board have been killed. The administration has never shown us proof of anything. The president called the six members of Congress who made the video, all military or intelligence veterans, “TRAITORS” in one post, then in a later post called their message “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH.” Maybe it’s time to bring back the video because with the kinds of threats the president is now making against Iran, the same message needs to reach every soldier, every sailor, every airman deployed to the war: “You must refuse illegal orders.” They need to know that if they commit a war crime, “I was only acting on orders“ is no defense. Nazis learned about that at the Nuremberg trials after World War II. The principle comes from the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which is the foundation of federal law governing the behavior of our armed forces. It says that while members of the military are required to follow lawful orders whether they agree with them or not, they also have the right, and in fact are required, not to follow “manifestly unlawful orders,” because their oath is to the Constitution, not to the president. They have that right, they have that duty. The only thing the six in Congress were doing was restating the law. It needs to be restated yet again because in his profane and raving missive on Easter morning, our no-class president told Iran’s government, “Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell — JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah.” If his advisors have actually explained to him the international rules of armed conflicts, which say that deliberately and indiscriminately striking infrastructure on which a civilian population depends would be a war crime, they were wasting their breath. They might as well be explaining it to Vladimir Putin. Frankly though, looking at the list of lapdogs who advise him, I wouldn’t guess anyone brought it up. If they didn’t, he’d have no way of knowing the rules because with his bone spurs, he never took that course. His secretary of defense needs to bone up on international law too. At a Pentagon briefing about the Iran war about two weeks after it started, Pete Hegseth told reporters, “We will keep pushing, keep advancing, no quarter, no mercy for our enemies.” That too is considered a war crime, even just making such a statement that suggests your soldiers will target enemy combatants who are wounded or trying to surrender, rather than giving them “quarter.” The Hague and Geneva conventions forbid it. So do the Pentagon’s own rules about warfare. Not that Donald Trump, or Hegseth, has ever shown signs that they are constrained by the law. But if they commit war crimes— perhaps beyond carpet-bombing Iranian cities and invading sovereign nations— they will be in the company of other evil luminaries in recent history like the former president of Sudan, Omar al-Bashir, the former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, the former leader of Libya, Muammar Gaddafi, and since the Gaza war, the prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu. And of course Putin, the butcher of Ukraine. What nice company our American leaders might keep. It puts some heft behind this hopeful t-shirt. Yesterday, at his White House news conference, Trump said Iran “could be taken out in one night, and that night might be tomorrow night,” which is now tonight. He set a deadline of 8 p.m. Eastern time, which is 3:30 a.m. Wednesday morning in Iran. Who knows whether this erratic and dangerously desperate president will follow through. And who knows whether, when he told a reporter earlier yesterday, “If I had my choice, I’d keep the oil” but then said, “Unfortunately the American people would like to see us come home,” it was a hint that he’ll use public opinion, so negative about the war, as an excuse to declare victory and pull back from the brink.Share I don’t want to end this column without praising the cleverness and courage of the armed forces personnel who rescued the two U.S. airmen who were shot down Friday. Between their tricks of decoys and deceptions to throw off the Iranians, and the risks of exposing themselves to ground fire by flying low over enemy territory, they were heroic. But I also don’t want to end it without repeating an important line from that November video: “The threats to our Constitution aren’t just coming from abroad but from right here at home. Our laws are clear.” Donald Trump is a traitor to principles that over the years, despite some exceptions, have kept America’s moral standing high. It is up to our soldiers and sailors and airmen in the war zone today to keep it there. They can do that by heeding the message from the video: “You must refuse illegal orders. No one has to carry out orders that violate the law or our Constitution.” |