Harry Litman - The 6 Democrats' Video Is Accurate and Necessary

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

EDITOR’S NOTE:
This is the first in a two-part series examining the legal and constitutional issues raised by the administration’s lethal boat strikes in the Caribbean—and its escalating efforts to investigate six Members of Congress who accurately restated the military’s own rules for dealing with patently illegal orders. Part One explains why the lawmakers’ message is legally sound, and the emerging evidence that the strike was a war crime. Part Two turns to the administration’s retaliatory response and situates it in the long American pattern of overreach in moments of perceived crisis.

The crisis exposed by the Trinidad strike is not just what U.S. forces may have done in the water. It’s what the administration did on land.

The short video released last week by six current and former service members now serving in Congress was striking for its restraint. In calm, matter-of-fact tones, the six reminded their fellow service members of a bedrock rule: lawful orders must be obeyed; patently illegal orders must not be. They did not tell anyone to disobey the Commander in Chief. They did not brand any particular directive unlawful. They simply restated what every officer learns early in training: an order that directs the commission of a crime is not merely questionable — it is one a service member has an affirmative duty to refuse.

That principle is woven into the Department of Defense Law of War manual, which specifies that “responsible commanders are required to decline to carry out orders that are contrary to the law of war.” As Senator Mark Kelly, one of the six and a former Navy combat pilot, put it plainly: “If orders are illegal, not only do they not have to follow them — they are legally required not to follow them.”

https://harrylitman.substack.com/p/the-6-democrats-video-is-accurate