The Hill is out with a piece reporting on the members of the military beginning to worry about being given orders to carry out that maybe Illegal…..
With warnings from Sen Mark Kelley about ‘Not following’ illegal orders and Defense Sec Hegseth making fun of giving orders that could be ‘War Crime’ action?
And Hegseth lying about giving the order to the President?
What do the Troops Do?
Even as a reported Justice Department classified memo from this summer preemptively argued that U.S. troops involved in the strikes would not be in legal jeopardy, service members appear far more concerned than usual that the U.S. military may be opening them up to legal harm, according to Frank Rosenblatt, president of the National Institute of Military Justice, which runs the Orders Project…
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They have questions, because this didn’t come up before. This was never an issue throughout both administrations of the global war on terror in Iraq or Afghanistan. No one ever came down and said, ‘You’re immunized for any potential crimes you commit,’” Rosenblatt told The Hill of the increase in calls to his organization. Established in 2020, he said such “activity was generally very low until three months ago.”
“I think most people knew they did their jobs faithfully and didn’t do things that are beyond the pale, like executing civilians, that they would be OK and wouldn’t be prosecuted. So now to have this immunity as part of the discussion really tends to chill people and make them ask, ‘What the heck’s going on? What is it that I might be asked to do?’” he added.…
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The situation also comes as Trump has sparred with six congressional Democrats over a video from last month reminding service members that they can defy illegal military orders. Trump has called for the lawmakers — who all have military or national security backgrounds — to face arrest and trial for what he called “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!”
But lawmakers from both parties, as well as former officials, have raised alarms that Hegseth may have committed a war crime. Included among them is former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta,who said Monday he doesn’t “think there’s any question” the second U.S. strike on the alleged drug boat was a war crime.
Service members are worried about the same possibility, according to Rosenblatt, who said call activity to the Orders Project was “generally very low until three months ago,” when the Trump administration began targeting alleged drug-carrying boats. The administration has disclosed 21 strikes that have killed at least 83 people.
More….
*Update…
Hegseth trying to throwe the admoiral involved ‘under the bus’?
Do we have a ‘cover up’ for Hegseth in the response to Congress?
Hegseth, with White House help, tries to distance himself from boat strike fallout
Officials in Congress and the Pentagon said Monday they are increasingly concerned that the Trump administration intends to scapegoat the military officer who directed U.S. forces to kill two survivors of a targeted strike on suspected drug smugglers in Latin America, as lawmakers made initial moves to investigate whether the attack constituted a war crime….
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When two survivors were detected, the military commander overseeing the operation, Adm. Frank M. Bradley, directed another strike to comply with Hegseth’s order that no one be left alive, people with direct knowledge of the matter told The Post. The Trump administration has said 11 people were killed as a result of the operation.
Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, acknowledgedMonday that Hegseth had authorized Bradley to conduct the strikes on Sept. 2. Bradley, she added, “worked well within his authority and the law, directing the engagement to ensure the boat was destroyed.”…
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Legal experts have said that the survivors killed in the strike did not pose an imminent threat to U.S. personnel and thus were illegitimate targets — even under the Trump administration’s controversial legal defense of the strikes.
On Saturday, a group of former military lawyers and senior leaders who have scrutinized the Trump administration’s military activities in Latin America said in a statement that the targeting of defenseless people is prohibited — regardless of whether the United States is in an armed conflict, conducting law enforcement or other military operations…
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Still, the Defense Department has privately acknowledged to lawmakersthat nearly all of the strikes have targeted suspected shipments ofcocaine — rather than fentanyl, the leading cause of U.S. overdose deaths. Moreover, most of the narcotics moved through the Caribbean are headed toward Europe and Western Africa rather than the United States.
Lawmakers on the Armed Services committees — including top Republicans — have criticized the administration for withholding information related to the strikes and the legal arguments supporting them….
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In October, Wicker and Reed published two letters they had sent to the Pentagon weeks earlier requesting the videos and orders documenting the boat strikes, which so far have killed more than 80 people. To date, the Pentagon has not complied — a delay that has surpassed the time required by law for the administration to respond to Congress, said a congressional aide.
Those materials would shed light on the Sept. 2 strike….
Note….
If the reporting is true, it would appear the U.S. military violated Section 5.4.7 of the Defense Department’s Law of War Manual (PDF), which states “it is prohibited to order that legitimate offers of surrender will be refused or that detainees, such as unprivileged belligerents, will be summarily executed.” The manual continues, “Moreover, it is also prohibited to conduct hostilities on the basis that there shall be no survivors, or to threaten the adversary with the denial of quarter. This rule is based on both humanitarian and military considerations. This rule also applies during non-international armed conflict.”
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