For service members, it is not so clear. I reference back to the Wiessman/McCord pod from a week or two ago where they had the former JAG officer on. As a reminder, he was in the command room watching live drone operations. He said that, generally, service members need to trust that their commanders are giving legal orders, unless it is blatant. Blatant such as summary executions. So the service members who did the actual killing here are probably in the clear, according to him, because they have to believe that their commanders are operating on legal orders with legal justification. Saying that, I'm not totally sure that passes the smell test as the explicit act of killing those two survivors is actually listed in the military code of justice (forget the actual name at this moment).
I listened to that one. Felt the JAG (as well as w&m) went out of their way to avoid the obvious….which is the entire chain of command violated their oaths. Far too sympathetic to the military CoCom being put in a “difficult situation “. It wasn’t difficult. That sympathy is somewhat understandable for the first strikes (though I don’t extend that sympathy) but the second one….thay is entirely on bradley and every officer involved in passing it along. and frankly I have no idea if drone operators are officers or enlisted…:but the second strike is so clearly a war crime I don’t care. it wasn’t a hard decision it was the oath you took.
Does this mean they'll uphold their oaths when told to kill other people? Say people living in the US? Citizens?
IIRC, the JAG officer made a comment hedging saying that he was going on what had been reported, which was only on something like day 2 or 3 after the WaPo article. I think he would have a different comment today. Lawfare had one from Wednesday or Thursday that was more wonky. And clarifies some things for me. https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/lawfare-daily--the-duty-to-disobey-unlawful-orders Guests are Frank Rosenblatt, a professor at MC Law and a former U.S. Army Lt. Col and Judge Advocate General in the U.S. Army, and Colby Vokey, former Marine Corps Lt. Col and Judge Advocate General. They also run an legal organization meant to answer questions for military people, and direct them to council if necessary. As I heard this episode, these guys break things down into 4 categories, more or less. Category 1 - the soldiers Category 2 - the superior ranking (officially promoted) officers Category 3 - the JAG officers Category 4 - the civilian commanders For the soldiers, they are supposed to receive yearly training on UCMJ, and get some kind of training prior to going into combat. So they generally know what is line-in-the-sand legal and illegal. But the UCMJ also explicitly says that when this is not a clear line, they are to follow orders of their superior ranking officers, at risk of court martial, or in the extreme, execution. Saying that, there is a higher duty to disobey questionable orders if they come from a civilian. And in this case, the issue is that DOJ (Bondi?) said they were determining the legality of the orders. It also complicates things when Trump has said that these drug runners are terrorists, but had given no guidance or justification to this decision. Further, the guys on the pod also said that the Coast Guard has been extremely effective as stopping narcotics traffickers, and to paraphrase, said the the use of military was performative in terms of effectiveness. Saying that, what is problematic that they both identified that there were JAG officers who objected to the decisions saying the actions were illegal, and were dismissed for somebody who would approve. And that is very problematic specifically considering that the second strike - the one on the two survivors - was textbook illegal, yet the JAG officers supposedly gave the approval. The two guests on the pod didn't say it, but seemed to hint that they were in legal jeopardy. And, IIRC, the two guests said the problem was they were following civilian orders, which were political, and not the UCMJ manual, which is military. One of the two also raised concern (I read that as a lawyer being alarmed) that Bradley was not represented by a JAG officer when he went before Congress. In the pod, these guys give at least 3 examples - in addition to a brief discussion of My Lai - of when it is correct to disobey orders and when it is not. These guys concurred that the killing of two survivors should have been disobeyed at all levels. Regarding the question of the drone operators, I would say that even if they are contractors, if they are in a combat situation, they are just as liable as the soldiers. Perhaps the liability is in a civilian court, and not military, but they are still following military orders and acting in a military context. Sorry if any of this covers things already said somewhere up thread or elsewhere.
They two guys on the Lawfare pod who run that legal org for military people said there has been a significant uptick in calls from people in the military since September. To me, that suggests they don't trust either leadership or JAG decisions. Regarding US citizens, I would guess there are clear lines in the UCMJ of what is allowed and what is not. This is enlisted military, not the National Guard. I think NG have different rules and guidelines since they can operate domestically.
So we don't know if they'll shoot (or not) non citizens if given the order but pretty sure they'd hesitate on citizens. Damn...that's the most messed up version of white privilege I've ever heard.
I'm assuming you are talking about international waters and land as enlisted are not supposed to be deployed on domestic lands and waters (in non-war/non-emergency). Defining that, we do have a history of killing non-Whites when there can be found a justification. If you are talking domestically, citizens or not, they would be treated the same.
Maybe for the first boats or in extreme up to this point in time. From now on according to the public discussion, I am not so sure the soldiers are free to believe their officers "blindly" anymore.
The European purchases of F-35s seem even more absurd than they did a few months ago. I think the events of the last half year should convince everyone that the idea of the D.O.D. ordering Lockheed Martin to halt the upgrade/mission data/logistic support to European-owned F35s is no longer an absurd scenario. How realistic is it for Dassault, Airbus, BAE & co to shorten their development time for the 6th gen systems they are working on? Seems like a rather pressing question.
The Dem on the oversight committee who has seen the video made clear it was simply the murder of 2 guys in the water This would have been apparent to everyone, regardless of what any JAGoff says.
The way this could have been blown open was for someone in the operational chain to have refused to do it citing the illegality in spite of the JAG saying it was legal -- but here's where it gets tricky. The person could be fired but not court-martialed. But if they proceeded with a court-martial, then the legal underpinning of the whole operation would've been put on trial.
Has it been mentioned that Trump has stopped using sign language interpreters? They’re being taken to court for that. They've also renamed an institute that worked on renewable energy. They took out the word renewable. Their ideology is one thing…it’s very bad. But the Oppositional Defiance Disorder that dominates this administration’s thinking is unique in our history.
It probably isn't realistic. The F-35 took a very long time to develop and it was specifically organized from the start to have a short development time (something that probably made things worse). Some of the breakthrough tech needed I'm sure Europe can do (like the engines and communications) but there's a lot where they aren't on the leading edge (like the shape and stealth coatings). There's a lot of software to write. The FCAS (the French, German, and Spanish one) is already in trouble because France (like usual in these projects) wants to mostly do it themselves and keep all the knowledge and profit. The UK, Japan, and Italy one seems to be on target so far.
The reality is that no service member takes the same oath. It's really up to their interpretation of what oath they took. Some are going to view it a certain way, others another way.
In Germany it's discussed to change over to the Japan/UK/Italy project or to start a new cooperation with Sweden. Spain will follow likely. It's very annoying doing stuff with France.
The engineer meeting between Germans, Japan, UK and Italy will be hilarious. Japanese will be there 10 minutes early for a 10am, Germans 5 minutes, while Brits at 10 sharp and Italians 10 minutes after if not 15.
In early Eurofighter development France also tried to take over, and when they were booted from the project they tried to sabotage it despite already working on their own design (which became the Rafale). And I think it's too late to join the GCAP as an equal partner as things have already been divided between the primary countries.