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longweekend58
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Panther wrote on Oct 25 th, 2016 at 4:59pm: Any Military Commander, any serviceman for that matter, in any branch of the US Military does not have to blindly obey the direct orders of the President of the United States of America.........because of one extremely important reason, he is under a solemn oath to only obey "Legal" orders, & must, by his oath, disobey an "Unlawful" order....
A Duty to Disobey All Unlawful Orders ......... The military oath taken at the time of induction reads: “I,____________, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to the regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God”
The Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) 809.ART.90 (20), makes it clear that military personnel need to obey the “lawful command of his superior officer,” 891.ART.91 (2), the “lawful order of a warrant officer”, 892.ART.92 (1) the “lawful general order”, 892.ART.92 (2) “lawful order”. In each case, military personnel have an obligation and a duty to only obey Lawful orders and indeed have an obligation to disobey Unlawful orders, including orders by the president that do not comply with the UCMJ. The moral and legal obligation is to the U.S. Constitution and not to those who would issue unlawful orders, especially if those orders are in direct violation of the Constitution and the UCMJ.During the Iran-Contra hearings of 1987, Senator Daniel Inouye of Hawaii, a decorated World War II veteran and hero, told Lt. Col. Oliver North that North was breaking his oath when he blindly followed the commands of Ronald Reagan. As Inouye stated, “The uniform code makes it abundantly clear that it must be the Lawful orders of a superior officer. In fact it says, ‘Members of the military have an obligation to disobey unlawful orders.’ This principle was considered so important that we-we, the government of the United States, proposed that it be internationally applied in the Nuremberg trials.” (Bill Moyers, “The Secret Government”, Seven Locks Press; also in the PBS 1987 documentary, “The Secret Government: The Constitution in Crisis”) Senator Inouye was referring to the Nuremberg trials in the post WW II era, when the U.S. tried Nazi war criminals and did not allow them to use the reason or excuse that they were only “following orders” as a defense for their war crimes which resulted in the deaths of millions of innocent men, women, and children. “In 1953, the Department of Defense adopted the principles of the Nuremberg Code as official policy” of the United States. (Hasting Center Report, March-April 1991).................. Please note, the oath specifically says he must support & defend the US Constitution.....as his first obligation, to obey the US Constitution, not any person, officer, Country, State, or Congressional Committee.  I know what you are saying, but in reality, 'legal' is largely what the President orders with some obvious exceptions. Shooting unarmed civilians is clearly a breach, but that is not really what we are talking about. The orders merely have to be legal. They dont have to be moral, ethical or correct. That doesnt leave an awful lot of wiggle room. Other than clearly unconscionable and illegal orders, I would expect the military to follow all orders largely because, the alternative is worse such as endless coups in dozens of countries.
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