To the editor:

During my 24 years on active duty, I was stationed on ships that were directly involved in Drug Interdiction Operations. We searched, seized, arrested and commandeered. We did not summarily execute. Now Trump is ordering these vessels to be destroyed. This is extra judicial killings as in this country we do not execute suspects regardless of offense without evidence and due process.

Now some in Congress have called on military members to refuse to obey “unlawful orders”. Trump calls this “seditious behavior at the highest level. Each one of these traitors to our Country should be arrested and put on trial.” “Hang them George Washington would!!” “Seditious behavior, punishable by Death!” These words are as usual based on no fact or law. Guidance from The Uniformed Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) which the U.S. Military serves under.

Service members are obligated to obey only lawful orders. They have both a legal and ethical duty to refuse orders that are “manifestly” or “patently” illegal. UCMJ Articles 90 and 92 make it an offense to willfully disobey a lawful command as follows. The duty to obey does not extend to illegal actions. Obeying an order that is clearly illegal offers no defense in a court-martial or war crimes tribunal. The principle of “just following orders” (as established after the Nuremberg Trials) is not a valid excuse. Of Nuremberg’s 177 defendants, 24 were sentenced to death, 20 to lifelong imprisonment, and 98 to long prison terms in many cases.

Generally, orders are presumed to be lawful. The burden of proof to demonstrate the illegality of an order falls on the service member who disobeys it. For an order to be lawfully refused, its illegality must be clear and obvious to a “person of ordinary sense and understanding”. Unlawful orders are defined as those that require the commission of a criminal act or violate the Constitution, U.S. Federal Law, applicable international law, international human rights standards, or the Geneva Conventions. Service members who follow illegal orders can be held liable and court-martialed or subject to prosecution by criminal courts and international tribunals.

David Nelson

Hutchinson