{"id":56713,"date":"2025-12-17T05:15:48","date_gmt":"2025-12-17T13:15:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/?p=56713"},"modified":"2025-12-17T05:15:48","modified_gmt":"2025-12-17T13:15:48","slug":"whos-responsible-when-a-military-order-is-illegal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2025\/12\/17\/whos-responsible-when-a-military-order-is-illegal\/","title":{"rendered":"Who’s Responsible When a Military Order Is Illegal?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Originally appeared at TomDispatch<\/a>:<\/em><\/p>\n

Any story about resistance within the military must begin by recognizing that it\u2019s not an easy thing to do. Apparently, that\u2019s true even for a much-decorated retired Navy commander, former astronaut, and sitting United States senator. I\u2019m talking about Arizona Senator\u00a0Mark Kelly<\/a>. He was one of six Democratic legislators, all military veterans or former intelligence officers, who, on November 18th, released a 90-second\u00a0video<\/a>\u00a0reminding members of the military that the oath they took on enlisting requires them to refuse illegal orders. The implicit context was the Trump administration\u2019s deployment of National Guard troops to American cities, but their message took on added urgency after the\u00a0Washington Post<\/em>\u00a0published an\u00a0expos\u00e9<\/a>\u00a0about an order coming from high up to kill survivors of an airstrike in the Caribbean Sea.<\/p>\n

Michigan Senator\u00a0Elissa Slotkin<\/a>, who served in the CIA, on the National Security Council, and at the Defense Department, and had three tours of duty as a CIA analyst in Iraq, spearheaded the action. She was joined by Kelly; Pennsylvania Representatives\u00a0Chrissy Houlahan<\/a> (former Air Force captain) and\u00a0Chris Deluzio<\/a>\u00a0(former Navy lieutenant with one tour in Iraq); New Hampshire Representative\u00a0Maggie Goodlander<\/a> (Navy Reserve lieutenant, intelligence); and Colorado Representative Jason Crow<\/a>\u00a0(Army Ranger, three tours in Iraq).<\/p>\n

Speaking directly to the camera, their voices imbued with sincerity, the six stated their affiliations, noted the precariousness of what the military is being asked to do in the second\u00a0presidency\u00a0of Donald Trump, and repeated their duty-to-refuse refrain, ending with a rousing, \u201cDon\u2019t give up the ship!\u201d It was pretty straightforward stuff and, except for a few digs at the administration, an\u00a0accurate\u00a0statement of legal fact<\/a>.<\/p>\n

On enlistment, everyone in the military takes an\u00a0oath<\/a>\u00a0of loyalty not to a person, a party, or any form of politics, but to the Constitution. Enlistees in all branches also pledge to obey orders from their officers and the president. As stipulated in the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), it\u2019s clear that this means\u00a0only\u00a0lawful<\/em>\u00a0orders. Officers take a slightly different oath: they, too, swear to support and defend the Constitution, but their oath doesn\u2019t include anything about obeying orders from their superiors or the president, presumably because they\u2019re responsible for giving orders and ensuring that those orders are lawful. Officers reaffirm their oath whenever they\u2019re promoted. Across the board,\u00a0the\u00a0UCMJ, the Nuremberg Principles, and the U.S. Constitution\u00a0establish the right and responsibility of servicemembers to refuse illegal orders or to refuse to participate in illegal wars, war crimes, or unconstitutional deployments.<\/p>\n

The Straight-Speaking Six<\/strong><\/p>\n

Never one to bother with legal niceties,\u00a0Donald\u00a0Trump (commander-in-chief,\u00a0no\u00a0military service) quickly denounced the video on\u00a0Truth Social<\/a>\u00a0as \u201cSEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR AT THE HIGHEST LEVEL,\u201d adding, \u201cEach one of these traitors to our Country should be ARRESTED AND PUT ON TRIAL.\u201d\u00a0He also\u00a0posted<\/a>: \u201cSEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!\u201d He then backtracked on the death threat on Fox\u2019s \u201cBrian Kilmeade Show<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Members of his administration followed Trump\u2019s lead with ever more strident outrage<\/a>. Within days, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth (former\u00a0Army National Guard\u00a0major, one tour each in Afghanistan and Iraq) called the lawmakers the \u201cSeditious Six.\u201d He then began to\u00a0investigate Kelly<\/a>, threatening to recall him to active duty so that he could be court-martialed for misconduct.<\/p>\n

He went after Kelly because, as a retired military officer, he\u2019s the only one of the six who could still fall under the military\u2019s jurisdiction. Nonetheless, it\u2019s unusual, to say the least, for a secretary of defense (oops, war<\/a>!) to think about punishing an officer so long after he\u00a0has retired. Meanwhile, the FBI began investigating all six of those legislators. (Consider it unlikely indeed, however, that the FBI will also investigate the\u00a0death threats<\/a>\u00a0the six have received.)<\/p>\n

Less half-baked responses came from places like\u00a0Military.com<\/a>, which criticized the legislators for attempting to politicize the military by bypassing the chain of command and speaking directly to the troops, while not citing specific examples of illegal orders and so potentially confusing them. If true, this wouldn\u2019t be the first time this country\u2019s troops were confused by orders. As a Marine sergeant\u00a0testified<\/a>\u00a0at the 2008 Winter Soldier hearings, \u201cDuring the siege of Fallujah [in\u00a0Iraq], we changed rules of engagement more often then we changed our underwear.\u201d As for politicizing the military, you need look no further than\u00a0the\u00a0Trump version of political theater \u2014\u00a0National Guard deployments<\/a>\u00a0to Democratic-run cities on his shitlist.<\/p>\n

The straight-speaking six and their supporters were anything but cowed by the accusations. In a\u00a0joint response<\/a>\u00a0to the president, they proclaimed their love for this country and fealty to the Constitution before concluding, \u201cOur servicemembers should know that we have their backs as they fulfill their oath to the Constitution and obligation to follow only lawful orders. It is not only the right thing to do, but also our duty\u2026 This is a time for moral clarity.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a\u00a0town hall<\/a>\u00a0in Tucson, Kelly said of Trump and Hegseth, \u201cThey\u2019re not serious people and I\u2019m not backing down.\u201d At the University of Pittsburgh (repeatedly designated a Military Friendly School), someone projected pictures of the six legislators onto its landmark 42-story\u00a0Cathedral of Learning<\/a>\u00a0under the message, \u201cThis is what courage looks like.\u201d<\/p>\n

It might normally seem unlikely that Kelly could be punished for such constitutionally protected speech, a\u00a0protection<\/a>\u00a0particularly robust for members of Congress. Unfortunately, \u201cunlikely\u201d could be considered the Trump administration\u2019s middle name and, by now we should have learned that, in\u00a0this political moment, anything\u00a0is\u00a0possible.<\/p>\n

Playing armchair psychologist, I have no idea if\u00a0Trump\u00a0really believes that video to be seditious or if he even knows what actually constitutes sedition. I doubt it matters to him. For whatever reason \u2014 distraction? attention-grabbing? meat for his base? unbridled id? \u2014 he used that video to effectively change the subject, while a pliant media and public largely went along with him. In the process, he managed to refocus attention (yet again) on himself and his minions at the \u2014 yes, War, not Defense \u2013 Department,\u00a0and the Department of (In)Justice, and\u00a0on\u00a0protected versus seditious speech, as well as courageous versus outrageous politicians. Take your pick, just don\u2019t talk about what members of the military are being asked to do\u00a0these days\u00a0and how they might themselves think about such orders.<\/p>\n

Worth the Risk?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Joy Metzler, a 24-year-old graduate of the Air Force Academy, left the military as a conscientious objector this past April. She credits two required courses on law and ethics at the Academy for leading her to first question and then conclude that she couldn\u2019t support her country\u2019s role in the then-ongoing genocide in Gaza. \u201cThe thought of being given an order that was illegal or unconstitutional was almost unthinkable to me at the time, I just didn\u2019t think it happened,\u201d she emailed me recently. \u201cLine officers, low ranks, sure \u2014 from people who didn\u2019t understand the law \u2014 but I never imagined one would come from the president or the secretary of defense.\u201d<\/p>\n

How much time and attention are given to the legal and moral intricacies of war-making no doubt varies from branch to branch, unit to unit, commander to commander of the military. Whatever enlistees or officers are taught about resisting illegal orders is, of course, wildly outweighed by what they\u2019re taught about the need to obey orders, which is inculcated into them until it becomes a reflexive response. Military units aren\u2019t debating societies for good reason and military\u00a0training\u00a0strongly discourages disobedience of any sort, but even more to the point, what is or isn\u2019t legal isn\u2019t necessarily clear-cut.<\/p>\n

Military law can hold servicemembers accountable for participating in illegal actions, even if they were following orders.\u00a0Nonetheless, a\u00a0recent\u00a0survey<\/a>\u00a0found that, while four out of five active-duty troops understand their obligation to disobey illegal orders, they are far less clear on what orders they would disobey. \u201cStarving [a] civilian population\u201d or \u201cshooting unarmed civilians\u201d were cited most often as orders \u201cso obviously unlawful\u201d that they would be disobeyed,\u00a0but by only 43% and 45% of those responding to each possibility. Yet, when asked if they would follow an order \u201cto shoot into a crowd of unarmed civilians protesting U.S. government policy and refusing to disperse,\u201d 59% said they would.<\/p>\n

Civil courts have waffled and disagreed about whether recent orders to the military are legal and the Trump administration has been known to ignore rulings that go against it. For instance, assessments of the legality of sending National Guard troops from different states into\u00a0Chicago<\/a>,\u00a0Los Angeles<\/a>,\u00a0Memphis<\/a>,\u00a0Portland (Oregon), <\/a>and\u00a0Washington, D.C.<\/a>\u00a0have changed almost weekly.\u00a0And while legal experts generally agree that the airstrikes on what may or may not be drug-running boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific Ocean are illegal under international law, Congress is just beginning to dip its toe into the issue.\u00a0If the courts and Congress can\u2019t figure all this out, imagine the risk for servicemembers, especially in the lower ranks, trying to do so on their own.<\/p>\n

Ready Response Team Veterans<\/strong><\/p>\n

While in uniform, service members have limited speech rights and\u00a0the\u00a0military\u00a0generally suppresses\u00a0dissent, so veterans are in a far better position to question military policy.\u00a0Veterans For Peace (VFP)<\/a>\u00a0used the uproar over the lawmakers\u2019 video to\u00a0reinforce its opposition<\/a> to\u00a0the\u00a0murderous\u00a0airstrikes in the Caribbean, genocide in Gaza, and the deployment of troops to American cities. They and other veteran-related organizations have long been pushing back at iffy, illegal, or immoral orders, often by committing disobedience of the civil kind. Here is a distinctly incomplete rundown of some of their actions.<\/p>\n

On Easter Sunday 2024, VFP member\u00a0Larry Hebert<\/a>, an Air Force senior airman then on active duty in Spain, began a hunger strike in front of the White House to protest U.S. support for Israel\u2019s war in Gaza. He was inspired by the resolve of\u00a0Aaron Bushnell<\/a>, also an active-duty airman, who had set himself on fire at the Israeli embassy in Washington, D.C., the month before to protest that nightmare. When Hebert was ordered back to his base, two VFP members took his place. As the barbarity in Gaza progressed, antiwar veterans continued their opposition in\u00a0the People\u2019s Arms Embargo<\/a>, a series of protests blocking entrances to Travis Air Force Base in California, where planes were taking off to deliver weapons to Israel.\u00a0Twelve people were arrested at a protest there on April 9th of this year.<\/p>\n

Next came a 40-day\u00a0Fast for Gaza<\/a>, which ended this past Memorial Day. That protest grew out of a conversation between two veteran activists, Mike Ferner, a Navy corpsman during the Vietnam era, and Phil Tottenham, who had served in the Marines more recently. VFP took up the idea and 38 other organizations joined in to demand full humanitarian aid for Gaza and an end to U.S. weapons deliveries to Israel. About 800 people took part\u00a0in\u00a0the fast around the country, while a handful of regulars staged a hunger strike outside the U.S. Mission to the United Nations. That fast culminated in a \u201cdie-in<\/a>\u201d at the Israeli mission in New York City, where 28 people were arrested, after which Ferner threw barely defrosted,\u00a0bright red cow\u2019s blood on a window at the American U.N. mission. He, too, got arrested.<\/p>\n

When Trump made good on his threats to send National Guard troops into American cities,\u00a0these\u00a0actions expanded to include resistance there. In September, aiming to speak directly to active-duty, reserve, and National Guard personnel, the progressive foreign policy coalition\u00a0Win Without War<\/a>\u00a0launched a new project,\u00a0Not What You Signed Up For<\/a>. That project began with a mobile billboard and posters in Washington, D.C., asking, \u201cIs this what you signed up for?\u201d and directing anyone with questions or misgivings to a website listing three counseling and support organizations:\u00a0About Face: Veterans Against the War<\/a>, the\u00a0GI Rights Hotline<\/a>, and the National Lawyers Guild\u2019s\u00a0Military Law Task Force<\/a>. Billboards subsequently went up near Fort Bragg and Camp Lejeune in North Carolina and near U.S. Southern Command headquarters in Florida, among other places.\u00a0In the project\u2019s\u00a0first month,\u00a0the accompanying\u00a0resource webpage<\/a> got about 8,000 unique visitors. By November, it was nearly 20,000. About Face Organizing Director Brittany DeBarros says that she alone spoke with more than 100 active servicemembers looking for support this year.<\/p>\n

In June, on the eve of the nationwide No Kings protests\u00a0and the costly\u00a0Trump birthday celebration<\/a>\u00a0(also known as the\u00a0Army\u2019s 250th anniversary parade<\/a>), members of VFP and About Face, ranging in age from their 20s to 87, held a\u00a0sit-in<\/a>\u00a0on the steps of the U.S. Capitol to protest Trump\u2019s National Guard deployments. About 60 of them were charged with crossing a police line and arrested, including that 87 year old.<\/p>\n

Which takes us to this Veterans Day, when military-affiliated and\u00a0labor\u00a0union antiwar groups organized their own celebrations under the banner \u201cVets Say No,\u201d as protests against the administration\u2019s use (and misuse) of the military only continued to grow. Crowds gathered in cities around the country, including in\u00a0Washington, D.C.<\/a>\u00a0and a frigid\u00a0Boston<\/a>.<\/p>\n

While this isn\u2019t yet enough to constitute a trend, let alone a movement of resistance within the military, it gives that controversy over the video of those Democratic legislators a necessary (and under-reported) context. It also suggests at least one reason why President Trump was so eager to deflect attention from the import of their message.<\/p>\n

Of course, what he said in response to them wasn\u2019t just meant to change the subject. It was typical of his usual intolerance of any challenge to his version of authority. And I don\u2019t mean to minimize the importance of what those Democrat politicians did either. Though they\u2019re only a handful of the 98 veterans in Congress and in the minority party, they have the standing to be heard, including among their colleagues. It\u2019s possible, for instance, that their outspokenness lent both cover and courage to other legislators on both sides of the aisle\u00a0to question<\/a>, as they recently did, the legality of the military\u2019s\u00a0murky and\u00a0wildly destructive acts off the Venezuelan coast.<\/p>\n

What I want to do here is refocus attention on the underlying message in that video from congressional representatives and its significance for enlistees, reservists, and part-time military members: that they have the power \u2014 as individuals and supportive groups \u2014 to resist what they know to be wrong. Admittedly, doing so will be anything but easy. It\u00a0may\u00a0be scary,\u00a0confusing,\u00a0and\u00a0lonely. But simply recognizing that you have the legal capacity to do what\u2019s right is no small thing. It may even help protect servicemembers against the soul-crushing transgression of one\u2019s innate moral code that has come to be known as \u201cmoral injury.\u201d<\/p>\n

When military members have claimed such power and refused blind military obedience \u2014 during the Vietnam War and the post-9\/11 wars in Afghanistan and Iraq \u2014 it has had a significant impact on this country\u2019s politics and policies, as well as on individual lives.\u00a0But of course, the responsibility doesn\u2019t fall only to the people in our military. Maybe we could all join in on a chorus or two of\u00a0doin\u2019-the-right-thing rag.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2025 Nan Levinson<\/p>\n

Nan Levinson’s most recent book is\u00a0War Is Not a Game: The New Antiwar Soldiers and the Movement They Built<\/a><\/em>. A\u00a0TomDispatch<\/em>\u00a0regular<\/a>, she taught journalism and fiction writing at Tufts University.<\/p>\n

Follow\u00a0TomDispatch\u00a0on\u00a0Twitter<\/a>\u00a0and join us on\u00a0Facebook<\/a>. Check out the newest Dispatch Books, John Feffer\u2019s new dystopian\u00a0novel,\u00a0<\/em>Songlands<\/a>\u00a0(the final one in his Splinterlands series),\u00a0Beverly Gologorsky\u2019s novel\u00a0<\/em>Every Body Has a Story<\/a>,\u00a0and Tom Engelhardt\u2019s\u00a0<\/em>A Nation Unmade by War<\/a>, as well as Alfred McCoy\u2019s\u00a0<\/em>In the Shadows of the American Century: The Rise and Decline of U.S. Global Power<\/a>, John Dower\u2019s\u00a0<\/em>The Violent American Century: War and Terror Since World War II<\/a>, and Ann Jones\u2019s<\/em> They Were Soldiers: How the Wounded Return from America\u2019s Wars: The Untold Story<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Originally appeared at TomDispatch: Any story about resistance within the military must begin by recognizing that it\u2019s not an easy thing to do. Apparently, that\u2019s true even for a much-decorated retired Navy commander, former astronaut, and sitting United States senator. I\u2019m talking about Arizona Senator\u00a0Mark Kelly. He was one of six Democratic legislators, all military […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":686,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"coauthors":[1376],"class_list":["post-56713","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"meta_box":{"disable_donate_message":"0","custom_donate_message":"","subtitle":"Don't Ask Donald Trump!"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56713","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/686"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56713"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56713\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":56717,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56713\/revisions\/56717"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56713"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=56713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}