I am appalled that your newspaper should print the Associated Press story “Pentagon says it’s investigating Sen. Mark Kelly over video urging troops to defy ‘illegal orders’ ” (Nov. 24, TribLive). Six Congress members — unlike President Trump, veterans all — issued a video telling soldiers they did not have to obey illegal orders. Trump called them “seditious,” even though they were only repeating a rule found in our own Universal Code of Military Justice and in U.S. and international law. That principle came out during the Nuremberg Trial after World War II and was affirmed in the 1962 prosecution of Adolf Eichmann, who directed the logistics of the Holocaust. It means that a soldier cannot commit war crimes then escape justice by saying they were “only following orders.”
The prohibition against obeying illegal orders was designed to prevent two main crimes above all. First, militaries cannot overthrow their own duly elected governments by force. Second, militaries cannot turn their guns on their fellow citizens. Both are illegal and to be disobeyed — even if ordered to do so.
Trump’s anger at the six Congress members is likely because he has tried to do both: on Jan. 6 and through ICE raids. Trump wants to call on the Army if the Democrats take over Congress next year. The Associated Press was unable to make these connections. Instead the anonymous writer at the AP personally attacked the Congress members, “who are seen as possible future aspirants for higher office and elevated their political profiles with the video’s wide exposure.” As journalism, that is a disgrace.
Robert Supansic
McKeesport