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Trump would order troops to commit war crimes

JuliefromOhio

JuliefromOhio

President
Supporting Member
Donald Trump doesn’t simply disdain the law and U.S. military values; his avowed commitment to ordering war crimes disqualifies him from leading our men and women in uniform.

He has proudly stated that “torture works” and said he would “bring back a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding.” He has also declared that he would deliberately bomb civilian relatives of Islamic State terrorists, rationalizing that such action would be acceptable since they are family members.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2016/03/03/donald-trump-commander-in-chief-war-crimes-military-torture-civilian-targeting-column/81271916/

Not that that would matter to Trump's fans.
 
Arkady

Arkady

President
Rouge Rover said:
It doesn't matter. The military will not follow an unlawful order.
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That, obviously, matters. He would be putting military personnel in a position where they essentially have to mutiny in order to avoid becoming war criminals. It's not going to be a good thing for morale or discipline if the military is in open defiance of its CinC. I agree they'd be morally compelled to resist, and if the order were clearly illegal the courts should protect them when they do. But it's still a recipe for national disaster for the president to be ordering our soldiers to commit war crimes, whether or not they obey.
 
Caroljo

Caroljo

Senator
Trump's all talk. There's no way he would get this passed to begin with. He'd never have the support for this, so it's really not an issue.
 
R

Rouge Rover

Mayor
Arkady said:
That, obviously, matters. He would be putting military personnel in a position where they essentially have to mutiny in order to avoid becoming war criminals. It's not going to be a good thing for morale or discipline if the military is in open defiance of its CinC. I agree they'd be morally compelled to resist, and if the order were clearly illegal the courts should protect them when they do. But it's still a recipe for national disaster for the president to be ordering our soldiers to commit war crimes, whether or not they obey.
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Courts have nothing to do with it. Bombing innocent civilians is something no one would do in the military, the order would be refused immediately if it were issued.
 
Arkady

Arkady

President
Caroljo said:
Trump's all talk. There's no way he would get this passed to begin with. He'd never have the support for this, so it's really not an issue.
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He doesn't need support. If he's elected, he'd be commander in chief. He could order the bombing of civilian relatives of terrorists, and the military would be forced either to become war criminals or to openly defy a direct order from their commander in chief. We can avoid that possibility simply enough by making sure Trump never gets to the White House. He has told us straight up what he plans to do. It's now our moral responsibility to make sure he doesn't get in a position to do it.
 
Arkady

Arkady

President
Rouge Rover said:
Courts have nothing to do with it. Bombing innocent civilians is something no one would do in the military, the order would be refused immediately if it were issued.
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You're talking about a member of the military directly defying the order of his commander in chief. Of course courts have something to do with it. He can be brought up on charges for defying an order, and will need to offer the defense that the order was illegal, and then a court would need to rule on whether it was.

Also, just to be clear, the US military has very frequently bombed civilians. Usually when we did so we at least had some argument, however weak, that the civilians were just collateral damage in an attack on military assets (e.g., Nagasaki), or assets that were helping the war effort (Dresden). If Trump were to order targeted strikes specifically on known civilians, that would be something new, I believe, but presumably if he were to enact his promised terrorist campaign against the families of terrorists, he'd do so in more of a gray-area way -- e.g., arguing that a particular village was acting as a key asset to the terrorists and then citing precedents like Dresden to excuse wiping it off the map. At that point, the soldiers would need to decide whether to risk court martial and maybe life in prison by refusing the order, or risk becoming war criminals by obeying it.
 
Caroljo

Caroljo

Senator
Arkady said:
He doesn't need support. If he's elected, he'd be commander in chief. He could order the bombing of civilian relatives of terrorists, and the military would be forced either to become war criminals or to openly defy a direct order from their commander in chief. We can avoid that possibility simply enough by making sure Trump never gets to the White House. He has told us straight up what he plans to do. It's now our moral responsibility to make sure he doesn't get in a position to do it.
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I believe our Military WOULD defy those orders. Just because he's CIC doesn't mean he can't be stopped. Just ordering something like this I would think would get him impeached. I'm hoping if he is elected that his running mate is someone we wanted as President in the first place :)
 
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