Summary
Top Republican senators are calling for an investigation into the Signal leak scandal after senior Trump administration officials accidentally added a journalist to a chat discussing military strikes on Yemen.
National security adviser Mike Waltz took responsibility, but conflicting statements from Waltz and Trump have fueled confusion.
Republicans are urging probes by the Senate Armed Services and Intelligence Committees.
Tensions within the GOP are growing, with hawkish Republicans supporting Waltz and Trump loyalists opposing him. Legal challenges have also emerged over potential violations of the Federal Records Act.
Sorry, but it doesn’t matter one. single. bit. that the US military “isn’t a monolithic entity” if, when it comes down to it, they act like a monolithic entity and follow corrupt, unlawful, and treasonous orders like how the USAF has been wordlessly transporting kidnapped legal residents and greencard holders to foreign countries without any semblance of legal process or even a criminal act done.
US military personnel love saying “we don’t follow unlawful orders” who have never had to make that decision until they are given an illegal order and they follow it. Just see every war that the US (and most other nations to be honest) had ever fought and what is currently going on.
It is the exact same as the argument of ACAB. If there are 50 “good” people who actively shield, enable, and do nothing about 50 “bad” people doing horrible, illegal, and/or immoral things, you have 100 bad people.
I respect your opinion and agree on many points, and in many cases. I will contend with your argument that the military acts monolithically and wordlessly executes illegal orders, however, particularly because in its wording you apply a blanket onto 3 million people while failing to acknowledge the counter.
The military in the US is beholden to not only the Constitution and the laws of the country, but also the UCMJ, under which we are explicitly and implicitly prohibited from taking part in any partisanism or taking any action which would even imply that the military and Executive are at odds. We can argue the necessity and limits of that policy but that’s not the point here. The news will readily report on the sensational–“Navy Sailor arrested at protest,” “Soldier participated in attempted coup on January 6th,” but they can’t get clicks from “NJP article 134,” “Sentenced to Leavenworth 6 years following trial and holding in brig.”
Neither one of us knows what orders those pilots received. If they were directed to, and chose to, execute an order they knew to be unlawful, they absolutely deserve to be investigated, tried, and sentenced. Is that more than the victims of this atrocious act were allowed? Yes, but two fascist acts don’t cancel each other out. I can’t stress the point enough that this should never have happened, and we should be doing what we can to rectify it, but retribution is not justice.
But if they were lied to, told to fly from one airport to another per today’s schedule, and their listed cargo was just “personnel, materiel,” it’s not reasonable to lay blame on them like that. Likewise, it’s illegal for them to talk about what happened to anyone outside need-to-know unless it’s released in court, so we’ll probably never hear what actually went down.
Have people executed unlawful orders? Yes. Have they been absolved of responsibility? Sometimes, yes. Should they be held accountable to their level of responsibility, and are they? Typically, yes. That’s the biggest difference between police forces and the military, and my other point of contention with your argument.
I agree that when a Nazi sits at a table with nine people who don’t tell him to leave, you just have ten Nazis. But whereas the police will band around the Nazi to protect him because he wears the same color clothes, the military will eventually jail the Nazis when they’re found guilty of crimes. It’s just past the sensationalized news cycle so you have to look for it rather than being presented.
So then it comes down to whether enough military personnel will have the morals to stand up to fascist orders from the executive branch and disobey them, displaying that they are at odds, or if they will simply obey unlawful, fascist orders to not get prosecuted under the UCMJ.
Also, I would be extremely hesitant to believe that the host of pilots, mechanics, MPs, and logistics did not notice at all women and children being dragged in chains, likely crying, and if on-video behavior is anything to go by, also likely being harassed by ICE handlers and thought there was nothing wrong enough to bring it up to their COs. Cargo is quickly inspected at the very least. And the fact that they didn’t have any prior clearance to land at the airport they were going to… They aren’t complete idiots…
Sorry, but these things do not happen quietly. That is like saying the train drivers and the people loading them into the cars carrying the Jews only knew they were carrying “personnel, material” and happened to be going to “a labor camp”.
Obeying unlawful fascist orders will get you court-martialed, not avoid it. Not obeying them might have you scrubbing latrines for six months, getting a punishment from your CO, but obeying them will end in prison time. This precedent was set at the Nuremberg Trials and this is the reason every soldier is drilled with the knowledge that you are not encouraged, you are obligated, to ignore unlawful orders because the law WILL NOT have your back for performing them.