WTF!

[iNow]

This is a critical point from swansont and ten oz. Every service person is authorized (even required) to disobey a direct order if it's illegal or goes against the oath they swore to uphold the uniform code of justice, hence the hand wringing happening in this thread. 

http://www.omjp.org/ArtLarryDisobey.html

Quote

The Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) 809[890].ART.90 (20), makes it clear that military personnel need to obey the "lawful command of his superior officer," 891.ART.91 (2), the "lawful order of a warrant officer", 892.ART.92 (1) the "lawful general order", 892.ART.92 (2) "lawful order". In each case, military personnel have an obligation and a duty to only obey Lawful orders and indeed have an obligation to disobey Unlawful orders, including orders by the president that do not comply with the UCMJ. The moral and legal obligation is to the U.S. Constitution and not to those who would issue unlawful orders, especially if those orders are in direct violation of the Constitution and the UCMJ.

Edited July 28, 2017 by iNow

[Area54]

15 hours ago, John Cuthber said:

The US has nukes.
If the senior staff of Armed Forces are not prepared to say, publicly, that they would use them, what are those nukes for?
 

What else should he have said?

"Let me answer your question with a question. Are you seriously suggesting that an officer in the US military, who has taken an oath, should choose to disobey a legal order of the Commander in Chief of those military forces? I am here to answer serious, informed questions, not assanine trivia. Next question please."

As to your first question John, the function of nukes is for them not to be used; a function they have discharged admirably for approaching three quarters of a century.

Edited July 28, 2017 by Area54

[John Cuthber]

I thought the point of most nukes was to be used in retaliation and the issue simply hasn't arisen yet. 

[Area54]

2 minutes ago, John Cuthber said:

I thought the point of most nukes was to be used in retaliation and the issue simply hasn't arisen yet. 

No. The point is to prevent (discourage) a first strike by the threat of retaliation. Hence MAD - Mutually Assured Destruction. Hence calling it the nuclear deterrent. I'll grant you that in the immediate post WWII years it was mainly seen as an additional weapon in the arsenal, comparable with all the other weapons. Thus Macarthur could seriously plan to use them in the Korean conflict and so-called battlefield nuclear weapons do have a role akin to conventional ones, but the primary aim remains deterrence.

[iNow]

Doesn't the "point" of nukes depend entirely on who you ask in what context?

[Area54]

24 minutes ago, iNow said:

Doesn't the "point" of nukes depend entirely on who you ask in what context?

As with most things, context and perspective are important, however I believe I have expressed the conventional and consenus view of the role of nuclear weapons as understood by politicians, historians, military personnel and the like.

[iNow]

No offense intended, but I don't care about your beliefs. Without data, you're just another person with an opinion.

[Tub]

3 hours ago, zapatos said:

As I said before, I wouldn't be surprised to learn this was a planned response meant to confirm Trump's authority in a chaotic administration.

If we knew for sure that the questioner had been planted and the Admiral was expecting the question, then this has to be correct, and i would come to the same conclusion, but that can't be proven to be the case.The question could also have been planted without the Admiral's knowledge, in order to test his loyalty to Mr.Trump. Again, if the question had not been planted, the only thing the Admiral could say was " Yes ", if he wanted to keep his job; saying " No " or even " Next question ", as Swansont  rightly suggested,could  even have been regarded as treasonable. Perhaps nothing so drastic as that, but still perceived as gross insubordination.( I don't know Admiral Swift, so any suggestion that he is dishonest or unpatriotic is entirely unintentional. Nor would i impugn his integrity ).

 

15 hours ago, MigL said:

 

The whole point of nuclear deterrence is to convince the other side ( potential enemies ) that if they launch a nuclear strike against us they will be destroyed also. IOW you are ready and willing to launch. That's how deterrence works  and has worked since 1945.

If you say you will 'second guess' your President ( because he may be a nut-job ), you are giving wiggle room to the other nut-jobs ( like in North Korea ), who then think they might get away with a nuclear strike against us.

I think this is correct, too. The Admiral's reply was meant primarily for the ears of  kim Jong-un and his Chinese allies, but others would hear it too - friends and enemies alike. I don't know enough about these military and political " mind-games " though, to decide whether this  pours water or petrol over the flames, I hope it's water.

As for the US Navy attacking the question ( not the answer ) as " outrageous and ridiculous "? Well, they would say that wouldn't they?  ( Good cop, bad cop scenario ).

18 hours ago, Ten oz said:

People in govt refuse to answer a variety of questions and or point out the silliness of them all the time. He should have just said " I am not going to hypothetically discuss using Nuclear weapons". Saying yes to a question about hypothetically incinerating an unimaginable number of people is in poor taste. Addressing the question as absurd would have been more appropriate. The use of nuclear weapons on a population isn't something one casually spitballs about. I have no doubt had the reporter asked if he'd drone strike his own children if ordered his answer would have been something more akin to my recommendation above. perhaps it was a bad question but it was also a terrible answer.

True and sensible, but can these apply to anything associated with Mr.Trump? ( Again no offense intended to Admiral Swift).

[John Cuthber]

4 hours ago, Area54 said:

No. The point is to prevent (discourage) a first strike by the threat of retaliation. Hence MAD - Mutually Assured Destruction. Hence calling it the nuclear deterrent. I'll grant you that in the immediate post WWII years it was mainly seen as an additional weapon in the arsenal, comparable with all the other weapons. Thus Macarthur could seriously plan to use them in the Korean conflict and so-called battlefield nuclear weapons do have a role akin to conventional ones, but the primary aim remains deterrence.

The threat only works if it's credible that you would use them.
So if someone asks "Would you use them?" you have essentially 3 choices

(1) "No"

(2) "I'm not saying" and

(3) "Yes".

 

As far as I can tell,  # 3 is the best deterrent. 
So, if the point is that they are a deterrent, you have to give answer #3 to make the best "use" of them..

He thought so to- and it's his job to know about that sort of thing.

[DrmDoc]

16 hours ago, Sicarii said:

The question is quite loaded -- it gave no context to the hypothetical situation. There are two scenarios:

Option 1: If the question is asking if the admiral would carry out the order of commander-in-chief and launch an unprovoked nuclear attack against China, then that would be wrong. I'd like to think our high-level military officers have it in them to disobey such blatant disregard for international law and human life.

Option 2: If the question is asking if the admiral would carry out the order of commander-in-chief and launch a provoked nuclear attack against China, then there would be no problem. The attack would have some kind of justification that make it permissible -- in WWII, it was to force Japan to surrender and end the deadliest conflict in history.

Since we do not yet possess the ability to read minds, there's no way to know which scenario is correct. I choose to believe that even Trump is not crazy enough to order an unprovoked nuclear attack, and thus I go with option 1.

I thought about what I found so disturbing about the admiral's response and it seems to be the lack of some qualifier in his answer.  True, he shouldn't answer this sort of hypothetical question in open forum about the use of our most powerful weapons against a nation with which we are not in military conflict. However, Adm. Swift's unqualified "yes" to the launching of nukes on order from the president suggests to me that he would do so whether the order was provoked or unprovoked, legal or illegal.  As some have argued here, our soldiers are only bound by commands that have a legal basis and, for me, that is a basis rooted in universally acceptable provocations of war.  Without qualifying his answer, the admiral essentially said that crimes against humanity be damn and he would follow an illegal, unprovoked directive it so ordered.  It's tantamount to being a baby killer--as some Vietnam veterans have been accused of being--if so ordered.  If the admiral had to answer that idiotic question, he certainly should have qualified that answer with a yes to and a legal order from the president.  This president has already demonstrated his penchant for issuing illegal orders (i.e., his immigration ban), which doesn't inspire much confidence in me in his competency as commander and chief of our military.

[bimbo36]

lol we love americans , but your new president is a stupid person

[StringJunky]

5 hours ago, iNow said:

This is a critical point from swansont and ten oz. Every service person is authorized (even required) to disobey a direct order if it's illegal or goes against the oath they swore to uphold the uniform code of justice, hence the hand wringing happening in this thread. 

http://www.omjp.org/ArtLarryDisobey.html

I assumed any order would be within the law. Does every obvious minutiae have to be said. Whether an armed force will make a pre-emptive or unprovoked  strike, i.e first nuclear strike, is a matter of classified intelligence to which we are not party. They have to keep any adversary guessing.

Edited July 28, 2017 by StringJunky

[DrmDoc]

4 minutes ago, StringJunky said:

I assumed any order would be within the law. Does every obvious minutiae have to be said.

You don't rely believe that, do you?  If a deranged commander ordered a soldier to kill his family without military provocation, would you think the order legal?  I know it's hypothetical, yet here we are.

[StringJunky]

1 minute ago, DrmDoc said:

You don't rely believe that, do you?  If a deranged commander ordered a soldier to kill his family without military provocation, would you think the order legal?  I know it's hypothetical, yet here we are.

'Deranged' is subjective. Any act of violence is deranged to some people. That's up to the individual soldier whether he decides to disobey and take the consequences. If members of his family are enemy then that's the way it is.

[DrmDoc]

10 minutes ago, StringJunky said:

'Deranged' is subjective. Any act of violence is deranged to some people. That's up to the individual soldier whether he decides to disobey and take the consequences. If members of his family are enemy then that's the way it is.

Your assumption that all orders are legal surely doesn't hold for orders to commit crimes deem to be against humanity?  For example, Hitler ordered the extermination of people of Jewish decent.  Do you believe his soldiers were following legal orders?

[zapatos]

29 minutes ago, DrmDoc said:

You don't rely believe that, do you?  If a deranged commander ordered a soldier to kill his family without military provocation, would you think the order legal?  I know it's hypothetical, yet here we are.

I think the point was that the vast majority of orders are legal, making that the assumption. If the reporter was interested in whether or not an illegal order would be followed, I think he would have used that qualifier.

[StringJunky]

7 minutes ago, DrmDoc said:

Your assumption that all orders are legal surely doesn't hold for orders to commit crimes deem to be against humanity?  For example, Hitler ordered the extermination of people of Jewish decent.  Do you believe his soldiers were following legal orders?

Yes, within that jurisdiction. How ones actions are seen  within the jurisdictiion of the enemy is another matter.

[DrmDoc]

I see; however, I can't imagine any soldier would consider an order to end an innocent's life legal.  Nevertheless, our military has indeed engaged behavior, under orders, that would be considered a crime against humanity if we had not won the conflict; i.e., Hiroshima and Nagasaki, in my opinion. 

[Ten oz]

"Pacific Fleet spokesman Capt. Charlie Brown later said Swift’s answer reaffirmed the principle of civilian control over the military.

“The admiral was not addressing the premise of the question, he was addressing the principle of civilian authority of the military,” Brown said. “The premise of the question was ridiculous.”

https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2017/07/27/us-admiral-stands-ready-to-obey-a-trump-nuclear-strike-order/

Spokes people for the Navy itself have been walking back and re-clarifying/re-defining the answer the Admiral gave. He didn't handle the question well. I don't understand the point of arguing otherwise. The President Constitutional authority to use force is a separate and more complex conversation. 

[Ten oz]

1 hour ago, StringJunky said:

I assumed any order would be within the law. Does every obvious minutiae have to be said. Whether an armed force will make a pre-emptive or unprovoked  strike, i.e first nuclear strike, is a matter of classified intelligence to which we are not party. They have to keep any adversary guessing.

No, every order isn't automatically lawful. The President does not have absolute authority:

The Constitution of the United States divides the war powers of the federal government between the Executive and Legislative branches: the President is the Commander in Chief of the armed forces (Article II, section 2), while Congress has the power to make declarations of war, and to raise and support the armed forces (Article I, section 8). Over time, questions arose as to the extent of the President's authority to deploy U.S. armed forces into hostile situations abroad without a declaration of war or some other form of Congressional approval. Congress passed the War Powers Resolution in the aftermath of the Vietnam War to address these concerns and provide a set of procedures for both the President and Congress to follow in situations where the introduction of U.S. forces abroad could lead to their involvement in armed conflict.

Conceptually, the War Powers Resolution can be broken down into several distinct parts. The first part states the policy behind the law, namely to "insure that the collective judgment of both the Congress and the President will apply to the introduction of United States Armed Forces into hostilities," and that the President's powers as Commander in Chief are exercised only pursuant to a declaration of war, specific statutory authorization from Congress, or a national emergency created by an attack upon the United States (50 USC Sec. 1541).

https://www.loc.gov/law/help/war-powers.php

Edited July 28, 2017 by Ten oz
Misspell word

[StringJunky]

17 hours ago, DrmDoc said:

I see; however, I can't imagine any soldier would consider an order to end an innocent's life legal.  Nevertheless, our military has indeed engaged behavior, under orders, that would be considered a crime against humanity if we had not won the conflict; i.e., Hiroshima and Nagasaki, in my opinion. 

The only way i can see it happening, in any conscionable way,  is if that innocent person's life was a lesser consequence than failing the objective for which they were an obstacle or potential cause of much greater harm, which would have to be pretty important to justify it. Perhaps Eisenhower saw Nagasaki and Hiroshima that way. I don't think it was necessary but in the bigger historical picture they have taught everybody a long lasting lesson.

[zapatos]

On 7/28/2017 at 1:45 PM, DrmDoc said:

I see; however, I can't imagine any soldier would consider an order to end an innocent's life legal.  

So pretty much any bomb dropped, from the time bombs were first dropped, is the result of an illegal order? More innocents die in war than combatants. While you can try to minimize it, loss of civilian life is unavoidable.

[Ten oz]

On 7/28/2017 at 3:18 PM, Ten oz said:

No, every order isn't automatically lawful. The President does not have absolute authority:

The Constitution of the United States divides the war powers of the federal government between the Executive and Legislative branches: the President is the Commander in Chief of the armed forces (Article II, section 2), while Congress has the power to make declarations of war, and to raise and support the armed forces (Article I, section 8). Over time, questions arose as to the extent of the President's authority to deploy U.S. armed forces into hostile situations abroad without a declaration of war or some other form of Congressional approval. Congress passed the War Powers Resolution in the aftermath of the Vietnam War to address these concerns and provide a set of procedures for both the President and Congress to follow in situations where the introduction of U.S. forces abroad could lead to their involvement in armed conflict.

Conceptually, the War Powers Resolution can be broken down into several distinct parts. The first part states the policy behind the law, namely to "insure that the collective judgment of both the Congress and the President will apply to the introduction of United States Armed Forces into hostilities," and that the President's powers as Commander in Chief are exercised only pursuant to a declaration of war, specific statutory authorization from Congress, or a national emergency created by an attack upon the United States (50 USC Sec. 1541).

https://www.loc.gov/law/help/war-powers.php

The War Powers Resolution (also known as the War Powers Resolution of 1973 or the War Powers Act) (50 U.S.C. 1541–1548)[1] is a federal law intended to check the president's power to commit the United States to an armed conflict without the consent of the U.S. Congress. The Resolution was adopted in the form of a United States Congress joint resolution. It provides that the U.S. President can send U.S. Armed Forces into action abroad only by declaration of war by Congress, "statutory authorization," or in case of "a national emergency created by attack upon the United States, its territories or possessions, or its armed forces."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Powers_Resolution

 

"Only the President can direct the use of nuclear weapons by U.S. armed forces, including the Single Intergrated Operations Plan (SIOP). While the President does have unilateral authority as commander-in-chief to order that nuclear weapons be used for any reason at any time, the actual procedures and technical systems in place for authorizing the execution of a launch order requires a secondary confirmation under a two man rule, as the President's order is subject to secondary confirmation by the Secretary of Defense. If the Secretary of Defense does not concur, then the President may in his sole discretion fire the Secretary. The Secretary of Defense has legal authority to approve the order, but cannot veto it."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Command_Authority

[Area54]

16 hours ago, StringJunky said:

. Perhaps Eisenhower saw Nagasaki and Hiroshima that way.

Eisenhower? What did he have to do with it? He wasn't in the decision chain. Did you mean Truman?

[StringJunky]

14 minutes ago, Area54 said:

Eisenhower? What did he have to do with it? He wasn't in the decision chain. Did you mean Truman?

Oops.

Edited July 30, 2017 by StringJunky