Replying to a message of Adam Flinton to Robert Comer:

 AF> From: "Adam Flinton" 
 >>> The various conventions state clearly that being
 >>> ordering others to carry out a war crime is a crime & an
is an illegal
 >> order
 >>> thus the whole chain would be crims from orginating commander through
 >>> to
 >> man
 >>> pulling trigger. "I was just obeying orders" is
actively ruled out as
 >>> a defence as is "I only gave the orders I didn't pull
the trigger".
 >> 
 >> The people who win write the history books on that kind of thing,
 >> always
 AF> has
 >> been, always will be.  You don't seriously think that if Nazi Germany
 >> won the war they would have still had the Nuremberg trials, do you... 

 AF> Nope but that's way from the point. The point is that an order to
 AF> commit a war crime is per se not a legal order no matter who it comes
 AF> from & if you carry it out then you are just as guilty as those who
 AF> ordered it.

 >>> i.e. your president can not legally order you or anyone else (inc the
 >>> US mil) to carry out a war crime.
 >> 
 >> But if I were military he can throw me in the brig for disobeying a
 >> direct order.  That's just the way the military works. 

 AF> He can. But then he may rapidly have a mil who doesn't
 AF> obey him. Take the example of ordering the mil round
 AF> to congress etc to round up all the congress people he
 AF> doesn't like & to shoot them. Would the mil obey?

Some units would - and the various gangs of federal 'law enforcement'
officers *certainly* would.  Some years back a
story got loose that a unit of Navy Seals was asked a question
to the effect 'If the president ordered you to confiscate the
firearms of U.S. citizens, would you shoot them if they refused
to give them up?'  If memory serves, sixty percent of those
questioned answered in the affirmative.  When the story got
out, the cover story is that an officer was doing research for
his masters' thesis or something similar.

 AF> Would the ones who obeyed be guilty of treason or those who
 AF> refused to obey?

Treason shall consist *only* of making war against the United States,
giving aid and comfort to her enemies.  In short, neither.
Although one could charge either or both groups with violations of the UCMJ
(depending, of course, on who won).

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