There is an increasing apprehension among service members that they may be asked to carry out an illegal order, amid reports Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered troops to “kill everybody” in a boat strike in September.
The concerns, reflected in an uptick in calls to the Orders Project — which provides free legal advice to military personnel — come from the likes of staff officers involved in planning the strikes on supposed drug-carrying boats and those in charge of designating those on the vessels as a threat in order to carry out such attacks.
Even as a reported Justice Department classified memo from this summer preemptively argued that U.S. troops involved in the strikes would not be in legal jeopardy, service members appear far more concerned than usual that the U.S. military may be opening them up to legal harm, according to Frank Rosenblatt, president of the National Institute of Military Justice, which runs the Orders Project.
“They have questions, because this didn’t come up before. This was never an issue throughout both administrations of the global war on terror in Iraq or Afghanistan. No one ever came down and said, ‘You’re immunized for any potential crimes you commit,’” Rosenblatt told The Hill of the increase in calls to his organization. Established in 2020, he said such “activity was generally very low until three months ago.”
“I think most people knew they did their jobs faithfully and didn’t do things that are beyond the pale, like executing civilians, that they would be OK and wouldn’t be prosecuted. So now to have this immunity as part of the discussion really tends to chill people and make them ask, ‘What the heck’s going on? What is it that I might be asked to do?’” he added.
Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) called Sunday on the Trump administration to refocus its energy on defending Ukraine’s sovereignty in peace talks with Russia.
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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has asked Israel's president to grant him a pardon during his long-running corruption trial that's bitterly divided the country.
For more than four centuries, people believed it had vanished.
The Venezuelan government has responded defiantly to the heightened pressure by the US government, including Donald Trump’s recent statements on Saturday that the airspace above and surrounding Venezuela is to be closed in its entirety.
John McAuliff, a 33-year-old small business owner and former civil servant, was one of the more unlikely Democrats to win election to Virginia’s legislature this month, after a campaign in which he could, at times, come off a bit like a Republican.
A Thanksgiving weekend storm system brought over a foot of snow and strong winds across the US midwest and thunderstorms across the south, as 53 million people from South Dakota to New York were under winter weather alerts.
