Military Glance
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.
The US navy knew of potentially dangerous levels of airborne plutonium in San Francisco for almost a year before it alerted city officials after it carried out testing that detected radioactive material in November last year, public health advocates allege.
Officials have publicly named the two West Virginia National Guardsmen shot near the White House on Thanksgiving Eve.
Vice President JD Vance called for prayers for the National Guard troops who were shot just blocks from the White House.
The United States Naval Academy fired the commandant of midshipmen, Capt. Gilbert Clark Jr., on Monday due to a “loss of confidence in his ability to effectively lead” the brigade, removing him than his position less than half a year after he assumed the post.
A federal judge on Thursday halted for now Donald Trump’s deployment of national guard troops to Washington DC, dealing the president a temporary legal setback to his efforts to send the military to US cities over the objections of local leaders.
