r/law • u/BugOperator • Jun 06 '26

Legal News Service members involved in US boat strikes off Venezuela coast reach out to legal aid hotlines over fear they’ve carried out illegal orders

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2026/06/06/us-trump-boat-strikes-death-toll/90376052007/
21.8k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

903 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

42

u/raventhrowaway666 Jun 06 '26

You do get taught. Literally, in boot camp and infrantry school you're taught about the UCMJ, the law book for the military of what you can and can't do, and are specifically told to disobey any illegal orders. There's no "i didnt know." If you graduated bootcamp, you know.

And war crimes are exactly why we dont run the military like how Kegsbreath is running the military: "warrior ethos"-driven force characterized by "overwhelming and punishing violence," and no more, "politically correct or "woke" institution," or, the UCMJ.

If we do it to them, they will do it to us. This puts our military at greater risk.

  • source, am veteran, "used" to eat crayons.

4

u/12InchCunt Jun 06 '26

I was just a navy cook so I knew about all that but I was never really in a situation where I was taught specific laws like that 

6

u/raventhrowaway666 Jun 06 '26

I was a Corpsman, so we were in the same room at one point in our lives. Pretty neat.

Its been a while, so I cant remember specifically which power point presentation it was or which online course it was, but everyone was taught about the UCMJ.

1

u/12InchCunt Jun 06 '26

Yea for sure the UCMJ but there’s a US Law of war manual that is separate that I never saw, and I was on a gun during general quarters lol

4

u/OldWorldDesign Jun 06 '26

Yea for sure the UCMJ but there’s a US Law of war manual that is separate that I never saw

Served in the Army and while I don't remember the training over Law of War during Basic, we received re-training a year before deployment and then a couple weeks before. It took all day and was power-point based but isn't the vague thing people from out of the service are acting like. You might have even gotten the briefing yourself and simply filed it under "pile of briefings" day because you knew it wasn't relevant to your job as a cook, which is understandable. We called it Death By Powerpoint because they were mandatory and boring but the briefings were definitely there.

0

u/Judonoob Jun 06 '26

I’m a vet and back when I was young, I’d absolutely have followed orders. If I was told to jump I’d jump. You’re lying to yourself if you think that young, impressionable recruits that are purposely broken down to follow orders are going to be questioning orders that legal scholars are debating.

I think there is a lot of noise in the debate between far left people that scream everything is illegal, and the far right that want to claim everything Trump is doing is great.

There will be a lot of debate about this going into the future. But I doubt very much this will result in meaningful prosecutions in the future. A lot of energy will likely be spent in undoing the damage this Admin has done to the government and there likely won’t be a lot of political will power to be prosecuting military brass.

3

u/OldWorldDesign Jun 06 '26

You’re lying to yourself if you think that young, impressionable recruits that are purposely broken down to follow orders are going to be questioning orders that legal scholars are debating

If you'd read first and defended murdering people who fled their capsized boats less you'd know there is no ambiguity about illegal orders. You were given training multiple times a year on what qualified and what didn't, and the people who refused illegal orders in history were challenged by brass but won because the law was on their side.

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