U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday threatened to use the Insurrection Act, which would allow him to deploy military forces, in Minnesota amid escalating tension over a deployment of federal agents in the state’s most populous city, which has become the focus of daily clashes.
“If the corrupt politicians of Minnesota don’t obey the law and stop the professional agitators and insurrectionists from attacking the Patriots of I.C.E., who are only trying to do their job, I will institute the INSURRECTION ACT,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post.
Just going to put this right here for you service men and women out there…
I mean that’s kind of a cop out that relies on the least educated people in the chain of command to not only successfully refuse an illegal order, but to defend its legality in a court where you’re guilty until proven innocent.
If scotus and other federal judges take weeks/months to deliberate if these are actually illegal orders, I’m not exactly confident that a bunch of privates and specialist are going to figure it out in the moment.
In extreme cases we’re starting to see now, I’d say if given an order to fire upon US citizen protesters, I’d hope the soldiers would have common sense in knowing that’d be illegal. In a recent scenario where given the order to fire a second strike upon a down vessel with survivors, that also should have been a common sense in its legality, or at the very least morality.
I can see, however, a dilemma of soldiers disobeying and fearing the repercussions in the moment of doing so until proven otherwise. I do urge, though, that “i was just following orders” does not hold up in a tribunal sense. It’s a double edged sword and an unfortunate situation this regime should NOT be putting our military in.