“Anguished” active duty military troops are feeling “moral doubt” and “profound legal confusion” as a result of Donald Trump’s actions, according to a conservative veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom.
New York Times columnist David French, a former writer for the conservative National Review and Iraq War vet, wrote an article on Sunday called, “Trump Has Put the Military in an Impossible Situation,” in which he argues that soldiers are required to reject illegal orders. According to French, individual soldiers can’t be expected to have the knowledge to make that analysis for themselves every time.
But that’s what’s happening, according to the columnist.
“Trump has put the military in an impossible situation. He’s making its most senior leaders complicit in his unlawful acts, and he’s burdening the consciences of soldiers who serve under his command. One of the great moral values of congressional declarations of war is that they provide soldiers with the assurance that the conflict has been debated and that their deployment is a matter of national will,” French wrote. “When the decision rests with the president alone, it puts members of the military in the position of trusting the judgment of a person who may not deserve that trust. I have heard from several anguished members of the active duty military. They feel real moral doubt and are experiencing profound legal confusion.”
He then adds, “So here’s the bottom line: No legal opinion can compel any member of the military to commit ‘manifestly unlawful’ acts during a war.”
“But when it comes to the decision to begin an armed conflict, the responsibility doesn’t rest with individual soldiers, sailors, airmen or marines; it rests with Trump and his most senior military and political advisers — the men and women who ordered them to fight,” he wrote in the article.
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