November 27, 2025
President Donald Trump threatens to hang military officers who have the audacity to tell their troops not to obey unlawful orders. Trump called them ‘traitors’ and suggested they be locked up.
The president just crossed the Rubicon. Formerly his language was amusing TV banter. Now, after these threats, he has gone way too far. Americans should be alarmed.
I enlisted in the US Army in 1969 to become an infantry officer and served in Vietnam. At the time, I foolishly thought this colonial war was just part of our American way of life.
In basic and advanced infantry training at Fort Dix, New Jersey, we were educated in the military code of conduct, the legal system underlying the conduct of soldiers.
The most important single lesson that I vividly recall was the order to refuse any orders seen as illegal – that is, in violation of US law and the Geneva Conventions. This command did not come out of the blue. It was promulgated as a result of the Nuremburg Trials after World War II in which much of the senior German elite was found guilty of war crimes, and many sentenced to death.
Most of the German officials and soldiers being tried for assorted war crimes claimed they were simply following orders from senior commanders. That is why the Nuremburg prosecutors developed the idea of sweeping aside the senior officer command defense.
The Nuremberg Trials were in many ways legalized revenge on a defeated enemy. Particularly so when the victorious allies included the US Air force and RAF who had killed millions of civilians in Europe and Japan, and the Soviets who had killed millions more innocent civilians.
Nuremburg was a gigantic kangaroo court, and legalized revenge killings. But the one good thing that came out of it was the rejection of the “I was only following orders” defense. All wars are a crime, but this new statute slightly reduced some of the horrors and murder involved.
President Trump now wants to sweep this protection away because he feels his regal authority powers have been challenged. This is a violation of our constitution and laws. Just as illegal, it raises the constitutional ban on bills of attainder, an act whereby the government singles out an individual for a particular crime and prosecutes him without a proper trial.
This column has long said that all presidents should be military veterans. It’s too bad Donald Trump managed to evade military service (just when I was serving my country) or he would have a better understanding of this important issue and the legal and customary restraints imposed on his noble office.
Copyright Eric S. Margolis
Regular Army A 11824792
This post is in: USA
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