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Archbishop says it would be ‘morally acceptable’ for troops to disobey orders
(www.independent.co.uk)
this post was submitted on 21 Jan 2026
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The problem is that the consequences aren't balanced. If you disobey an order, the consequences are immediate. If you obey an illegal order, you might face consequences at some point in the future. If you disobey an order because you genuinely believe it's illegal, there's no protection for you if that happens to not be the case. Meaning the only way to know that you're safe to disobey an order on the grounds that it's illegal is to know exactly what law is being broken. Not a thing that soldiers are trained to know.
That, plus, in that moment you have to have a mountain of conviction to resist doing the thing they've been drilling into your head since basic, follow orders without thinking. Which is why I'm saying it amounts to nothing more than "the common soldiers aren't supposed to follow illegal orders, this is all their fault for not stopping this" as a justification.