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Marine colonel who resigned because of Trump says personnel should question ‘illegal orders’
(www.huffpost.com)
TRUMP SHOULD BE ARRESTED
this post was submitted on 17 Oct 2025
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politics
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"The military will refuse illegal orders" is a fantasy and should absolutely not be counted on.
We can't expect rank and file grunts to question orders because that's literally been trained and beaten out of them and they can be court martialed and jailed and lose their careers.
However we can and should expect senior military staff to refuse illegal orders, that actually IS their job
Their career is killing people, I'm fine with them losing it and they should be too.
Congrats, this is the dumbest take ever
I had an argument with someone on here a while back over this. They claimed that America couldn't ever go full on fascist because our military is taught to question illegal orders.....
Like a private who joined the army to get out of poverty is really going to have the legal understanding to question the constitutional grounds of his orders. People have no idea how the military works, or exactly how much control an officer or NCO has over their enlisted service men.
It's not an illogical position to take it's just naive. In the same way that military service members are supposed to disregard illegal orders, Congress is supposed to impeach a President who breaks the law or established codes of conduct.
It sounds good in theory but both ultimately rely on the integrity of the people in those positions. If they don't rise to the challenge then there isn't anything stopping the bad actors from doing what they want with impunity. We can hope it will be enough but it hasn't changed much so far. It seems like the people who could act know this and are colluding with the executive branch to test how far they can push things before we decide to go looking outside the system for solutions. I see no reason to believe that the military will respond any differently than Congress has.
see no reason to believe that the military will respond any differently than Congress has.
Yeap, imo they've already done a test crossing of the Rubicon. When the military agreed to utilize active duty service members to transport prisoners from the US, it was a blatant disregard of their prohibition of policing on US soil.
It's all part of the American gun myth where they tell each other they could overthrow their government with their hunting rifles and the military won't just mortar their dreams away before they even saw it coming because they feel like the military will refuse to, for reasons they can't explain.
That way, they can justify their crazy lack of gun control and all the school children who get murdered due to it.
IMO, It's all interlinked.
"Refuse illegal orders" is like the military version of "stop paying taxes and stop going to work" but at least a magnitude worse. It sounds good and virtuous but there are practical life-changing consequences for doing so.
UCMJ will chew you up and throw you to the side very quickly. Prison is almost a certainty. A dishonorable discharge hangs on you like a felony conviction. And that's assuming they won't use illegal force on you or your family.
It sounds good and virtuous but there are practical life-changing consequences for doing so.
There are practical life changing consequences to protesting. Ask some of the hippies who marched for Civil Rights (while they are still around...) and how often they have a "just checking in" visit from a sheriff or get pulled out of line at the airport for enhanced screening. Let alone anyone who goes farther than marching and chanting.
UCMJ will chew you up and throw you to the side very quickly.
Oh noes! The fascists giving unlawful orders won't give you any more unlawful orders!
Prison is almost a certainty. A dishonorable discharge hangs on you like a felony conviction. And that’s assuming they won’t use illegal force on you or your family.
All of that is happening to people resisting ICE. Even being spotted recording/documenting the brutal assault of "illegals" puts you at risk of that.
But hey. I get it. Resisting tyranny and fighting for The People is scary. Why would I expect the military to ever be brave enough to do that? They only received training in how to oppress a populace. How can they be expected to put on an inflatable frog costume and dance?
Ucmj will screw you up if you do follow illegal orders too. There's a ucmj that everyone has the local obligation to refuse an illegal ordere
I mean that's probably why its best (for the individuals serving at least) to quit, once you quit you don't have to make the decision to obey or disobey orders, so you don't need to deal with court-martials either way.
Unfortunately, this also means that everyone who stays are probably morally corrupt and would not longer adhere to the constitution.
You can’t just quit the military except in some small cases like this colonel and other officers. The entire enlisted side not in retirement availability range are locked in.
But it's the brass we need on side
Sure, I just wanted to speak against the implication anyone staying is happy for the ride they’re on.
Especially if the ones who will refuse to comply keep quitting
Depends on who gives the orders.
Its a lot more realistic than a full on revolution, but still not very realistic.
I'm surprised individuals are not looking at the internal demographic data says about this take.
https://download.militaryonesource.mil/12038/MOS/Reports/2023-demographics-report.pdf
I'm not as doubtful as yall. Remember when the GOP had hearing about the Woke military and why they were washing out so many "good candidates" (They were referring to those individuals rejected for having strong racial beliefs... Aka racist.) 49% of the military is under the age of 25. The data doesn't separate Hispanics from white people, probably on purpose. But I suspect Hispanic it's close to 20%. With 17% Black and 17% women I'm not sure this is a slam dunk for Trump. Yes the military is and always will be a right, male, and white dominated space, but their not stupid. Let's just say trump pulls the trigger on fully occupies American with our own military. What percentage of the military do you think will just follow orders when you take in to consideration the demographics?
Also, 1 million people are in the active military, about 900k of them are in the US. With another 800k in reserve. The US population is 340 million. Even if every republican joins the occupation I don't think they have the bodies to cover more than 2 states.
In my opinion I'm saying it's a coin toss because the moment he does this there will be major fracturing within the military across so many lines the first shots are going to happen within the military before 1.7 million boots hit our streets.
And the military who thinks they're being ordered to break the law should stay and resist...
Like, I know, this a marine. But surely they retain enough critical thinking to understand if everyone who thinks trump is giving illegal orders resigns...
The only people left in the military would be people who are fine with this shit.
When people say "lead, follow, or get out of the way"
The "get out of the way" option is supposed to embarrass them into at least following.
You can't "get out of the way" of fucking fascism and then expect people to clap for you. It's only going to be idiots who don't understand anything clapping.
Giving up is not a viable strategy in the face of fascism.
Resigning is a way to call attention to the problem while you still have most of your credibility. There would be a smear campaign against you, but the alternative situation might be after getting fired for cause, where it would be easier to believe that you are just making excuses to save face. Especially if you are already demoralized and don't have the energy to make a stand, you may start feeding the idea that you are just unfit for the job and lose support internally.
It also adds a bit of chaos into the organization that needs to replace you and may not have somebody prepared to step into a position haunted by this politicized issue and rocky transition. It does happen because organizations are made of limited and discrete people, but it is easy to be afraid of the infinite number of sycophants that must be ready to take their place.
It might be a tactic that is useful in limited situations, but I agree in general that we want rusty cogs slowing down the fascist machine.
As I understand it, they were about to fire him, so staying and resisting may not have been an option. Perhaps he wanted to get ahead of the story and have his.moment to speak.
Also, I've never been in the military, but I imagine they have extremely strict policies against active duty members (particularly officers) criticizing the administration in public. This guy probably had to quit first if he wanted to say what he said publicly.
I hope it has an effect on current active-duty troops when they get their illegal orders.
they were about to fire him
Then make them do it...
It's not something that can happen at the snap of a finger, and even after the fact would involve court cases that take resources away from the shitty things they're trying to do...
We're fucking fighting fascism man, we have to fight every battle even if we lose, because it at least eats up the clock.
There is literally zero gain from resigning.
If all the decent, moral, knowledgeable, experienced military personnel leave, then MAGA will be left with a military of incompetents, led by incompetents, all the way to the very top. They may have the weapons, but they won't know how to use them.
But the Resistance will have all the intelligent experienced military leaders, who not only know how to use the weapons, but know how they are secured, and how they can be "liberated."
but they won’t know how to use them.
...
I can assure you even a child can use a rifle. Sadly it happens every day.
And that "resistance" is not going to have access to any type of weapon that would require more than five minutes of training.
I was military, my dad was military, a grand dad was, multiple aunts/uncles were, literally innumerable cousins...
I can assure you not all of my family is intelligent, and the military designs things for the lowest common denominator.
Even nuclear engineering in the military isn't exactly challenging, the training is just intentionally stressful so it will be harder than actual service.
Like, look at other actual resistances in other countries, you don't even know what will be used as weapons in a hypothetical resistance...
And this place is better than reddit, but I don't think I could get more specific than that
Edit:
Also, intelligence and compassion aren't correlated.
In fact once you get more than a couple standard deviations above average, misanthropy tends to be one the norm.
It's hard to explain. Imagine someone just walks up and hits you in the balls, then acts surprised that you're hurt and upset with them
Long before a very intelligent person understands that they're very intelligent...
They just think every other human is an inconsiderate asshole we doesn't put a second of thought into how their actions effects others. It is incredible easy and unfortunately common for that opinion to stuck around for a long time.
Yes, everyone knows if the majority of the military is untrained and lacks critical thinking skills, they could never successfully oppress their population.
That's why African Warlords with armies full of child soldiers famously never commit unspeakable atrocities on their citizens.
That's a silly analogy. American soldiers do not have the same life experiences as African child soldiers. It's ridiculous to think that both types of soldiers would react the same way.
All soldiers have the potential to commit atrocities, and many will, but a lot of American soldiers will refuse to commit atrocities against their fellow citizens.
a lot of American soldiers will refuse to commit atrocities against their fellow citizens
Tell that to Kent State.
American soldiers are soldiers. Soldiers follow orders. Soldiers without critical thinking skills follow orders without question.
Which is one of the reasons that any will hesitate to fire on Americans. The reputation of the National Guard was very badly damaged by the aftermath of Kent State, and it took decades before any trust returned.
It's been a long time since that happened, and hopefully there are still a few in leadership that remember that an instant of satisfaction from pulling the trigger will lead to decades of repercussions.
Agreed. I get the guys point, but the most powerful weapon we still have is our soldiers, and their allegiance to the American people, and the principals that our country stands for. He is far more powerful if he remains, and sticks to his beliefs.
That assumes he can stay and won't be dishonorable discharged for some trumped up reason.
This gives him a platform to let others know that shit is going down without that smear campaign.
He resigned and then he wants others to resist?
When you are in the military, you are under an unbreakable contract.
While getting out is preferable, for those who can not, it's better that they resist the illegal orders.
Nonetheless, he is one who would resist such orders and left so he wouldn’t have to. That leaves potentially others in charge who will simply bend a knee for the paycheck, ego or ideology.
I think the point is more that while you're in the military, you're likely restricted in what you can say publicly, even if it's possible to resist illegal orders within the structure. The guys resigned and no longer beholden to that restriction, so he's publicly urging others to take similar actions in resisting illegal orders.
Could be wrong, as I'm not that familiar with military requirements, but that'd be my guess.
True, it seems that's the route the US army is going.
Everyone in the military swore an oath to defend the constitution from all threats foreign and domestic.
...giving his two weeks notice to our chief domestic threat doesn't quite live up to that responsibility.
Our military is absolutely stuffed with cowards and traitors.
Your military exists to bomb foreign kids and prop up US interests, not to stop fascism.
Like I said - cowards and traitors.
A former U.S. Marine Corps colonel and combat veteran of 24 years resigned in late September, now saying he did so because of President Donald Trump and “concern for our country’s future.”
In an op-ed titled “I resigned from the military because of Trump,” published in The Washington Post on Thursday, Doug Krugman noted that “no commander in chief is perfect,” but said he nevertheless believed that previous presidents took their oaths to the Constitution seriously.
With Trump, he wrote, he no longer believes that.