Military May Refuse Presidential Orders From Donald Trump, Claims Former CIA Director
Donald Trump keeps on winning, and it is making many Americans uneasy.
According to one former CIA director, as reported by the Washington Post, servicemen and women may not be on board with some of Donald Trump’s plans if certain orders are received from him in the White House.
Michael Hayden is one such former soldier who is not a Trump fan. As a former CIA director, he has made a legitimate claim that active military men and women will be within their right to not go along with Trump’s campaign promises. Why? Because they would more than likely find themselves in a world of trouble for obeying orders that violate international law.
Trump has made so many campaign promises that it is getting harder and harder to keep up. Lately, Donald received a four-letter-word response from former Mexican president Vicente Fox, angered by the claim that Mexico would pay for the immensely expensive wall he plans to build along the border. Just yesterday, Trump said that he would make it easier to sue news agencies for libel, and in a way, constricting the first amendment right to freedom of the press.
But Trump also has plans for the military, and they’re brutal.
Michael Hayden appeared on Real Time with Bill Maher and shared his prediction of how military personnel would react to Donald Trump making good on certain promises.
“I would be incredibly concerned if a President Trump governed in a way that was consistent with the language that candidate Trump expressed during the campaign.”
Donald Trump told a South Carolina community that he would not only reinstate waterboarding, he would introduce even more extreme methods of interrogation.
“Don’t tell me it doesn’t work — torture works… Okay, folks? Torture — you know, half these guys [say]: ‘Torture doesn’t work.’ Believe me, it works. Okay?”
It sounds like he has experience torturing people.
If waterboarding is okay to Trump, what other forms of torture does he plan to employ? Whatever he promises to do to people to get them to talk, servicemen and women are obligated to disobey orders if they are deemed unlawful, according to Hayden. President Barack Obama had waterboarding banned from use for controversy that it breaks international laws and treaties.
A reminder that Trump explicitly supports murdering the innocent. https://t.co/BXCU17v7xs
— Gary McGath is @gmcgath@liberdon.com (@GaryM03062) February 25, 2016
Trump has also said that he would have the families of terrorists killed.
“The other thing with the terrorists is you have to take out their families, when you get these terrorists, you have to take out their families,” Trump said on Fox and Friends back in December, making the television hosts visibly uncomfortable. “They care about their lives, don’t kid yourself. When they say they don’t care about their lives, you have to take out their families.”
This mafia method of dealing with America’s enemies would be a major violation of the Geneva Conventions, which drew a hard line on the intentional killing on non-combatants, according to Politifact, and was a big reason why Nazis are still facing trial for war crimes today.
Donald Trump is exploiting people 'just like Hitler did', says former Mexican president https://t.co/hCRs5jlgKJ pic.twitter.com/v2nlJNbZLI
— Independent US (@IndyUSA) February 28, 2016
The Nuremberg Trials were a series of military tribunals at the end of World War II that prosecuted members of the Nazi Party for war crimes associated mainly with The Holocaust. These convictions for war crimes were not isolated among leadership. Prosecutions continue to this day for low-ranking soldiers who took part in atrocities. Many of them claim they were just following orders. Michael Hayden is confident that modern American soldiers are educated on the implications of obeying the wrong orders and would not act.
This is a timely comparison and two former Mexican presidents have even related Donald Trump to Adolf Hitler in recent news from The Guardian.
“Let me give you a punchline, alright? If he were to order that, once in government, the American armed forces would refuse to act… In fact, you are required not to follow an unlawful order.”
As well as serving as a director of the CIA, Michael Hayden has also served as head of the National Security Agency and retired from the Air Force after 41 years at the rank of four-star general. Will his know-how be an accurate predictor of Donald Trump’s behavior as president and the conduct of our service men? A more important question is whether or not Trump’s supporters even allow his input to digest.
[Photo by Benjamin Krain/Getty Images]
