U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday threatened to use the Insurrection Act, which would allow him to deploy military forces, in Minnesota amid escalating tension over a deployment of federal agents in the state’s most populous city, which has become the focus of daily clashes.
“If the corrupt politicians of Minnesota don’t obey the law and stop the professional agitators and insurrectionists from attacking the Patriots of I.C.E., who are only trying to do their job, I will institute the INSURRECTION ACT,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post.
In extreme cases we’re starting to see now, I’d say if given an order to fire upon US citizen protesters, I’d hope the soldiers would have common sense in knowing that’d be illegal. In a recent scenario where given the order to fire a second strike upon a down vessel with survivors, that also should have been a common sense in its legality, or at the very least morality.
I can see, however, a dilemma of soldiers disobeying and fearing the repercussions in the moment of doing so until proven otherwise. I do urge, though, that “i was just following orders” does not hold up in a tribunal sense. It’s a double edged sword and an unfortunate situation this regime should NOT be putting our military in.
I think even if someone had the notion that it’s an illegal order, I would bet they’d still follow it. The military has made it very clear over the decades that they will protect soldiers following illegal orders before they protect soldiers disregarding illegal ones.
The problem being that US soldiers are immune from prosecutions from international courts. The government has illicitly stated that we would invade the Hague before allowing a US military member be tried before their courts.
International courts of justice are largely a legal farce that allow countries to transmute their hard power into soft power to influence geopolitics.