“It’s a very serious offense under UCMJ. It carries the death penalty in certain circumstances.”
Just like it’s a serious offense to follow illegal orders.
Just ask all those German officers who were jailed or executed for “following orders”.
“Also, if we advocate this as a political tool because we don’t align with the current Commander in Chief, then when there is a Republican president every democrat/liberal soldier is going to say the same thing.”
We’d only lose maybe 5 to 10% of the military, and it would probably improve morale since the deadbeats, and slackers would be gone.
Come on... Don't even go there. They were committing atrocities and the trials demonstrated that any reasonable person would know that the orders themselves were illegal because of their nature.
Here, the orders themselves are perfectly legal, nobody is questioning that. It is the issuing authority that is being questioned. And there is a world of difference there.
Nobody is accusing Obama of ordering our troops to commit atrocities. Clearly, any soldier would be expected to refuse such an order. We were all given classes on the Geneva Convention (as were you). There are many situations the average soldier is expected to recognise the illegality of orders. They never once mentioned in those classes 'or if you heard that the CinC's birth certificate wasn't in order'.
I'm being sarcastic but I think your comparison is bogus. In the case of the Nazis the orders themselves were wrong- but not the authority issuing those orders. There is a difference.