This has been a conundrum for military personnel forever. The answer as I have always understood was: If it will not involve immediate harm register a protest with the order giver, but follow the order and then after following report immediately to superiors in the chain/ombuds/chaplain/ legal.
If it involves immediate harm, then traditionally enlisted were considered a “protected class” that must follow orders, per their oath - though since ‘nam the protection has not been upheld. Some would say WWII, but the camp guards in question committed atrocities considered beyond any need to have orders protect them and often went beyond the minimum needed to meet their orders becoming complicit.
Officers have been held to the standard of resisting illegal orders or facing the same punishment as those who gave the original - in other words they are accomplices if they pass it on.
The answer to the enlisted is still to follow the orders in immediate conflict or face CM as good order and discipline in combat must be maintained for the good of the whole and they may not be privy to information of those giving the order. It is the duty of the officer who has not been sworn to uphold unlawful orders to discern the nature.
This conundrum is the whole basis for the bogey movie “The Caine Mutiny” a classic in military leadership (along with a movies about army air who’s name I forget). Should the crew overthrow a captain who was putting his crew in harm’s way? It was a war situation, the weather was pounding the ship to ribbons - should they have pushed on as the other ships in the fleet - some of which went on to sink, or should they have mutinied and turned the ship to safety as they eventually did? Yes the capt was nuts - but all the officers got their comeuppance in the end.
Now where are those strawberries?...
In short, there is no comparison between,
1. “LTC Lakin, deploy to Iraq.”
and
2. “LTC Lakin, waste that Iraqi village.”
Thanks for that explanation.
This is why the UCMJ’s definitions for what constitutes a “lawful order” is so critical - and why it is unconscionable that Judge Denise Lind in her ruling on Lakin used her OWN list of criteria rather than working directly from the descriptions (elements) included in the UCMJ’s Article 92, which Lakin was accused of violating.
Article 92 says that an order is lawful if it is not contrary to law or the Constitution and is not given by someone acting beyond their authority. (Going from memory here so if I forgot something it’s an innocent mistake.)
Lind used the criteria that it’s lawful if it has to be obeyed, which is totally different.
Though what you just said makes me wonder about something. If an officer is required to discern the lawfulness of the order, then is an officer still required to obey an order that is unlawful because it is given by a de facto officer and is thus given by somebody acting beyond their legitimate authority? Are officers still required to obey orders from a de facto officer above them, or are they required to discern the lawfulness of the orders if there is reason for them to suspect it is a de facto officer and not a legitimate one?