I had read only the excerpted passage in this thread, so I went back and read the entire article. Mouton does not argue that the order to take out Soulemeni was illegal, although he does argue that it was ill-advised.
Fine, that’s his opinion. An officer has a duty to follow orders which he may consider to be ill-advised but has a duty to not follow illegal orders.
Personally, I have no problem with the decision to eliminate Soulemini. Should have been done years ago.
I note that you wrote that an officer has to follow orders given by the Commander-in-Chief, and you did not mention any equivocation. Again, I ask, how did that work out for the Nuremburg defendants?
[From the article]
“And for those members of our military in the chain of command, here in Washington or overseas — look very carefully at every order given to you by this president,” Moulton said. “It is our duty to make sure everything done in the name of the United States military is lawful; and that burden falls on us. ... We have an opportunity to call on our military officers around the world to bring new scrutiny to their sworn oath to obey lawful orders, and only lawful orders.”
While you are correct that Moulton is not explicitly saying that he thinks the order to kill Souleimani was illegal, he is certainly implying, rather strongly, that EVERY ORDER given by Commander-in-Chief Trump is suspect, and thus must be “look[ed at] very carefully.”
Asked and answered.
#whataboutism
Whataboutism, also known as whataboutery, is a variant of the tu quoque logical fallacy that attempts to discredit an opponent’s position by charging them with hypocrisy without directly refuting or disproving their argument