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What a stupid ragebait headline. Of course a geneneral is not going to even suggest they would disobey a hypothetical lawful order. Why would someone end their career for some journalists gocha question?
Says nothing about his private thoughts or what he would actually do. Zero information value.
If anything, I’d give him credit for not saying yes. Hell in the current climate that might get you removed.
How is that a lawful order??
Lawful /= you agree with it, basically.
To see why this is definitely within the powers the president has, swap “Canada” for “Vietnam”, “Iraq” or “Iran”. For more detail, you’d have to refer to the actual laws of war the US government recognises.
Sounds like it’s high time America was dissolved and balkanized, then.
There isn’t any nation where the military can just disagree. Even under a military junta, it’s only the junta itself that gets a say; everyone lower down must follow orders (even the ones involving atrocities, in that case. The West is weird for exempting something).
That said, yeah, America isn’t looking so good these days.
It never did. It was founded on genocide and slavery.
Yes, .ml person. I’m sure you believe that. And also that North Korea is better, somehow. 'Nuff said.
I believe in history, lol? Why are you bringing up North Korea?
Is your brain okay?
Edit: clearly this person wasn’t interested in a conversation at all, based on my instance, lol?
If you don’t believe that both the US and Canada were founded on unspeakable genocide (which inspired the holocaust BTW) and slavery you are delusional. North Korea (for all its faults) was founded by those who resisted and fought the genocidal oppressors. Read a damn book.
In America it is illegal for a member of the military to obey a command that is not legal. If they do obey, or even issue a command that is not legal, they can be prosecuted and if found guilty imprisoned.
Canada and America are bound bu the NATO agreement. Under American law that makes any order to attack Canada not a legal order. Any military officer who abides by that order commits an offense under American law. That is why it is ‘preposterous’. That was a factually correct term, not his opinion.
War isn’t actually illegal. I know it feels like it should be, but it really isn’t. People say a war is “illegal” because I suppose they feel like it carries more weight than to just say it’s “immoral”. I guess it’s somehow comforting to people to think that somehow some lawyers could prevent countries from going to war somehow.
But there are illegal wars. Iran right now is illegal it wasn’t approved by Congress. Trump is basically using legal bullfuckery and a lack of consequences to do that shit.
Congress allows the executive branch to do so, this war is not an abuse of the legal system it’s being used as intended
He very clearly said that such an order from the POTUS would be illegal, and that no one in the chain of command would consider it as a legal order. The POTUS can not giver a legal order to attack a country that the US has a peace agreement with, and both countries are covered by the NATO agreement.
How is bombing a wedding a lawful order?
The military is trained to be mindless sychophants.
They weren’t ordered to bomb a wedding, they either thought it was something else or they missed another target. They just don’t give a shit that they bombed a wedding.
Source?
Cuz here’s one of many they did after 9/11
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mukaradeeb_wedding_party_massacre
You see, if a single guest is on their kill lists that means anyone near them is a “valid military target by association” and “acceptable collateral damage”
It’s technically not illegal to invade another country unprovoked. It’s illegal to do war crimes though. You can invade a country and annex it without committing warcrimes.
I guess if your shit hole country doesn’t adhere to international law.
No it is literally illegal to invade another country unprovoked, the crime is called “war of aggression”. It is one of the foundational pillars of international law. The Nuremberg judgement called aggressive war the “supreme international crime”. This is the reason US shuns and delegitimizes the ICC and the ICJ, the two bodies supposedly enforcing international law.
It is also separately illegal to annex another country even by mere threat of force, even if no actual force was used.
It isn’t, but Congress is pretending it is which is the same thing.
Because its a hypothetical where the journalist didnt specify “unlawful order”. Its a bs gocha question. There are hypothetical situations where it would be lawful, regardless of how likely.
I get everyone is making jokes here, but that is serious. Even if many of you genuinely believe Canada could contend with something like a US invasion, I don’t think most of us could bear the cost of even a short conflict. How many of you are already having a hard time affording to live here or have dependents?
Americans need pads to play football, should tell you everything you need to know how they feel about violence…
I’m just going to say you may say this, however there’s been many comments about rugby players talking about how the speed and the level of impact is much higher with American football because of the fact that they are wearing pads and it becomes a much more violent hard-hitting overall. Even though rugby is much more fast-paced and typically those players may have a lot more stamina there’s never been much comment about the lack of violence in American sports. So while your comment on the surface seems haha. If you actually know anything about both sports it really doesn’t work.
ok, sure. Americans also sit in trailers with xbox controllers launching hellfire missiles at strangers around the other side of the planet and go home calling themselves ‘veterans.’
This comment makes no sense. And, especially with the recognition over the last 10 years that football players experience super high rates of brain trauma/damage, this comment seems… hmmm… <fill in your own adjective>.
it made no sense… to you.
Nah mate, you had a shit take and they pointed out the flaw in your “point”.
I’m pretty sure that if he publicly says he’s going to disobey orders, that’s grounds for removal, even under a sane president. (Although a sane president might not choose to remove him)
As a Canadian I wish they would all get fired. Fuck em. Worthless disrespectful people. Never met a US soldier worthy of the air they breathe. Inbred illiterstes the lot of them. Suckers and losers.
This is almost certainly why he won’t answer the question either way. If he says that he wouldn’t, Trump would just fire him and replace him with someone that says they would privately, away from any public scrutiny at all.
It would be a net negative for everyone other than fascists.
It’s a pointless question. If he answers no truthfully he gets fired. If he lies and says ‘yes’ to keep his job we get undue anxiety when there already enough of that going around from memes and trade wars.
Especially if they’re lawful orders, like this.
It would not be a lawful order The POTUS does not have the authority to issue such an order. That is why he clearly stated 'it is preposterous;. Not an opinion, a statement of fact.
There has to be a strong precedent that’s a lawful order.
If invading a country that it seems like you can’t justifiably invade counted, several recent American wars would be remembered quite differently.
Start bombing schools in Canada would be a different matter. (Inb4 someone links a time they bombed a school, 'cause West bad)
“Links a time”?
Like at the beginning of the last illegal fucking war they started 6 months ago?
There you go!
It would have been embarrassing if nobody did it after/because I pointed it out.
Did you see a link?
No, because it was recent enough you know exactly what I was talking about.
Funny enough, I’m actually not sure.
Do you still want to give a link?
That’d be playing right into your hands.
Nice try.
Was it, or was it an obvious softball question you were supposed to get?
For anyone reading, the point is actually to not talk to these people, since I don’t like having the same argument over and over again, and it’s messed up they care so much about “winning” in the first place.
So stop arguing. It is very clear in American law that the POTUS can not issue a legal order to attack a country that America has a peace pact with, and both countries are members of NATO. Exactly what do you think he meant by the factual statement ‘preposterous’, as in ‘not possible’? For any military officer who follows and repeats such an order, they could be tried and if convicted imprisoned.
Eh… I think you should maybe still be embarrassed.
He clearly stated that such an order would not be a legal order. What exactly do you think the factual term ‘preposterous’ means? Under American law, it is illegal to attack a country that America has a peace pact with, and both counties are members of NATO. No ‘executive order’ can change that, and every officer in the American military knows that they can be charged and if convicted imprisoned for following an order that is not a legal order, no matter who gives it.
Hmm. That’s never come up before, but it sounds plausible. Is there a specific bill that says this?
I outlined it completely in a separate post to this article. It is extensive. Look through the posts and read it.
That means he would.
He very clearly stated what he would do. He found the scenario ‘preposterous’, meaning ‘not possible’. He could not have stated with any more clarity that he and most of the American military officers above and below him would consider such an order as not legal. Further, he all but came right out and said that Trump, by his statements on the matter, are needlessly emotional.
There can be no doubt that his response was as strong a rebuke of Trump’s posturing as could be allowed.
I’m not sure actually, because had he said he wouldn’t, they probably would have just discharged him.
No matter what he says he would. You don’t become a General by refusing orders.
And even if he would refuse he’d be removed from command and something willing to obey would replace him.
We need people at the top who will resist when the shit hits the fan. They should tread lightly to hang on to their position.
I condemn the ones who resign out of principle, they are the very people we need to stay in.
Why do you think so many generals and admirals got fired under trump?
Well, I suppose it’s better than an enthusiastic “Yes!”
At least they still have the decency to be embarrassed about it.
At least they still have the decency to be embarrassed about it.
Hoser Pete Hoekstra enters the room.
He very clearly stated that such an order is ‘preposterous’. meaning ‘not legal’. How much clearer an answer could you ask for?
‘preposterous’. meaning ‘not legal’
I don’t think this is necessarily the case. And certainly not a sure thing when reading it into someone else’s words.
(And even if it does mean ‘not a legal order’ … does that mean he’ll actually refuse the order?)
Said it before and will say it again. This is why I feel running to another country you have to think about. We have this insanely large military and a lot of damage can be done with it. We need to protest and refuse to work and whatever else we can do.
If the USA invades, the white house gets burned down again and Trump gets ICC arrested.
I’ll bring the marshmallows
Jokes aside its quite possible. Ukrainian partnerships with canada on domestic drone production, the US would burn perpetually if they dared. They are projecting a weak canada to save face, but they dare not mistaken canadian politeness for weakness. There is a reason Trump says we are the hardest do deal with of any country. Because we are done putting up with their shit. To be Canadian means to not be Amerikkkan.
The US is the only country to have used nukes in war
Remember the wildfires earlier this year? The US would irradiate themselves if they nuked Canada. Sure, Trump might try to piss into the wind, but the rest are way too selfish to let him.
Depends how they use the nuke. Airbursts are pretty clean
Vapourising/torching cities would be an unlawful order, though. And still far fetched; they want to own us, not kill us all.
Not really. People love in Hiroshima today. I visited the dome where the nuke landed.
They could drop several without any real issues, and they’ve already planned for that.
The Canadian military relies heavily on the US partnership, not to mention the average urban Canadian has never seen, held or heard a firearm, as much as liked to say that we have a chance it’s certainly would be a slim one.
During the first flair up of annexation threats the Canadian Forces revealed they were preparing for a possible conflict that would require them to learn from their loss to the Taliban. There is no true dependency on the US if push comes to shove.
https://futurism.com/science-energy/canadian-military-insurgent-techniques
Edit: also, the US is actively losing to Iran, dont count Canada out so quickly.
Shutting down the St. Lawrence seaway would probably not be difficult for a determined insurgency.
The strait of Hormuz might be pennies compared to that.
Why don’t you google per capita firearm ownership, lol.
2.4 million folks who have their PAL in this country with a population of 40.5 million people, that’s 6.17% of the population.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Possession_and_Acquisition_Licence
https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/canada-population/
It’s important to note while people may have their PAL, they don’t necessarily own firearms.
Canada is 7th in the world in terms of firearms per capita. I’m sure we’d be okay.
We’d run out of ammunition first
Sharp sticks with shit on them will do, as we’ve seen from history.
Forget the Canadian military, if the US couldn’t defeat the Taliban with NATO help, what hope do they have against Canadians without it?
Canadians aren’t even a different skin color - what is the US going to do, stop and question every white person with a gun? Every white person traveling long distances in a car?
Oh hey look now the Rocky Mountains are impassable by land because there are Canadian resistance hidden in caves all the way down to Mexico. But surely the western seaboard and its population will be loyal to Trump, right?
And so it goes. An invasion of Canada would dissolve the USA in a few years.
One major difference. Canada has had more Intel and data integration with the US for much much longer than Iraq or Afghanistan. This means palantir and other Intel gathering companies have far, far more shit on Canadians that might have an inkling of resistance against the US, and do not think they will spare or be nicer to Canadians. They will absolutely round up everyone they can or their families. It will actually be harder for Canadians to fight back than the others.
Sure, lots of people will get rounded up, but how many will slip the net? How many hundreds of thousands of partisans are spread over tens of millions of square kilometers of rural Canada? How thin can US patrols and round-up efforts spread themselves before they become convenient sources of weapons and ammunition as they are set upon by IEDs and household drones with weapons taped to them? What does it help the US if they know the porn preferences of the guy living in the woods sniping US servicemen?
And then there’s the American partisans who understand this is the best time to rebel they are ever going to get. With so many loyalists deployed to Canada, are there still enough to respond to riots, sieges of police buildings, prison breaks, acts of sabotage, etc. in the US? Maybe they can be tracked (or maybe the cameras will be destroyed en masse), but are there enough boots on the ground to stop them?
But the opposite is also true, and it’s much easier for Canadians to counter attack on US soil than for anyone else.
The fuck kind of argument is that? How hard could it be to learn to use a gun? Students in the USA use it all the time.
Guns are stupidly easy to use. They do need training to use WELL but the most it would take is a few weeks for basic firefight skills. Most of it is knowing how to move from cover to cover and not exposing yourself.
The military isn’t my concern. I’m interested how many of us would form gangs jumping the vast undefended border to cosplay as MAGA while attacking infrastructure and lighting forests on fire for years and years. Hopefully I never find out.
Don’t threaten us with a good time
Invade with what?
Didn’t they waste all their armament on Iran? And I doubt U.S. soldiers would actually follow that kind of order without any objection. They’re stupid, but not that stupid.
However. Maybe it’s time I apply for that gun license…
Realistically, the US could still defeat us pretty quickly, militarily. The ensuing Canadian insurgency though, that’s another matter. It’d be like Iraq all over again.
Ba’athist Iraq never remotely came back, so that’s a funny choice of example.
USA has shown time and time again that they can do absolutely nothing against a barely structured insurgency. If the canadian military has been paying the slightest bit of attention for the past 70 years, they know not to defend against USA by conventional methods.
Population of Iraq: 48 million
Population of Canada: 41 million
Area of Iraq: 438,000 km²
Area of Canada: 9.98 million km²
US-Iraq Border: 0 km
US-Canada Border: 8,900 km
A US invasion of Canada would make Iraq look like a pleasant afternoon picnic in the park.
Plus, Iraq was an incompetent, unpopularely totalitarian dictatorship. And that’s before you even go to the cultural and ethnic advantages we’d have as guerillas against the US.
Paparo, who serves as U.S. commander for the Indo-Pacific region, visibly took issue with the question. He said: “I find that scenario to be absolutely and utterly preposterous.”
He added: “I follow the orders of the commander-in-chief, but that is a needlessly emotional question.”
Look at his left chest - a billboard of medals and citations. He didn’t get those by giving the wrong answer, or by basing his statements or actions on his personal opinion. His ‘preposterous’ statement would be a statement of fact, not a statement of opinion. Here are some of the facts that are behind the factual ‘preposterous’ statement.
Any order that comes down the chain of command, keeps going down the chain of command. At every step of the way, the officers would have the option to follow the order by ‘advancing to the rear’.
From Google AI: Presumption of Legality: Routine orders carry a legal presumption of lawfulness, and a soldier must obey normal commands. However, that presumption breaks down when an order directs an overt, clear violation of domestic or international law (such as targeting unresisting civilians).
Also: The defense of “just following orders” (historically known as the Nuremberg defense) is not legally valid in the US military. If a soldier carries out an order that a person of “ordinary sense” would know is illegal—such as executing a surrendered enemy combatant—the soldier can be criminally prosecuted alongside the officer who gave the command.
Also: The Supremacy Clause: Article VI of the Constitution states that treaties made by the United States are part of the “supreme law of the land.”
Treaty Conflicts: If the U.S. has a formal treaty or defense pact with an ally, attacking that ally could violate U.S. treaty commitments, which hold the status of federal law.
Since both countries are members of NATO, any order to attack Canada from the Commander-in-Chief could easily be interpreted up and down the chain of command as an illegal order. This would put every soldier in the predicament of possibly being prosecuted for obeying such an order, right up and down the entire chain of command. It also presents the possibility of the POTUS being charged and convicted of the crime of issuing an illegal order. Thus, answering the question as stated is factually ‘preposterous’. The POTUS could not, as Commander-in-Chief, be reasonably seen as being able to give a legal order to attack Canada.
But it is also very clear that he is indirectly accusing Trump of being needlessly emotional in even insinuating the possibility that Trump could give such an illegal order.
You really shouldn’t trust the legal interpretations of an LLM. They’re frequently wrong, and, even more dangerously, they’re very, very good at making a wrong answer look right.
In this case, it does seem to be correct, though. The treaty clause has nuances in the way it’s interpreted, but according to the article they’re considered roughly equivalent to federal law. (Sorry for overlooking that and answering wrong elsewhere)
There’s still catches. Prosecution for following unlawful orders is light, and often rests on charging a perpetrator as if they were a private citizen. Violating an international treaty regarding diplomacy doesn’t really have much in the way of criminal penalties, and, even if they did, the NATO treaty doesn’t seem to have a “don’t attack other members” article. Like, it should, but it also doesn’t have a “remove members that attacked other members” clause, because that basically just wasn’t relevant when it was created. (BTW, looking over it, the US is already openly violating article 1 and part of 2)
But sure, if this guy refused to invade Canada, and was court martialled for it, it seems like he’d have a defence.
I have actually researched this in depth. The issue at the time was Greenland, not Canada, but the general principle still applies. Denmark is a NATO country. Article 1 clearly states that all disputes between members are to be resolved peacefully through negotiations. Here is an article discusses it in more depth.
Here is a rigorous legal clarification on the issue, that I am sure the general concept is familiar to all senior officers in the American armed forces.
And here is a legal brief on the principle that a peace treaty is the Law of the Land.
https://law.justia.com/constitution/us/article-2/16-treaties-as-law-of-the-land.html
I sincerely doubt that an officer that has achieved his rank, position. and status would not be aware of all of these considerations when he claimed that the scenario was ‘preposterous’. I am sure these issues, given Trump’s emotional statements, have been thoroughly explored by officers in his, and more senior, positions. Their response to such an order would not be a knee jerk off the cuff on the spot response, but a response that has been well planned out and thoroughly vetted ahead of time.
Dude, if you commander orders you to invade Canada, hate to break it to you, but that’s lawful. Now if they tell you to use chemical weapons or target civilians you can push back on that. The law they are referring to is United States law and a couple of conventions like the Hague and Geneva conventions which cover war crimes. Other international law doesn’t count. Nato treaties don’t mean boo when it comes to the lawfulness of orders, nor should they.
No it is not. The Supreme Court of the United States made that perfectly clear. The NATO treaty is the Law of the Land. The POTUS can not ignore it. America can not by law attack a country that has a peace treaty.
There are no more laws in the US when it comes to what POTUS wants. trump can order the military to invade Canada (which is his constitutional power that grants him full immunity when he uses it), simultaneously issue a lifetime pardon for all US military service members, and no US court can legally prosecute anyone involved. The only hope is the Hague where I hope all living US presidents eventually end up.
Since when did they give a shit about things like law?
Have they said no to any of the USA’s other illegal invasions? Don’t count on the bravery of Americans who tell you they would resist. Count on drones.
The military doesn’t promote officers for refusing orders.
You better disobey or we’ll make sure that no one in the armed forces get any rights. We’d shoot you on sight along with anyone else that didn’t refuse the shitter in cheif. Behave and use your neglected moral compass.
easy to say
