"Just do it."Nike
"Git 'er done."Larry the Cable Guy
"If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well it were done quickly."William Shakespeare, MacNeth, Act 1, Scene 7
College classmate Tony Farrell had a long career marketing for major retailers. He handled the short-lived Trump Steak account. He was in ROTC during college and then entered the U.S. Navy between college and business school.
He wrote me yesterday, Veterans Day, about the commander in chief's orders directing navy officers to kill civilians in international waters. It is quick and dirty. Some Americans are OK with that; they are impatient and want results.
The order is illegal. Fifty years ago, Tony reflects, he was in a position to receive orders from superior officers.
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| Farrell, getting his lieutenant boards |
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| Farrell, on a golf trip to Ireland |
Guest Post by Tony Farrell
I wasn’t prepared to know our president is a killer.
Since January 6, I see Trump as a treasonous criminal. Too much is hateful: Racism and misogyny; corruption and self-dealing; persistent lying and dangerous ignorance; cruelty and incompetence; mindless assaults on universities and science; abandonment of due process; unconstitutional punitive tariffs; DOJ cronies sicced on personal enemies; deadly destruction of USAID.
The list is not complete: It excludes nonjudicial execution of noncombatants in international waters, the Navy his instrument.
I served as a Navy officer for four years after Harvard. (I was the last student head of Navy ROTC before it was tossed off campus.) My father graduated from the Merchant Marine Academy in 1944; my father-in-law the same year from Annapolis. Both endured combat in the Pacific Theater in WWII, and served as Navy officers for 14 and 25 years, respectively. Because of their experience and my own, I gained a deep appreciation for America’s military; distinctly honorable and uniquely apolitical.
When I first read about alleged drug-runners being blown apart, I thought of those Navy folks (just like me) ordered to do the killing. The most senior military people could not possibly justify their actions because, by oath, they cannot follow illegal orders. And at that moment we learned the head of the U.S. Southern Command, four-star Admiral Alvin Holsey, resigned. He has not gone public; it seems certain he refused the orders.
At a press conference, Trump swatted away demands for legal justification. Trump sniffed, “I think we’re just going to kill people that are bringing drugs into our country, okay? We’re going to kill them. They’re going to be, like, dead, okay?”
I stopped there cold,
Like a man raking piles of leaves in his yard
Who has turned up a severed hand.
(W.D. Snodgrass, Memento, 1)
What does one do when your president is a murderer? A murderous gangster, lawless and indifferent.
Should my mayor tell compliant Oakland cops to execute drug dealers on International Boulevard because, you know, they’re bad people, okay?
I had dinner recently with an old friend: Ivy grad; fancy law degree; huge Trump fan. Hadn’t seen him since January 6 (didn’t think we could steer around the issues), but he reached out.My friend feels and appreciates the impatience that Trump displays—about crime, immigration, homelessness, runaway woke-ness. With Trump, no one crosses our borders. NATO stepped up after decades of shirking. Sure, Trump pardoned a thousand Capitol storm-troopers, but Carter pardoned a hundred thousand draft dodgers! (Perhaps a more consequential act.) Trump stopped the Gaza war. (My friend ignores many things.)
We found some agreement: The Manhattan District Attorney's 32 felony convictions for one Stormy Daniels’ payoff? Have to agree, utter bullshit. And when Vance does his “mini-Trump” act, we also agree that Trump has obvious inimitable charisma.
But I still feel cold. I wasn’t prepared to know our president is a killer.
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9 comments:
I thought the Nuremberg trials made clear that "just following orders" is no excuse. Trump has made himself judge, jury and executioner, but so have the officers carrying out his illegal orders.
As someone who was in the national guard for 6 years I can relate to this post. What do I do if sent to police a city that doesn’t need it and then told to do unlawful acts? The honest answer is probably I would do what I was told to do.
The problem is that no one has the guts to stop him.
Powerfully written. Thank you.
This post got me thinking about the Mai Lai massacre and how there are always those who willingly (and even enthusiastically) carry out orders that are illegal, unjust or immoral. And then there will be people like the helicopter pilots who intervened and saved lives. And there are the leaders, like the commanding officer who was never held to account.
What I wonder is how the instructors at the US Military Academies are treating this. I’d love to hear from someone who is an expert at the “Superior Orders” defense.
“Trump has obvious inimitable charisma."
Charisma must repel as well as attract, because most of the people I know find him as repulsive as MAGA finds him adorable. There's just something about a man without a conscience...
Something else for the Supreme Court to decide, I guess. In the meantime, arguing about it might be fun, but also irrelevant.
I notice that the Trump fan mentions the actions he thinks are great but doesn’t mention the ICE detention of people here legally (some even citizens) or the Trump family’s corruption or the cuts to science and research and infrastructure that have put the US significantly behind China. Did he have anything to say about these or is it a case of there are none so blind as those who will not see.
Regarding the Service Academies...
I may have mentioned previously that my son and daughter-in-law are both active duty Army officers and currently on the staff at West Point, the United States Military Academy. They were both recently promoted to the rank of Major.
All the academies are having an interesting time, as they always have had with each new administration and leadership. from the Oval Office on down.
My email signature is most appropriate as it has been for more than several decades. It is from a Chinese proverb,
"我們生活在有趣的時代"
translated, "We live in an interesting era".
My father served in the Army, overseeing prisoners during the Japanese war criminal trials. In a civil court, his equivalent title would have been bailiff. From this position, he witnessed the proceedings against all the accused war criminals. Both those who issued unlawful orders and those who carried them out were found guilty. I never imagined that our military would ever execute an unlawful order on the high seas against a non-hostile boat. The stain of such actions cannot be washed clean. In Japan, citizens carried the shame of their country's deeds. Now, these actions weigh on my conscience.
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