06-23-2016, 10:43 AM
(06-23-2016, 07:44 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:(06-22-2016, 11:12 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: The upper echelons of the Armed Forces are not going to commit war crimes. Not that anyone wants to think a coup possible, a military coup is the definitive impeachment. No, you are not going to start a war for your glory and the corrupt gain of your cronies. The military would go through the line of succession to find someone willing to adhere to the Constitution who is eligible for the Presidency. The pretext for the removal of Donald Trump would be disability -- that anyone who commanded war crimes would have to be insane or senile, and thus acting un-Constitutionally.
There would not be military government. Whoever would act as President would not face military interference.
War crimes are literal "high crimes and misdemeanors" suitable for impeachment. They have never been named in any bill of impeachment.
I'd think the military's role would be to refuse to follow illegal orders then to notify Congress so Congress could consider impeachment. Use of force would in theory not be necessary or appropriate. Of course, refusing to follow orders, even of questionable legality, is a risky career move.
Of course, the problem arises if the President persists in demanding that senior officers commit war crimes on behalf of the Commander-in-Chief. Military officers at all ranks are subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), and war crimes are themselves violations of the UCMJ. There will probably be some attempt to clarify orders and, should those orders be criminal, a warning to the President that such orders are criminal and that they will not be obeyed. No soldier has any obligation to obey a criminal order.
Congress would be in the position to impeach, and testimony by current or recently-retired senior military officers would surely be the core of the testimony.
There is no questionable legality of an order to commit a war crime; any war crime is itself a "high crime or misdemeanor". A factual basis might be suspect, but that makes a very different situation.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.