Where's the line?

On the shelf to the left of my screen rests a copy of Dirty Wars by Jeremy Scahill. Excuse the hyperbole, but every single page of that book details actions by the US military/intelligence agencies that were in violation of both international and domestic law. Individuals may refuse to obey unlawful orders, but the organisations will commit every atrocity in the book without much thought.

How many laws did the CIA break during those three years when Hayden was in charge? How many torture camps did it run? How many "black sites"? How many extrajudicial renditions took place?

Let's not even bother with all the shenanigans of the NSA under Hayden's command.

I had the same thought.

And.

This is something else again. They'll do what they think is right, when it is their idea.

But a blowhard who insults the military and destroys the mission with his mouth? And gives the order to target the families of terrorists?

I think they will draw the line happily there.

Military folks can be pretty black and white -- and the bad guys "deserve it" and collateral damage, as distasteful as the concept is, is a historical reality of war.

Targeting the children of our enemies for assassination? The military won't go there wholesale. (The CIA? Probably already has....)

Sadly, it's only after leaving the positions of power that people seem to realize this is true, that you are required to analyze orders and to refuse those that are illegal (and question those that are unreasonable or appear illegal).
In practice, questioning orders is a good way to end up in military prison.
Also, most fear losing their position of power far more than they fear being caught following illegal orders. Few if any have ever been prosecuted.
It's for this reason that we have the crimes exposed by Manning and Snowden, up to and including mass murders, torture, illegal indefinite detention, etc. , that have never been prosecuted, but those who exposed the illegal orders and acts have been prosecuted, whistleblower protection laws be damned.
It's pretty disingenuous for this man to say that Trump's illegal orders would be questioned and ignored when all the illegal orders he received during his tenure were followed without question.

EDIT: Interesting, I just found out he's publicly supported by the KKK, and American National SuperPac, founded by a consortium of white terror groups, but he claims to not know who they are. Reports out of Super Tuesday states Minnesota and Vermont have revealed there are recorded calls telling voters Trump will stop the “gradual genocide against the white race” and to not vote for Marco Rubio because he’s “Cuban.”
Trump has yet to disavow any of these terrorist racial groups, but has accepted money from them. That should certainly disqualify him from holding high public office and really should have him on the terrorist watch list, he's associated with and accepts fudging from well know, active terrorist groups.

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In theory, yes.

In practice, they've been obeying unlawful orders for quite some time now. I'm not sure why they'd stop just because the Prez is named Trump. Have you all forgotten Abu Ghraib so quickly? And that's just one of hundreds of examples.

Wow, what a cop out by Maher. How about asking when was the last time a US soldier refused an order. Or if any people who broke the law were punished even if it was under orders?

He might be correct in theory, but realistically they will follow all but the most heinous orders. It is entrenched in them the longer they serve to follow commands and the threat of military prison is there as well. For something like this to happen, it would require 100% agreement and compliance between all levels of the commanding officers on a very controversial decision.

More likely is that the orders would be filtered and interpreted by the actual lower level commanders in a way to make them ineffective. For instance, if Trump ordered a drone strike on illegal immigrants (just an example based on his dislike of them), the drone might encounter mechanical issues or just miss the target. Soldiers, by and large, are great bullshitters. Trust me, if you ever play pen and paper RPGs with them it is fucking hilarious how they work out ways to dodge 'orders'.

Abu Ghraib wasn't exactly standard procedure as ordered by the President. In point of fact, those involved at Abu Ghraib were put on trial and tossed out of the military for the express reason that their actions there went AGAINST how the military was ordered to conduct itself.

It's dishonest in the extreme to point to Abu Ghraib as an example of guys just following orders when the reality is they were put on trial for FAILING to follow orders.

I think Hayden meant at higher levels of command. Realistically, if an officer tells the soldier directly under them to blow up that building, they follow orders. Whether that building is full of terrorists, or just the school their kids attend wouldn't change that much, as you say.

I think Hayden means that if a President ordered the military to start targeting women and children, the very top generals he gave those orders to would themselves refuse. If the situation were private enough they'd remind the President that it's not their job to do those kind of things and he should probably go talk to the CIA instead...

"The administration of George W. Bush attempted to portray the abuses as isolated incidents, not indicative of general U.S. policy. This was contradicted by humanitarian organizations such as the Red Cross, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch. After multiple investigations, these organizations stated that the abuses at Abu Ghraib were not isolated incidents, but were part of a wider pattern of torture and brutal treatment at American overseas detention centers, including those in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo Bay. There was evidence that authorization for the torture had come from high up in the military hierarchy, with allegations being made that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld had authorized some of the actions." - Wikipedia

Citation needed by something more than "wikipedia".

The details matter in something like this. The orders from the top included the following abuses: "sleep deprivation, hooding prisoners, playing loud music, removing all detainees' clothing, forcing them to stand in so-called "stress positions", and the use of dogs"

Sexual assault, rape and murder didn't make the list somehow.

Oh, okay.

Thanks for agreeing so easily.

They were ordered to commit war crimes, they followed those orders. I thought you were arguing against that, but I'm glad you came around.

I hadn't thought I was ever disagreeing on Bush and Cheney and company approving war crimes in the form of torture(in particular stress positions and later on water boarding). They were shockingly open about it and basically just defended it by saying they didn't think it was that bad...

When you posed Abu Ghraib as an example of military following illegal orders though, I disagreed. You know, based upon the fact that the acts of sexual assualt, physical assault, rape and murder were counted as crimes by the military. This standing apart from 'lesser' torture like loud music and stress positions which was 'ok'.

If you want to be taken seriously stick to the truth. Trying to run out hyperbole like you were by alluding to rape and murder being an executive order and standard procedure does you no credit. Trotting out Abu Ghraib is even worse as it disproves your hyperbole, what with the military discharging and putting on trial those involved and all.

As I see it, there were only prosecutions from Abu Ghraib because the abuse became public knowledge.

While rape and murder have never been proven to be executive orders (although it's pretty clear that murder in the field has been ordered by many presidents, including the current one, but is called something different), they were certainly standard procedure. That's why the offenders felt safe publicly posting pictures of the crimes. Had they been a tiny bit smarter about it, there almost certainly would have never been a prosecution, because that would make the crimes public and keeping the abuse secret was far more important than addressing the crimes.
Most of what we saw from Abu Ghraib was clearly, and admittedly sanctioned by the president and his cabinet. as you said, there was.."sleep deprivation, hooding prisoners, playing loud music, removing all detainees' clothing, forcing them to stand in so-called "stress positions", and the use of dogs" and also waterboarding and other acts designed to inflict the feeling of being murdered. From there to actual 'rape and murder' is just a tiny step over that invisible line that the executive branch had taken them right up to and complained about being stymied by.
They may not have been directly directed to rape and murder, but they were presented with people they were told to treat as subhuman and directed to do more to get the information that 'legal' torture had not delivered. I'm not sure what else they might have done in that situation.

Look, it's really simple. The question was, "Will the US military obey unlawful orders."

I pointed to one proven instance where they absolutely did just that. I didn't bring up rape or any of that, you did, but it actually makes my case even more solid. Not only did they OBEY those orders, they took them several steps further on their own. Abu Ghraib is an excellent example because there was a court case and therefore there's a lot of documentation.

There are a ton of other examples, especially from WWII onward, firebombing major German cities, nuclear attacks on Japan, use of Napalm in Vietnam. Treatment of POWs.... It's a very long list of debatable war crimes, many of which are poorly documented. If you want to pick one as a better example, go ahead, but building up straw men to attack when you seem to essentially agree with the thrust of my argument seems petty and ridiculous.

@newtboy and @Dragen_Jager

My main point is just in agreement with Hayden, that given a grossly illegal and unpalatable order like targeting women and children just because of who they are related to is something that America's current top brass would say no to.

That said, in existential wars there is no such things as a war crime any more. Or at the least, the definition will be written by the victors(Fire bombing Dresden and Tokyo, or nuking Hiroshima and Nagasaki).

Furthermore, what is approved in a 'black ops' sense has IMO always been something that America and every other nation has done, and again with the only meaningful rule being that it be effective and secret and/or deniable. Hence my ask the CIA quip,