Senator Mark Kelly (D-AZ) claimed on Sunday that he was worried American troops might only learn after the fact that an order they had carried out was unlawful.
Kelly, already under fire for his participation in a video that encouraged members of the military to question the validity of their orders in real time, doubled down during a Sunday morning appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
WATCH:
Senator Mark Kelly (D-AZ) went on NBC and told active-duty U.S. military members that if they follow orders to strike drug-smuggling boats they might be committing illegal acts and could be prosecuted later.
He said troops “may find out down the road that they did something that… pic.twitter.com/4gsRmkRbR0
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“I want to put the question to you,” anchor Kristen Welker began. “If you were still in uniform, if you received an order to strike suspected drug boats overseas and kill everybody onboard, would you refuse that order in real time?”
“Well, let me start by saying I’ve sunk two boats — two ships,” Kelly replied, referencing his own actions during the first Gulf War. “Never once did I question whether those orders were legal or illegal. People can tell the difference — should be able to tell the difference between something that is unlawful and something that is lawful.”
“If I was ever given an unlawful order, I would refuse — you know, even if you have time, you can certainly go to the Judge Advocate Generals, the lawyers, and have a discussion about it,” he continued. “If you don’t have time, you just say simply I’m not going to do that, that’s against the law.”
“It puts a lot of burden on the troops to make a decision in real time,” Welker observed.
“It’s a tremendous amount of burden on officers in the military,” Kelly agreed. “But that is their responsibility, and they can figure out — you know, a reasonable person can tell something that is legal and something that is illegal.”
Welker asked again, directly, whether Kelly would refuse the orders to strike drug boats.
Kelly did not offer a definitive answer, but instead said that he worried about troops who “may find out down the road that they did something that is illegal” because they acted on an order that reflected “the whims of a president” rather than law.
Thus far, there has been no real consensus regarding the legality of the strikes.
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