To the editor: Will navy leaders rise up towards unlawful orders? It’s a conundrum involving a number of troublesome issues, every problematic and every belonging to a distinct class of concern (“Do our navy leaders have the spine to disobey unlawful orders?,” Nov. 17). We’re a nation ruled by legal guidelines, and punishment can come solely after a good trial. The killing of potential drug sellers doesn’t meet that criterion. But, on this case, is it cheap to imagine that such a trial couldn’t happen in a well timed method to guard our safety?
Orders given to the navy needs to be clear, authorized and perceived as ethical by these charged with executing them. However would we have now a viable navy if each soldier acted in line with a private ethical compass or, because the writer suggests, determined to “problem the system”?
Our personal particular person worldviews — formed by expertise, ethics and, finally, our instincts for survival (on this case, the survival of the nation) — information us when confronted with multilayered and significant choices. It isn’t scientific, nor essentially proper, nor assured to provide good outcomes.
The high-minded and well-articulated op-ed is however misguided. Personally, I can’t consider that anybody sane (besides maybe a motivated drug trafficker) would gratuitously journey in a small boat within the space at such a time. Furthermore, I really feel that the immense injury accomplished to our society by medication outweighs, on this occasion, the questionable nature of our actions.
Jack Kaczorowski, Los Angeles
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To the editor: Don’t simply learn visitor contributor Jon Duffy’s extraordinarily well-written commentary on how navy leaders swore an “oath to defend the Structure, to not obey a person.” This op-ed ought to truly be studied. If we fear about the way forward for our nation, the whole lot he says right here is essential.
H. Yates Satterlee, Santa Barbara
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To the editor: I say this as a retired intelligence analyst who, in 1972 in Pleiku, Vietnam, focused the B-52 bombings in Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam: You can’t count on your navy to do the job the American folks ought to do on the polls.
These are profession staff of our legislators; they don’t seem to be our ethical guides. We as a folks resolve who will lead us and to what finish. President Trump has insisted on calling the Division of Protection the Division of Conflict — so be it. If we as a nation have an ethical accountability, it should be mirrored in who we elect.
Earl Adams, Granada Hills
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To the editor: Former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has been charged by the Worldwide Felony Courtroom with three counts of crimes towards humanity for his marketing campaign towards suspected drug sellers that prosecutors say led to hundreds of deaths. He’s presently in ICC custody in The Hague, Netherlands.
Since early September, the U.S. navy has performed 21 strikes on suspected drug-smuggling boats within the Caribbean Sea and Jap Pacific Ocean, killing no less than 83 folks.
The Obama White Home explicitly condemned Duterte’s extrajudicial killings, whereas Trump repeatedly praised Duterte for doing an “unbelievable job on the drug drawback.”
When can we count on Trump to be extradited to The Hague to affix Duterte in ICC detention?
Bob Lentz, Sylmar
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To the editor: Duffy’s op-ed paints a darkish and painful image of our navy leaders. If questioned, these leaders might properly say they have been simply following orders. Nonetheless, because the Nuremberg trials confirmed, the precept of “simply following orders” is just not a sound protection, be it wartime or peace.
Army leaders should be taught from the Nazis of the results of simply following the orders of a tyrant.
Steve Saeta, Santa Rosa Valley
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To the editor: The navy’s grant of immunity for the Venezuelan killings makes me shudder on the considered how they could react when Trump asks for the nuclear codes.
Ann Weinman, Los Angeles
