When six Washington Democrats urge U.S. troops to question their commander’s orders, they aren’t defending the Constitution—they’re playing with mutiny in the ranks.
This editorial ran in the Tuesday 2 December 2025 edition of the Moscow-Pullman Daily News.
The inside doors of the stalls in the submarine heads carried excerpts from the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), with plenty of fine print on what counted as a lawful order. Every sailor learned the same lesson: the chain of command matters, but legality matters more. From day one the military teaches: obey lawful orders, refuse unlawful ones. “I was just following orders” has never been a shield.
During the Nuremberg trials, German defendants tried to pin their crimes on “orders from above.” The tribunals rejected it outright. No rank can legalize torture, murder, or death camps. That history shaped U.S. doctrine. Under the UCMJ, servicemembers must obey lawful orders, which are presumed lawful unless “manifestly unlawful”—plainly unconstitutional.
My Lai and Abu Ghraib drove the point home. “Following orders” didn’t protect those who abused civilians; each man was held responsible. The rule is simple and enduring: an illegal order is no order at all.
I served as Strategic Weapons Officer on my second boat, responsible for a dozen Mk-48 torpedoes and 16 Trident C4 missiles—the launch trigger sat in my hand. Any order to fire had to be authenticated and verified; the captain couldn’t just decide to shoot. Every officer and enlisted man was trained on what counted as a lawful order and when an order, even from the top, had to be refused. With that kind of firepower, getting it wrong doesn’t just cost careers; it endangers the world.
Last week, six Democrats with military and intelligence backgrounds cut a video telling troops to ignore the chain of command if they think they’ve received unlawful orders. Rep. Chris Deluzio (D-PA) warned that “the threats to our Constitution aren’t just coming from abroad,” and Rep. Jason Crow (D-CO) finished the thought: they are coming “from right here at home.” Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) told service members, “Our laws are clear. You can refuse illegal orders.” Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) repeated, “You can refuse illegal orders.” Deluzio then escalated it to, “You must refuse illegal orders.” Slotkin added, “No one has to carry out orders that violate the law,” and Rep. Chrissy Houlahan (D-PA) finished the echo: “…or our Constitution.”
If anyone “cares” about the Constitution, it’s these six—at least the parts they still like. Set aside the First Amendment they police, the Second they’d erase, the Ninth and Tenth they ignore, and the Article I limits they brush past. The same crowd warning about dictatorship ignored dubious interventions under earlier presidents. They “care” about our service members—right up until those same troops refuse an unlawful order to take an experimental vaccine. Then their supposed devotion to “defending the Constitution” makes room for bad-conduct discharges.
The problem isn’t what they said, it’s what they refused to say. Of course you don’t follow unlawful orders—every recruit learns that in week one. But they never named a single illegal order.
ABC’s Martha Raddatz pressed former CIA officer now Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) on whether President Trump had issued any illegal orders. She said she was not aware of any. On The Rachel Maddow Show, Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) also defended the video but could not name a single illegal order. They filmed a warning about illegal orders they can’t identify.
Members of Congress telling troops to treat this president’s orders as suspect isn’t nuance; it’s an invitation to insubordination. They’re twisting the doctrine of refusing unlawful orders into a political weapon against the chain of command. That hollows the Constitution. Their Trump Derangement Syndrome now gambles with unit cohesion and the one institution we cannot afford to break.
We don’t want colonels, admirals, or anyone else freelancing as a constitutional court. Down that road lies the breakdown in civilian control the founders feared. The oath is to the Constitution, but the structure is clear: the President gives lawful orders, and the military executes them unless plainly unlawful. If a senior officer believes the Commander in Chief crossed a legal line, the honorable move is to resign and say so; you don’t stay in uniform and hint that obedience is optional. That’s sabotage.
Congressional theatrics might thrill partisans, but they rot the one institution that can’t survive such games. The military runs on trust—trust in the chain of command and trust that orders come from the elected Commander in Chief. Planting phantom illegality without naming an unlawful command doesn’t protect the Constitution; it poisons it. If America wants real stability, leaders must stop weaponizing the ranks before they fracture the force that keeps us upright.