Very important! I feel for my brothers and sisters in arms who may have to show more courage in confronting an unlawful order than in charging a bunker. In neither case can one be certain the action is correct or what the outcome will be.
Civilians also have a tendency to conflate "unpopular with everyone they know" with "illegal." I deployed to Iraq twice and heard a great deal from the usual suspects about how I was going to fight an "illegal" war. Some people did go to prison, but because of their conduct, not their cause.
Conduct is also what people have been prosecuted for in other conflicts as well. Post WWII Germans and Japanese war criminals were usually imprisoned for their conduct and that of troops under their command, not for fighting for Imperial Japan or Nazi Germany (although if you were fighting on the Eastern Front, it was almost certain troops under your command were committing war crimes... just that kind of war). I'm hard pressed to think of any soldiers or military leaders who have been primarily prosecuted for the cause that they were fighting for (at least technically speaking... if we had truly been prosecuting conduct than most Soviet leadership and both our and British SAC leadership would have been up on charges as well).
Paul, on Combat Veteran News recently related an incident in which he, as a Lieutenant in Afghanistan, refused an order by a Captain which would have involved the mistreatment of a POW that he was responsible for. After a brief exchange the Captain recognised his error and backed down.
Very important! I feel for my brothers and sisters in arms who may have to show more courage in confronting an unlawful order than in charging a bunker. In neither case can one be certain the action is correct or what the outcome will be.
As the good book says, you disobey at your peril!
(Manual for Courts- Martial, Part IV, Paragraph 14.c.(2)(a)(i) (Inference of lawfulness) )
Civilians also have a tendency to conflate "unpopular with everyone they know" with "illegal." I deployed to Iraq twice and heard a great deal from the usual suspects about how I was going to fight an "illegal" war. Some people did go to prison, but because of their conduct, not their cause.
Conduct is also what people have been prosecuted for in other conflicts as well. Post WWII Germans and Japanese war criminals were usually imprisoned for their conduct and that of troops under their command, not for fighting for Imperial Japan or Nazi Germany (although if you were fighting on the Eastern Front, it was almost certain troops under your command were committing war crimes... just that kind of war). I'm hard pressed to think of any soldiers or military leaders who have been primarily prosecuted for the cause that they were fighting for (at least technically speaking... if we had truly been prosecuting conduct than most Soviet leadership and both our and British SAC leadership would have been up on charges as well).
Paul, on Combat Veteran News recently related an incident in which he, as a Lieutenant in Afghanistan, refused an order by a Captain which would have involved the mistreatment of a POW that he was responsible for. After a brief exchange the Captain recognised his error and backed down.