Mark Kelly Encourages Active Military To Question Orders In Real Time
Senator Mark Kelly (D-AZ) is facing backlash for suggesting that active-duty military personnel should be prepared to evaluate the legality of their orders on the spot — and potentially refuse them — during live operations.
Appearing on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday, Kelly doubled down on a controversial video in which he encouraged troops to assess whether commands were lawful as they received them.
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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NBC anchor Kristen Welker posed a direct question: “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?”
Kelly responded by referencing his own military experience in the Gulf War, where he said he had personally sunk two ships. “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.”
He added that if a servicemember is ever given an unlawful order, they have the right to refuse it. “You can certainly go to the Judge Advocate Generals, the lawyers, and have a discussion about it. If you don’t have time, you just say simply I’m not going to do that, that’s against the law.”
Welker pressed further, saying the burden placed on troops to evaluate legality in real time is immense.
“It’s a tremendous amount of burden on officers in the military,” Kelly admitted. “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.”
Pressed once again to say whether he would carry out a direct order to strike a suspected narco-terrorist vessel, Kelly avoided a yes-or-no answer. Instead, he said he was more concerned about situations where troops might discover later that their actions were illegal and that they had merely followed the “whims of a president.”
The senator’s comments have fueled debate about the chain of command, military obedience, and the proper role of political ideology in determining battlefield conduct. So far, there has been no legal consensus on the strikes Kelly referenced.