1/6/2026

 Tuesday, January 6, 2026

5th Anniversary, Day of Infamy

1494 The first Mass in the New World was celebrated at La Isabela, Hispaniola

1946 Pope Pius XII published his encyclical Quemadmodum

2021 Trump rioters stormed the Capitol

In bed at 9:50, up at 6:10.  37/39/35 and rainy. Sleet early, unhealthy AQI  

Meds, etc.  Morning meds at  2 p.m.

Facebook posting today:

Back when Mark Kelly, Jason Crow, Elissa Slotkin, and other former military and intelligence personnel made a public service video about soldiers having a duty not to obey illegal orders from superiors, I wrote here, on November 25th, that what the speakers said was accurate, but I wished they hadn't said it. I wrote:

"I took the midshipman's oath as an 18-year-old and the officers' oath as a 21-year-old second lieutenant.   I took each "freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion."  That said, I don't pretend that I necessarily would have known the difference between a lawful order and an unlawful order.  It's not always clear, witness, for example, appellate court decisions, which often have judges differing on what the law is.  It's why moot court exercises in law schools have students prepared to argue "both sides" of legal questions.  Sometimes soldiers,  Marines, and others may face situations in which their only guide is not military law or the international law of warfare, but the Ten Commandments and their own consciences.  Our current Secretary of Defense (or as he prefers, 'of War') is infamous for defending the acts of American troopers who have committed clear war crimes.  It happens.  I truly wish Senator/Captain Kelly and the other legislators had never released their video.  The message may have been legally accurate, but it was in no way helpful to any soldier, sailor, airman, or Marine on the ground faced with a decision on an order whose legality, chances are, may not be known until a court has ruled on it, perhaps with dissenters, years after the order was given and obeyed, or not."

Consider the military performance our government just mounted in Venezuela.   About 150 Navy, Marine, and Air Force aircraft were involved with an unknown number of special operations personnel, and about 15,000 U.S. military personnel deployed in the region around the time of the operation.  Was this special military operation, as Vladimir Putin would call it, "legal"?  Did all the pilots, crewmen, and support personnel obey "legal" orders to attack a sovereign country, on the orders of one man, in a no-emergency/no self-defense situation, with utterly no Congressional involvement, no United Nations or international support, no support from allies, no coalition?  The UN Secretary General has called the operation a violation of the UN Charter, which has been a treaty obligation of the US since 1945.  Under Article VI of the US Constitution, treaty obligations are "the Supreme Law of the Land."  Among those obligations are the UN Charter's Article 2(4) – the prohibition on the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, and  Article 2(3) – the obligation to settle disputes peacefully.  The UN Security Council convened an emergency meeting on January 5, 2026, at the request of Venezuela to address the U.S. military operation that included airstrikes and the capture of de facto President Nicolás Maduro and his wife.  Venezuela, Russia, China, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, Chili, Panama, Cuba, and other nations have condemned the American aggression.  Even France, Denmark, Germany and the United Kingdom spoke of the violation of the UN Charter, and of the need to abide by it.  Despite strong criticisms and calls for condemnation from many member nations and international law experts,  the Security Council did not adopt a binding resolution condemning the U.S. action or imposing sanctions because the U.S. is a permanent member with veto power, meaning any punitive or formal Council action against Washington would be blocked by the US itself.  Nonetheless, the vastly preponderant view around the world has been that the U.S. acted illegally by violating the UN Charter, to which the US is a party.

So what was an individual American pilot or special operations soldier to think about whether the order to attack Venezuela was "legal"?  If he or she believed, like most international law scholars, that the order was illegal, did he or she have a duty to disobey it?  We all know what would happen to any soldier, Marine, sailor, or airman who refused an order in connection with the Venezuelan adventure: arrest, court-martial, conviction, and imprisonment.   Would Senator/Captain Kelly's video help him or her?  Of course not.  So what did all those virtue-signaling legislators accomplish with their sanctimonious message about not obeying illegal orders?  Their message may have been legally accurate, but so what?  What practical good did it do for anyone?  How have they helped one single serviceman serving in America's military under a Commander-in-Chief who is himself a flagrant domestic and international criminal?  

So forgive me for having just a smidgen of sympathy for Pete Hegseth's going after Mark Kelly's retirement rank and pension on the grounds of conduct unbecoming an officer and prejudicial to the good order and discipline of the armed forces.  Kelly and the others earned some political points for themselves with the video, but they did no good to the servicemen and women they purported to address.

Exceptionalism.  Both the United States and Israel consider themselves exempt from the rule that govern other nations.  Its exceptionalism is one of the reasons it has not joined the International Criminal Court.  Consider too that the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) has been ratified by every member of the United Nations, except for the United States.  It was signed by President Clinton in 1995, but has never been ratified by the Senate.  Ditto the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, signed in 1980, but never ratified.  The UN Convention on the Law of the Sea has been ratified by 170 nations, but not by the U.S.  The Ottawa Treaty (Anti-Personnel Landmines Convention) has been ratified by about 165 countries, but not the U.S.  The Convention on Cluster Munitions, banning cluster bombs, has been ratified by ~110 countries, but not by the U.S. 

Like the U.S., Israel has also declined to sign or ratify the international conventions on landmines and cluster weapons.  It also rejects the International Criminal Court and the compulsory jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice, along with the U.S., China, Russia, India, and others.  Israel recognizes the ICJ as a UN judicial organ, participates in its proceedings, and accepts its advisory role — but does not accept the Court’s authority to issue binding judgments against it.  That is not rejection, but highly conditional acceptance, similar to the U.S. position since the 1980s.  In any event, the most flagrant example of Israel's self-granted exceptionalism is seen in its historic treatment of Palestinians, not only in Gaza, but in the West Bank.  

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I'd like to think some more about this subject and try to develop it, but I'm semi-exhausted today (congestive heart failure?) and it's beyond me.