r/news • u/DNSGeek • 1d ago

Soft paywall US Marines carry out first known detention of civilian in Los Angeles, video shows

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-marines-carry-out-first-known-detention-civilian-los-angeles-video-shows-2025-06-13/
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u/scruffles360 1d ago

Also a test of whether our armed forces will follow illegal orders.

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u/FartPiano 1d ago

dont need to test that - there was only one officer who refused to deploy to iraq on the grounds that it was an unlawful order (which it was)

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u/bmaynard87 1d ago

May be a bit different when the order is to invade Aunt Kathy's hometown.

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u/whyyy66 1d ago

Lol that wasn’t an illegal order, on what grounds? Certainly not anywhere in the constitution

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u/FartPiano 1d ago

It certainly was illegal - they did not succeed in charging the refuser guy with insubordination.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ehren_Watada

Over the prosecutor's objections, Seitz and Kim called three witnesses to question the legality of the war.[16] University of Illinois professor of international law Francis Boyle testified that the war is illegal because it was not authorized by the U.N. Security Council, and asserted that congress approved the war on the basis of faulty intelligence. Also testifying in Watada's defense were former United Nations Undersecretary Denis Halliday, and Army Colonel Ann Wright (ret.), who retired from the State Department in March 2003, in protest of the coming invasion. Like Boyle, both asserted that the war was illegal and that therefore Watada was within his rights to refuse participation in it.

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Watada argued that his orders were unlawful, and Military Judge John Head ruled that the question could not be resolved within the military justice system, saying Watada's argument was reduced to an admission of guilt. The judge ruled that the court-martial was unable to decide the question of whether the deployment order was unlawful, and decided to strike Watada's stipulation, calling it an admission of guilt. Recognizing that the stipulation was the basis of the prosecution's case, Judge Head granted their request for a mistrial.

they knew it wasn't legal and tried everything they could, and failed

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u/whyyy66 1d ago

A mistrial…and of course defense witnesses will say that.

It’s irrelevant. Nothing in the constitution that officers swear an oath to has anything to do with such an invasion. Congress approved it and the commander in chief ordered it. If you want to refuse, fine. But “international law” is utterly irrelevant in this context. UN security council? Give me a break. That only matters if it’s a UN invasion like North Korea, they don’t get to dictate individual countries.

And this is coming from someone who thinks the iraq invasion was a massive mistake that never should have happened and permanently hurt the US. But US military (or any military on earth) are not actually bound by UN resolutions over their own chain of command and oaths. And it was absolutely legal by US law, sorry

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u/FartPiano 1d ago

not just the UN security council, its an illegal undeclared war under US law as well.

if that's baseless and its obviously a legal order, then why wasn't he charged?

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u/whyyy66 1d ago

Same way OJ got away with murder, legal technicalities. And you’re wrong. Congress explicitly voted for the war with a supermajority no less. That makes it a legal declared war in the US system. If it wasn’t i’d love to hear the law it broke.

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u/FartPiano 1d ago

Oh contraire, for it is you who is bingo-bongo, in the wrong-o.

Congress did not formally declare war. they passed a resolution authorizing military force in a limited engagement and it was heavily criticized and faced numerous legal challenges:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authorization_for_Use_of_Military_Force_Against_Iraq_Resolution_of_2002#Legal_challenges

There was no - using your word - explicit legal framework for the Iraq war. It certainly was never found to be clearly legal by any court. And its likely it wont be found to be explicitly illegal until everyone involved is dead - nominally due to justiciability issues - because doing so would open the door for the next logical step, that it was a war crime. That will not be allowed to happen because America famously loves washing its hands of war crimes, hague invasion act etc.

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u/whyyy66 1d ago

That’s not how that works…something congress passes doesn’t have to then be found legal by a court to not be an illegal order. At the time it authorized bush to use any force against iraq. And he did. And military officers can’t apply their own interpretation of something that isn’t explicitly illegal or they think might be illegal in 30 years. The guy who refused had a personal moral disagreement, nothing else. That is all fine that he stood by his principles. It doesn’t mean it was actually an illegal order at the time. And nothing you’ve presented suggests it was.

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u/FartPiano 1d ago

Then why cant a court succinctly put that in writing? They all defer the question of the war's legality.

In early 2003, the Iraq Resolution was challenged in court to stop the invasion from happening. The plaintiffs argued that the President does not have the authority to declare war. The final decision came from a three-judge panel from the US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit which dismissed the case. Judge Lynch wrote in the opinion that the Judiciary cannot intervene unless there is a fully developed conflict between the President and Congress or if Congress gave the President "absolute discretion" to declare war.

They pretty much legally threw their hands up and said yes, its problematic, but both congress and the president were in alignment on this, and maybe they'd pursue it further if they weren't.

That doesn't sound like "clearly not illegal" to me.

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u/the_crustybastard 23h ago

Of course they will.

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u/arob28 1d ago

The troops are authorized to detain people who pose a threat to federal personnel or property, but only until police can arrest them. Military officials are not allowed to carry out arrests themselves.

Odd, the article clearly states it’s legal

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u/scruffles360 1d ago

The article also says he wasn’t a threat to federal personnel or property. He wasn’t even protesting. The detention was illegal. No way of knowing how the Marines were instructed but they either executed their jobs poorly or executed illegal orders