It’s now called the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces and it’s still obscure. But perhaps it should not be.

Pete Hegseth, Trump’s Secretary of Defense (War?), has eviscerated the corps of lawyers – JAG (for Judge Advocate Generals) – whose job it is to advise the military on the rules of law, including whether presidential orders are legal. He recently ordered 800 top brass to assemble in Quantico, Virginia, to listen to his bombastic war talk. The wise Peggy Noonan likened him to a “drama queen” and “if Captain Queeg who had taken Adderall.”

Under U.S. law and a long line of precedents, our military must adhere to a strict code of conduct on engagements with civilians as well as enemy combatants. To Hegseth and his boss in the White House, these are rules apparently meant to be broken.

As you’ve no doubt heard, the U.S. military under Trump administration orders has so far summarily executed 21 alleged drug traffickers on four boats in the high seas off the coast of Venezuela, with whom we are not at war. Despite Trump’s assertions to the contrary, those killed were not “enemy combatants” but innocent-until-proven-guilty civilians.

The U.S. military members who carried out the attacks did so at the direction of Trump and Hegseth, who has previously stated that, regardless of the lawful rules of engagement, shoot to kill.

As a young lieutenant in the National Guard in Iraq in 2005, David Ignatius has written in The Washington Post, “his platoon was advised not to shoot someone carrying a rocket-propelled grenade unless it was ‘pointed at you with the intent to fire.’” Hegseth told his platoon, “That’s a bullshit rule that’s going to get people killed,” and ordered them to “destroy the threat.”

In his confirmation hearing, Hegseth complained about “burdensome rules of engagement.”

So there will be no prosecution of the service members who carried out the maritime mission– after all, they were just following orders. Nor will the commander-in-chief, or his secretary of defense stand trial for what could arguably be called war crimes, or, at the very least, orders that violated the constitution and the U.S. military’s own rules of war.

Calley was convicted on March 29, 1971, during the Richard Nixon administration. Ultimately, his sentence, life in prison, was reduced to 20, then to ten years, to be served under house arrest. In 1974, he was paroled. Calley died in obscurity April 28, 2024, his death largely unreported. But the stain, and the precedent remained.

Under the Trump administration, would criminal charges against Calley for the infamous massacre even been brought? A rhetorical question, perhaps.  Another more timely question:  When if ever will our military leaders today refuse to carry out an unconstitutional order issued by this administration?

Recall that Calley was prosecuted during a Republican administration, following the shocking disclosures by freelance reporter Seymour Hersh. Now our president, to whom most Republicans have pledged obeisance, openly brags about violating the rules under which Calley was tried and convicted.

Calley had many defenders, but his crimes once exposed were also widely condemned. Even though his sentence was reduced, he was never pardoned. The current Supreme Court has granted Trump (and possibly those following his directives) virtually absolute immunity. Unlike in Calley’s case, today no such legal reckoning is likely to occur.