MICHAEL HAYDEN: It's a violation --
BILL MAHER: I thought the whole thing was, you have to follow orders.
MICHAEL HAYDEN: You cannot -- you are not committed. You're not required.
BILL MAHER: So --
MICHAEL HAYDEN: In fact, you're required not to follow an unlawful order.
BILL MAHER: OK.
MICHAEL HAYDEN: That would be in violation of all the international laws of armed conflict.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Then, during the Republican presidential debate earlier this month, Trump said the military could not refuse his orders. He was questioned by Fox moderator Bret Baier.
BRET BAIER: What would you do, as commander-in-chief, if the U.S. military refused to carry out those orders?
DONALD TRUMP: They won't refuse. They're not going to refuse me, believe me.
BRET BAIER: But they're illegal.
DONALD TRUMP: Let me just tell you, you look at the Middle East, they're chopping off heads. They're chopping off the heads of Christians and anybody else that happens to be in the way. They're drowning people in steel cages. And he -- now, we're talking about waterboarding.
BRET BAIER: But targeting terrorists' families?
DONALD TRUMP: And -- and I'm a leader. I'm a leader. I've always been a leader. I've never had any problem leading people. If I say, "Do it," they're going to do it. That's what leadership is all about.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Glenn Greenwald, your response first to what former CIA Director Michael Hayden said and then to Trump's endorsement of torture?
GLENN GREENWALD: It was one of the most bizarre exchanges I think I've witnessed in a while. I mean, Donald Trump was absolutely, and Michael Hayden, what he said, is completely absurd. The idea that the U.S. military, in mass, refuses to follow orders if they constitute illegal conduct or war crimes is negated by the entire history of this country, including very recently. You do have isolated members of the armed forces who periodically refuse on grounds of conscience or legal and moral duty. They denounce certain tactics. They resign from the military. They refuse to follow orders. But overwhelmingly, the U.S. military has been continuously willing -- and not just the U.S. military but also the CIA -- to engage in all sorts of war crimes and illegal behavior. Who is it who instituted the worldwide regime of torture because they were told to by the Bush administration? Or who was it that instituted a policy of kidnapping people without trial from around the world and putting them into dark black sites outside of the reach of the Red Cross and other human rights organizations? Or who is it who carpet-bombed Cambodia and Laos and Vietnam? It's this really self-pleasing fantasy to believe that the U.S. military and intelligence services would nobly refuse to follow the orders of their commander-in-chief if they constituted war crimes and other illegal conduct. But everything in U.S. history, including as recently as the war on terror, tells us that Donald Trump is absolutely right, that in fact they would follow orders.
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