oussy /ˈwʊsi/

The U.S. military has killed more than 200 people in strikes on boats in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific in the past nine months in what legal experts and former military lawyers broadly agree constitute illegal military orders that service members should refuse to follow. While there is no record of troops refusing to follow these orders, at least a handful of service members grappling with these questions have sought legal advice, according to anonymous hotlines for U.S. military members. [...] Two organizations that provide anonymous legal advice for military members grappling with orders they fear are illegal said they had received calls from service members concerned about the legality of the boat strikes, some from people directly involved in them. Steve Woolford, a resource counselor with Quaker House and the GI Rights Hotline, said he spoke with about four service members involved in the operation who were seeking legal and ethical guidance. One discussed helping plan a strike, and two others were ordered to execute strikes, he said. "I think this is exactly what was described as a war crime," Woolford said one caller told him. Woolford said some of these callers were connected to lawyers, but he wasn't aware of anyone who had refused an order or taken legal action. Callers are "more scared now that they’d be punished if they did bring something up," he said. Brenner Fissell, the vice president of the National Institute for Military Justice, said the institute's Orders Project, which also advises service members questioning if their orders are legal, receives a "steady but small number of calls," including from service members concerned that the boat strikes are illegal, he said.