There I was, eating dog shit off the floor when the dark lord commanded me to kill the Vietnamese. They were all half my size, but I still knew in my heart that they would destroy America with their cat burritos as they catapulted them across the ocean into New York. I couldn't have that, so I hopped in a plane and dropped bombs on them that all had the same slogan painted on them. "Fuck you you half pint sized brownies."

Excon

When The Commander-in-Chief of any nation, including Hitler's Germany and Putin's Russia commands his generals to wage war all such orders must be obeyed by every combatant right down the chain of command.

This principle of warfare has been followed since the earliest recorded battle in history, being The Battle of Megiddo.

However, SUPERIOR ORDERS also known as the NUREMBERG DEFENSE or JUST FOLLOWING ORDERS, is a plea in a court of law that a person, whether a member of the military, police etc., ''SHOULD NOT BE CONSIDERED GUILTY OF COMMITTING ACTIONS THAT WERE ORDERED BY A SUPERIOR OFFICER OR OFFICIAL''.

It was established under a ruling of a London Charter of International Military Tribunal that SUPERIOR ORDERS was no longer enough to escape punishment but merely to lessen punishment.

So, who is going to disobey direct orders on the grounds that they feel they would be committing a war crime by doing so?

In Hitler's Germany, you obeyed your superiors or you would be executed. "Just obeying orders" was not considered a defense at the Nuremburg trials by the USA, Russia, or Britain. But France disagreed. France accepted that a soldier must obey a superior officer.

In the British army disobeying orders, such as refusing to GO OVER THE TOP, during the trench warfare of WW1, to attack the fortified positions of the enemy's machine guns with a rifle and a bayonet was punishable with execution by firing squad.

See my SUPERIOR ORDERS or NUREMBERG DEFENSE COMMENTS.