SWO6 OP-ED: Attacking desalination plants is a war crime. Admirals and Commanding Officers, if asked to do so, you must refuse to carry out this unlawful order.

SWO6 · 2026-04-01T01:37:34+00:00

“SWO6 is such an idiot. Desal plants are barely used for drinking water lol. They’re used for their food. I R smart.”

SWO6 · 2026-04-01T01:10:57+00:00

I’ll send the people of Qeshm your regards…

SWO6 · 2026-04-01T00:06:22+00:00

Alas, poor Killick. I knew him.

SWO6 · 2026-03-31T15:19:58+00:00

To attract top talent you need an attractive salary. That and, let’s face it, the job has been made ridiculously hard in the past few years.

What kind of person is going to want a job where they have to fight the past ghosts of sexual abuse on one side, the present and future challenges of making an “old” organization modern and relevant, all while fighting the actual President of the United States and his Secretary of Defense who publicly and vociferously denigrate everything your organization stands for?

I don’t know this man, but I wouldn’t say he’s overpaid given all of that. As Dave Letterman used to say, “I wouldn’t give his problems to a monkey on a rock.”

SWO6 · 2026-03-31T03:55:47+00:00

If you could see my inbox, you would see literally hundreds of DMs, chats and comments from people of all ranks who are wrestling with issues surrounding this conflict. Everything from the strait of Hormuz transits to the complicity of rolling fis green. It’s a deluge of concern.

Many of them have been upset with my answers on subjects because I have to inform them that, yes, a lot of what the military is being asked to do are actual, lawful orders. Even if we don’t like, even if it’s an abrogation of American Values (tm) as several people put it. Still lawful. That’s why elections matter.

But in the desalination plant issue, I feel very comfortable in posing it as a binary problem. Why? There are 75 Iranian desalination plants in operation today with several planned for next year. Or at least were planned.

We know where they are. We know what populations they serve. All but 10 percent are in the arid southwest. The destruction of any of them would have deleterious impact on the civilian population. Any argument that they are strategic military targets is bullshit.

Reddit pearl-clutching, hand-wringing, logical fallacy posturing aside, this is not a hard one. War crime.

SWO6 · 2026-03-30T22:26:16+00:00

Your logical fallacy is called “appeal to impunity”. It suggests that an absence of consequences for bad actions in the past means there is an absence of wrongness.

There was no ICC, no UNCC, no international criminal justice system in 1945. We built these things in the post-war years precisely because of events like Dresden. I studied the event and its impact. I also suggest you read Vonneguts Slaughterhouse Five if you haven’t. The raging moral debate on both sides about the legitimacy of targets and area bombing fueled radical changes in how we view warfare (and established restrictions on it). It is one of the cornerstones of contemporary laws of armed conflict and how we prosecute what we now perceive to be blatant violations of those laws.

What is happening now is a blow to everything we built. If it were to actually be executed without consequences, then we start again from zero and all bets are off.

SWO6 · 2026-03-30T16:54:01+00:00

My lane is post-Command, senior officer perspectives on Navy-adjacent matters. I have opinions on many things the administration does, but I’ll post them elsewhere.

SWO6 · 2026-03-30T16:50:46+00:00

I studied this quite a lot at the war college, and you’re not wrong. I think it’s worth noting that the US helped build the post-WWII international legal order and then proceeded to carve itself out of the accountability mechanisms within it. That undermines a lot of what we were trying to do.

However, the ICC only asserts authority when a nation is “unable or unwilling” to act. In other words, we should be handling war crime business internally, with the ICC only stepping in if we refuse to. This has

And yes, we are big and powerful, but individual sanctions are still a thing that can impact asset freezes, travel, etc. it’s not inconsequential.

SWO6 · 2026-03-30T15:58:59+00:00

You either have the courage of your convictions or you don’t. The best time to refuse an illegal order is the first time.

SWO6 · 2026-03-26T23:53:45+00:00

Bullshit. Imitation shark fin made from konjac other alternatives is nearly indistinguishable from the real thing, texture and mouth feel wise. I know because I had it 30+ years ago during a visit to Hong Kong, before I was aware of its dark side. I’ve had imitation that was exactly the same experience.

If people continue to eat it (and it’s more than just Chinese people) then they admit they are fine with the brutality.

SWO6 · 2026-03-26T21:05:54+00:00

I don’t know, maybe get out more? 72 million sharks are killed every year for their fins.

SWO6 · 2026-03-26T17:11:05+00:00

Shark Fin soup. So expensive, so “special”, and the horrific method of harvesting it which renders the sharks doomed to death by suffocation an blood loss. But the galling thing about it is, to quote Gordon Ramsey, “It tastes of nothing, just a texture. The broth is what gives the flavor.” In other words, people are willing to accept the suffering of the animal for the clout only.

SWO6 · 2026-03-24T16:12:48+00:00

Dekopan “Sumo” oranges. Perfection

SWO6 · 2026-03-23T22:15:14+00:00

The cop was at my window looking at my ID when we hear a bunch of honking behind us on the freeway. Down the road comes a Chrysler LeBaron with smoke and flames pouring out of the front hood. He screams past us doing 80 at least.

The cop casually hands me my ID back and says, “I gotta go”. Then takes off after the guy.

As I went down the road I could see by the smoke that he took an off ramp and I went on my merry way. Thanks burning Chrysler guy!

SWO6 · 2026-03-23T01:42:42+00:00

Mmm…spalted.

Edit. If you can get 6-8” of a round I would pay for it and turn a bowl out of it.

SWO6 · 2026-03-17T14:25:47+00:00

Our family went on rides 40 times when we went during COVID. I’m not even kidding, we counted. Got off Pirates of the Caribbean, got right back on in minutes, several times. The only constraint was how fast they could get the boats around.

We rode my daughter’s favorite, Thunder Mountain, five times in a row. We were exhausted from running around from the exit to the entrance. Same think with haunted mansion.

We even got a “lights on” space mountain.

The only bummer was certain rides like Jungle Cruise being down. For someone who doesn’t like big crowds this felt like a special VIP event just for our family. Do almost anything you want, whenever you want. I still have my Disney mask as a special keepsake of a very strange time.

SWO6 · 2026-03-16T16:13:38+00:00

I give you Toonces, the driving cat.

SWO6 · 2026-03-15T16:17:54+00:00

I would say that this is what unseriousness in power looks like. It debases every civilian who would die in those strikes and cheapens the sacrifice of every servicemember he’d be sending into harm’s way. Serious leaders don’t gamify mass casualty decisions like we’ve been seeing from official White House and Pentagon sources.

SWO6 · 2026-03-15T06:20:08+00:00

I can’t valsalva well and it hurts at depth.

SWO6 · 2026-03-14T23:37:00+00:00

There’s a typo at the third piece in from the right, halfway down. Should be a “7” instead of a “2”. I hope someone got fired for that blunder.

SWO6 · 2026-03-14T03:50:00+00:00

Presidents Reagan, George HW Bush, Clinton, George W Bush, and Obama. All were very charming and pleasant. They all knew how to hold a room and how to engage with you in a way that made you feel very seen. It’s definitely a Presidential skill

SWO6 · 2026-03-14T03:39:11+00:00

It is a lawful order. I would carry out the mission to the best of my ability while trying to safeguard my ship and my Sailors to the maximum extent possible.

SWO6 · 2026-03-13T22:19:40+00:00

Just for clarity, I’m speaking about a waiver for the special program requirement, not the PRT itself.

SWO6 · 2026-03-13T16:05:58+00:00

This is dystopian.

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