Tonight, American television debuted a new program on the ABC network called "Last Resort". It ran also in Canada on the Global network. The program centers on the Captain and Crew of the USS Ohio, which is the most powerful nuclear submarine ever constructed. The Captain is sent orders through unusual channels to mount a nuclear attack to Pakistan. Rather than doing so, he asks that the order is confirmed via regular channels. He is promptly relieved of duty.via radio-telephone. His second in command, also requests conventional notification of his orders, and this is met by a US ship attempting to destroy the USS Ohio and her crew of 150. The sub is damaged and twelve members of the crew are killed.
In order to survive, and to honorably discover what has happened that would generate an order to nuke Pakistan, and to clear their names of any wrongdoing, they commandier an island which operates as a NATO monitoring station.
This was an interesting program because we do live in a time when our White House makes some incredibly bizarre statements and has taken unusual actions.as well as generated a large number of Executive Orders without the benefit of Congress. The program cannot help but ask whether a completely bizarre order from the White House would be followed, or whether the order would be clarified, questioned or refused on its Constitutionality. Implied is how much do we trust our government ? And perhaps more importantly, how much does our military trust our government as a legitimate entity, and how far, when push comes to shove, does that allegiance go, and in what circumstances ?
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