It appears you may also find little merit in the various "whistle-blower" statutes. Lakin had a legitimate argument and he presented that argument in advance of the date of his deployment; his chain of command was unable to deal with it properly and almost certainly was coerced by political forces. Lakin's choice to refuse deployment was unfortunate, but would not have been the determining factor in a fair hearing, if such a hearing had even been necessary.
Like many of us, Lakin could not at the time imagine his argument would fail to gain meaningful and powerful allies. What Lakin or the rest of us didn't count on was the failure of the entire government.
One can make a cogent argument for why it would have appeared - at that time - a better result for that command, indeed our nation, to have Obama in the WH instead of Hillary. But Lakin was sacrificed in the process - a lesson that patriots who attempt to defend the Consitution against powerful domestic enemies should proceed cautiously.
Have a nice weekend, pal.
No, because whistle-blowing is a verbal or written report of conduct you believe to be unlawful. It is not a refusal to carry out orders.
Officers are taught that you can refuse to obey illegal orders. But you better be damn sure you're right about the order being illegal. Considering that every single other person in the chain of command above him, and all of his peers, believed those deployment orders were lawful, what he did was essentially a mutiny. And a stupid one at that.
He openly admitted that he did it as a test case. Refusing to obey orders so as to create a test case is simply bogus. As I said, if we excused what Lakin did, then you'd have to excuse any other officer who refused to obey Dubya's orders because they disagreed with his election, Trump's orders because they disagreed with his, etc..
That absolutely cannot be tolerated.
Like many of us, Lakin could not at the time imagine his argument would fail to gain meaningful and powerful allies.
If that's Lakin's argument, then he was an idiot. As I pointed out above, not a single other officer joined him in this, and surely he had discussed his thoughts with others. Every single one of his superiors considered Obama's orders lawful, and Lakin would have known that the very first time he pushed back on deploying. The court-martial would not have been the first reaction. the first reaction would have been him sitting down with superiors asking him if he was out of his freaking mind.
He knew he was a loner out on a limb, and hopped out on that limb anyway. Zero sympathy.