Posted on 07/29/2009 9:31:48 PM PDT by Jet Jaguar
Army Maj. Stefan Cook sought out a notorious lawyer in February, formally volunteered for an Afghan deployment in May and was granted orders to deploy in June.
But the Army reservist’s intention appeared not so much to fight for America as to fight against President Barack Obama, in furtherance of a bizarre conspiracy theory.
In July, Cook filed a lawsuit against the Army, the defense secretary and the president, claiming that Obama could not lawfully order him to go to war because he is not the legitimate president of the United States.
Cook is one of the so-called “Birthers,” a small group of activists who subscribe to a fringe conspiracy theory alleging that Obama was not born in the United States and therefore cannot legally serve as president. The conspiracy theory, proven false by numerous media investigations as well as officials in the state of Hawaii where Obama was born, first surfaced early in the presidential campaign, but in recent months it has continued to fester on the Internet.
For a moment, at least, Cook’s lawsuit managed to revive the rumor — or at least gain his lawyer, Orly Taitz, a few more minutes of screen time on the cable news networks.
Taitz, a Russian-born dentist who got her law degree online, is the public face of the Birthers. She has been trying to get the conspiracy theory heard in court since before the election. So far, all of the lawsuits brought by the Birthers have been summarily dismissed.
And in Cook’s case, the Army refused to be baited.
Soon after Cook filed his lawsuit challenging the legitimacy of his deployment, the Army ruled that since he volunteered to go to Afghanistan, he was within his rights to change his mind. No lawsuit was needed.
In fact, said Lt. Col. Maria Quon, a spokeswoman for Army Human Resources Command, “he just had to call or e-mail.”
On July 14, the commanding general of Special Operations Command Central formally revoked Cook’s orders. Two days later, a Georgia court dismissed the case.
Lt. Col. Holly Silkman, a spokeswoman for SOCCENT, said the Army couldn’t let Cook’s critical engineer billet be hijacked by further legal wrangling. Cook was scheduled to deploy on July 15, and his position cannot sit empty.
The officer Cook was supposed to replace “is going to have to remain in Afghanistan a while longer,” Silkman said, noting the Army is seeking a replacement. “No one has been identified yet, but it is a priority fill, so we’re working on it and expect to fill it soon. Engineers are in high demand.”
Taitz, unfazed by the facts, claimed victory.
The military has shown its cards “and they have nothing to play with,” Taitz said. “By revoking the orders, it’s clear to anybody. Think reasonably: Why would the military undermine itself by revoking its orders?”
Her conclusion: The Army let Cook out of his orders because officials couldn’t prove in court that Obama was born in the United States and is therefore the legitimate commander in chief.
“That’s ridiculous,” CENTCOM spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Bill Speaks said, calling Cook’s claims “a bizarre conspiracy theory.”
“Suffice to say [that revoking the orders] is certainly not an acknowledgement or validation in any way of his claims,” Speaks said.
Taitz, who in a phone interview compared Obama to Hitler, often strayed from the merits of Cook’s case into broader political rants.
“I have one question: Why would any member of the U.S. military risk his life or take any orders . . . from someone who is refusing to prove he is the legitimate president?” Taitz said. “We can’t stand for the arrogant, obnoxious behavior of Obama. He wants to defraud the whole nation.”
Stripes requested an interview with Cook, but Taitz did not make him available before deadline.
Cook’s legal ploy drew condemnation from Brandon Friedman, vice chairman of VoteVets.org, a political action committee seeking to elect veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to public office.
“That’s not leadership. That’s not the way Maj. Cook was trained and brought up in the Army,” Friedman said. “You don’t leave a unit like that, and you certainly don’t do it because you’re trying to make a political statement.”
Is the Constitution a political tool, because that is what we are talking and fighting for? I think I can guarantee you that if we get a Republican President we will never again have this huge Constitutional crisis we are now going to be facing
Now your B.C. rants is ONLY a decoy, a smoke screen that Gibby plays masterly for the gullible press corp.
Gibby wants it that way so that he can distract the SRM away from the real damage, the other issues at play that have been swept under the rug. The B.C has no bearings on PINO's eligibility at all!!!
Come on... Don't even go there. They were committing atrocities and the trials demonstrated that any reasonable person would know that the orders themselves were illegal because of their nature.
Here, the orders themselves are perfectly legal, nobody is questioning that. It is the issuing authority that is being questioned. And there is a world of difference there.
Nobody is accusing Obama of ordering our troops to commit atrocities. Clearly, any soldier would be expected to refuse such an order. We were all given classes on the Geneva Convention (as were you). There are many situations the average soldier is expected to recognise the illegality of orders. They never once mentioned in those classes 'or if you heard that the CinC's birth certificate wasn't in order'.
I'm being sarcastic but I think your comparison is bogus. In the case of the Nazis the orders themselves were wrong- but not the authority issuing those orders. There is a difference.
We don't know any such thing.
There are a concatenation of legitimate questions about his citizenship, all arising from the peripatetic, widely-traveled lifestyle of his mother and family.
Your right. After 20 years of trudging after my soldier, I have no understanding of the military mind. I've not asked my Senior NCO/husband's opinion on this matter at all. And I'm sure he's never spoken at length on this subject with his commander, Sgt. Major and other 1st Sgts. I'm sure that these men are just blissfully going on with their day, not watching the news or wondering about the ramifications of this lawsuit on their company.
I'll just take off my shoes and go bake some cookies now. /snarky
Rants? What the f--- are you going on about? I am an ex-soldier. I served with pride. I am talking here about active disobeying of orders during a time of war, which is a massively serious thing regardless of whether posters on this thread want to acknowledge that or not.
I, personally, am what is known as a birther. I want Obama gone tomorrow. I want to see his BC. But that is a civilian matter and our agitating for it one way or another isn't putting national security on the line. We clamour for the BC. Maybe he shows it, maybe he never does. But we aren't hurting anyone. But when you start talking about the military refusing orders during war time, that's a different ballgame all together.
I'm ranting for pointing this out? Well, so be it. I can live with it.
“But the Army reservist’s intention appeared not so much to fight for America as to fight against President Barack Obama,...”
It’s the same damned thing, you twit.
Needs-repeating bump. Your point rebuts the ex parte account in Stars and Stripes.
Although it is worth noting that Stars and Stripes found it necessary to report the story in the first place. I'm sure Team Obama-Clinton would rather they buried it back on p. 23, or that they hadn't carried it at all.
The half that doesn’t care wonders why his records are off limits. Obama is one scary guy that hides everything. Where is your history? Is it out there? Obamas isn’t.
“.....a time of war.”
Lets see the Declaration of War!
The case has not been brought or decided. Many people and much money have been used to ensure the issue never gets a proper hearing. I would even be satisfied if it was done privately. If it were legally possible to hold a closed Supreme Court session and examine the documents as to Obama's qualification under the constitution I would be satisfied (although I'm sure many would cry foul). But I do want it settled.
Your awesome! Your wife must LOVE you! lol!
The way it works is that the unit is short a man until they can find a replacement. Again, this happens ALL THE TIME. You have no idea how many females try to get pregnant right before a deployment. Solders go nuts during block leave and break legs and wrap their cars around trees. A few idiots freak out and go AWOL. (Not common, but it happens.) The military really is prepared to loose a few bodies here and there.
I keep telling my husband that the United States Army will not grind to a halt if he isn't there and I point to these situations as my evidence, but he doesn't believe me.
I am concerned that this might take on a life of it's own and will eventually cause a problem. If enough soldiers, at the right battalions do this at the right time, there could be a real problem.
But then perhaps this mess will actually be resolved.
During the Vietnamese War, the North Vietnamese attempted persistently to justify their maltreatment of American POW's on similar grounds, viz., that President Johnson's force resolution was defective under the law of nations and did not rise to the status of a formal declaration of hostilities, therefore (they said) depriving U.S. personnel of lawful-combatant status, the protection of the laws of war, and the protocols of the Geneva Conventions.
From memory, subject to editing by better knowledge.
There’s been no declaration of war since... What? Korea?
Technicality. You tell all the soldiers and Marines (and sailors and airmen) who have lost their lives they are not at war.
Competely BS statement and a good example of letting one’s want to win an argument exceed decency.
Have some respect for those who have died- not just in this war but in Vietnam, Grenada, Panama and Desert Storm (to name just the more obvious ones).
Soldiers may *go* to war for their country, but they don't *fight* for their country when they're in combat.
“Here, the orders themselves are perfectly legal, nobody is questioning that. It is the issuing authority that is being questioned. And there is a world of difference there.”
If the issuing authority is proven to be illegal, then the orders that are issued by said authority are thus illegal.
More specifically, the article and any stated problem in deployment may well be the top brass doing some sucking up. One other thing I have considered is; why does an article like this see the light of day in a military publication? What makes the most sense to me is that the top officers understand that their asses are grass and Obama is a lawnmower if they cross him.
Let the cheek smooch-fest begin, and a national guard major and his civilian job are pocket change at the $1000 minimum table.
Major Cook never disobeyed any order!
He used his Constitutional rights to get a clarification that he would have to obey an order from a legit CiC which is his duty according to his conscious!!
I think we are very many who believe that PINO is NOT a legit CiC!!!
Well, yes. But I think we've got to look at the situation a few different ways. One, what would an officer normally be expected to do if given an order that was questionable? What I mean is- not one that is clearly illegal, but one that could be construed as illegal, maybe. What does the officer do in that situation. And to be honest, I don't know. I was enlisted. We are both governed by the UCMJ but an enlisted soldier isn't expected to have 'special knowledge' about questions of legality. There are certain categories of orders (Geneva Convention issues) that are very serious and we are given classes for those so we know for sure. But what an officer is expected to do in a case where it is not clear is not so easy to divine.
I posit that it is not reasonable to question the legality of the order because the normal procedure for Obama becoming CinC has been observed. I don't believe there's ever been an instance where the CinC has been accused of not being legit. SP4 New accused Clinton of giving him an illegal order (and many conservatives supported him) but he wasn't questioning the authority of Clinton to give him the order.
I just... We're fighting. If our military were sitting in garrison at the moment twiddling their thumbs- it would still be a very serious issue. But the order Cook refuses to obey- the order itself- is perfectly reasonable and any CinC would give him that order. What does greater harm, for him to have to follow the order with his personal suspicions about the CinC's legitimacy or to have the military deciding to not follow orders during a time of war? I think a soldier has a very difficult job on any given day. It isn't made any easier when civilians are egging him on to disobey orders. I think this matter should be settled entirely in the civilian frame of reference.
I'm with you though- I want it settled.
OK, I read this really fast and saw:
You have no idea how many females try to get pregnant... Solders go nuts during block leave and ... legs ... wrap ...around ...
Dang, for a moment there I was ready to enlist again. Not that they would take me.
Thanks, BTW. Yes she does, but she is the one who is awsome.
Actually (not to go off topic) but that's not entirely accurate.
As a Jew, the last thing I'd ever want to do is to defend the Nazi's, but they were prosecuted for crimes committed before the laws were written to make them crimes.
When they did their horrible deeds, the UN didn't exist and the Geneva Convention didn't happen until several years after the war. At the time of their crimes against humanity, there were no laws saying that what they were doing was illegal. They were citizens of a sovereign nation following their own laws.
I don't know how they justified the prosecutions, but they did and I am glad for it. One lesson I've learned from this is that the law is written by Man and it is imperfect. Just because it's legal, doesn't mean it's *good*.
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