Posted on 12/14/2010 9:25:59 AM PST by Smokeyblue
An Army doctor who disobeyed orders to deploy to Afghanistan because he questions Barack Obama's eligibility to be president has pleaded guilty to 1 of 2 charges against him.
At a court-martial proceeding Tuesday in Maryland, Lt. Col. Terrence Lakin of Greeley, Colo., pleaded guilty to not meeting with a superior when ordered to do so and not showing up at Fort Campbell in Kentucky where he was supposed to report.
(Excerpt) Read more at wkrn.com ...
“Do we really want brigade commanders making lawful combat deployment orders to foreign countries totally independent of the POTUS?”
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LOL! You’ve made this silly leap several times even though it is completely unsupported by anything that Judge Lind said. What she said was that the legality of an order from a superior to an inferior can be determined without reference to a determination of whether the President is eligible.
That bears no logical connection to your repeated hypothetical about brigade commanders initiating invasions.
As far as I'm aware nobody has been ordered to Iran, moot point.
Next you'll be arguing about legal orders to explore Uranus.
In what way are orders to report to Kentucky less valid than those to fall out for lunch?
I predict the panel (jury) is going to throw the book at LTC. Lakin.
From CAAFlog:
After receiving the answers to their inquiries (reported in the previous liveblogging entry), the members (jury) deliberated for twelve more minutes before returning their verdict. The court-martial moved immediately to sentencing.
The prosecution played in its entirety LTC Lakin’s YouTube video announcing his plans to refuse to deploy. At the conclusion of the tape, the birthers in the audience stood and gave sustained applause. The military judge did not gavel the court to order; she simply let them finish. I am reasonably certain that their outburst will not count against the accused; but in no way could it have helped.
The prosecution then called Colonel Roberts, the brigade commander and Medal Of Honor recipient, to the stand as their first live witness. He testified that the accused’s behavior was unprofessional and had a negative impact on the unit. Cross examination was limited and, according to Colonel Sullivan, “didn’t really go anywhere.”
MAJ Dobson, the doctor who had to replace LTC Lakin on short notice, testified next. He recounted how two days after arriving in theatre, the unit suffered a mass-casualty attack, with sixteen wounded. He said that he was not, in his opinion, as well-prepared to deal with the attack as he would have been had he had longer to prepare for operations at the Foward Operating Base(FOB). The defense suggested on cross that the deployment was probably a good career opportunity for the major personally. Another point which will likely not go over well.
The next witness was Major Dobson’s wife, herself a combat veteran, who testified that she and her husband had to forego some coursework they had planned to take together, and that as a result of his short-notice deployment, he missed the award ceremony in which she was awarded the Bronze Star. She also testified about how hard it was to prepare their young son for his dad’s sudden and unexpected departure.
Denise Lind knows that the Constitution allows Obama to “act as President”?
Seems to me that others have said that the military couldn’t decide this issue, that the military isn’t supposed to interpret the Constitution. How, then, could Denise Lind know how the Constitution applies to the situation with Barack Obama and Joe Biden? There are still pending cases for the federal judiciary to deal with this, so how can a military court decide such a thing?
This totally violates what everybody has been saying about the military not being able to interpret the Constitution. Are you saying the military court-martial system is able to interpret the Constitution?
And also, Lind’s decision was that the POTUS is irrelevant to the lawfulness of Lakin’s orders. If that precedent holds, then brigade commanders can deploy combat troops to foreign countries independently of the POTUS. All because this one judge says so. Do you agree with her, that brigade commanders can deploy combat troops to foreign countries regardless of what authorization a Constitutionally-valid POTUS does or doesn’t give?
To come up with that decision, Lind had to totally ignore the last 3 of the 4 elements of “lawfulness” for Article 90 - particularly ii. Do you agree with her that those elements don’t apply?
Your words not mine. I simply found a variety of errors in logic and rationale. For example, she suggested that Congress is the only governmental body that can vet presidential eligiblity, yet there is no Constitutional provision that makes this declaration. The existence of state laws that allow citizens to challenge candidates on the basis of eligibility goes further in disproving her ill-stated belief.
I think my husband would like me to get banned. It would sure simplify our lives. lol
You need to familiarize yourself with the term combatant commander.
"At least two of the orders Lakin disobeyed were tied specifically to White House directives. These orders were not made in a vacuum, so to speak."
Really? Please show me the "White House directive" that ordered Lakin to do anything.
"They ARE when the person(s) making or executing such orders do not have the proper authority to make them."
Again, "combatant commander" is going to help you a whole bunch.
Back to Lakin, how do you feel about him perjuring himself when he swore under oath that his orders to deploy were lawful? Has he exposed himself to even more charges, in your birther mind?
You are welcome, and thanks for the post that started the whole ruckus.
Well, I wish him the very best outcome possible, but defying orders as a political protest was not a smart move. The military does not look kindly on such actions.
And notwithstanding the objections and advice of all the sea lawyers present, the orders were lawful. The military still recognizes Obama as the commander-in-chief and there will be no mutiny by the Admiralty.
By the way, at the end the movie the sea lawyer who advised the mutiny chickened out and to save his own skin double-crossed the mutineers. Mutiny is never the answer.
No, I’m not equating the two. But I am saying that if the rule of law and Constitution are abandoned, then even the unthinkable would become “lawful orders”, and that would put your son, my nephews, and a lot of good, honest, red-blooded American heroes in a very bad way.
Which is what I believe has already happened to Lakin. Judge Lind ruled that the whole issue of valid authorization from the POTUS, who alone is authorized by Congress to decide to use force, is IRRELEVANT and won’t be allowed to enter the arguments at all.
If your son was required to go rape every person he saw and he disobeyed because the orders weren’t lawful - and the judge ruled that the orders WERE lawful and any argument about lawfulness would be thrown out of the court-martial.... where would that leave your son?
That’s basically what has happened here. There are 4 criteria for lawfulness under Article 90, plus a few added on for Article 92(1). Lind allowed ONE - count ‘em, one - of those criteria to be addressed, and all the others were considered IRRELEVANT; no evidence admitted nor argument accepted.
This is serious, serious doo-doo. And I care precisely because of people like your son and my nephews. They deserve much, much better than this.
And if there are no witnesses to the oath?
Aha! Now I understand where the disconnect is, butter. You are equating the act of committing forces with the order to deploy forces. The two are not the same.
Give me a minute to pull up the specific law and I’ll provide a link for you.
If that's the reversible error that you wish to hang your hat on, good luck with it. Although, you might want to keep the day job, just in case.
The use of force was authorized by Bush.
Have you seen HIS birth certificate?
Look, Obama will be gone in a couple of years.
I think you will be much happier if you focus on voting
that sack of shit out instead of on magic documents
that will make him disappear. Just sayin'.
Lakin bet and lost. It was a stupid bet. Truth probably was
on his side, but law has little to do with truth.
I know you're livid about this, I've read your posts.
But there really isn't anything to be done about it except
to learn a lesson.. when city hall is in the White House, you ain't winning against it.
In short, the above law provides that the Secretary of Defense (currently Robert Gates) is the one who has the authority to order the assignment of forces to combat (i.e. deployment). He must obtain the approval of the President to ensure that the number of forces he intends to deploy fit within the "force structure" (i.e. number of forces) presribed by the President.
So, while Obama agreed to commit 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan. He gave no specific order to deploy troops. Secretary Gates ordered the deployment based upon the recommendations submitted to him by the Secretary of the Army (civilian) and the Chief of Staff of the Army (military).
“How do states, Congress, and SCOTUS officially “recognize him as president”?”
All states were satisfied he was eligible. True, their standards were way below mine, but everyone did place him on the ballot. They also could pass a law requiring a candidate for President to have two citizen parents to go on their ballot in 2012, which would force the federal courts to rule on the meaning of NBC, since the Indiana courts have ruled otherwise.
Any member of Congress COULD have objected in writing to the election, and none did. Therefor, the Congress was content. No member of Congress has tried to introduce a law mandating two citizen parents.
And the SCOTUS has refused every case offered, administered the oath of office, and two members were nominated by Obama with no objection from the Court.
The above law describes the management of deployments of members.
Interesting.
From: http://www.caaflog.com/2010/12/15/united-states-v-lakin-liveblog-iv/
“During sentencing deliberations, the members may each propose a sentence. The sentences are then voted on in ascending order – i.e., from the most lenient to the most severe. Once a proposed sentence receives at least a 2/3-rds vote, that becomes the sentence of the court. There are different rules in capital cases and cases in which the possibility of confinement exceeds ten years, but those rules don’t apply here.
There are eight members of the court-martial. To reach the two-thirds threshold requires six votes.”
This was just one of several problems I found. I understand you would prefer to make trivializing comments, since you obviously can't argue against the point I made.
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