All members of the military are required to request clarification of orders perceived to be unlawful and must refuse to obey unlawful orders—e.g. an order to shoot that prisoner is clearly illegal and must NOT be followed, must ask, what chu sayin’ sir? and if sir bellows I said shoot him, you better believe shooting him is NOT the answer. If someone known to be a SP4 puts on a COL’s uniform and starts issuing orders: Take that position—no one is required to follow that order—you starting to get the picture?
I’ve got the picture. Orders are presumed to be legal, and it is up to the person disobeying them to show that they were illegal.
So if it were a known fact that Obama was no longer President, THEN his orders would be illegal and could be ignored.
But under the UCMJ, passed by Congress and used by all Presidents, it is the responsibility of the person disobeying the orders to show that he KNEW them to be illegal at the time he disobeyed them. There is no room for, “I had suspicions, so I disobeyed....”
The problem is that Lakin had no evidence. You don’t get to disobey, and then use the court to try to find evidence. And by Lakin’s own admission, his legal counsel told him the orders were legal.
So Lakin had no grounds to stand on. During my 25 years in, there were several times I refused to obey an order. Each time, I told my boss that if he put it into writing and ran it by legal for their review, I’d obey. And each time, my boss backed down because he knew the order to be illegal.
But you don’t get to pick and choose. If Lakin believed no order was legal because Obama wasn’t really the President, then he was obligated to disobey ALL orders - not just deployment orders. In fact, he was obligated to resign, since Congress and the Courts are all content that Obama is, in fact, the President of the USA.
If you disagree, I suggest you immediately start disobeying all laws passed since 20 Jan 2009, since they were passed without ever being sent to a REAL President for review. And I hope you find a good lawyer to minimize your resulting time in jail...