Not a smart move, actually.
Now every officer is talking. Cook was right - every officer, especially the General Officers, open themselves up to charges of war crimes.
If you don’t think its serious, you can google up the stories on BHO’s administration going after CIA interrogators for following what they believed to be legal at that time.
The onus is on the OFFICER to determine the legality of their orders. That was the gist of the Lt. Calley v. United States of America case.
Either the Major is going to be a major for life, without being assigned orders, and without being discharged (those are orders too, and to accept those would be opening yourself up to dereliction charges), or some other officer under orders is going to refuse their orders.
This is about as NOT GOOD as it can get.
As of this evening, there is more than ample reason for every officer in the US military to suspect that orders from their command authority are no longer legal.
This may be a very interesting week.
Also, what rights does Cook have through the Inspector General's Office and Staff Judge Advocate?
Technically, he can still file an IG complaint against his superiors and Obama if they cover all this BS up, no?