The US Army is going to court-martial Lieut. Colonel Dr. Terry Lakin, who has refused to deploy to Afghanistan because he considers orders from the President to be “illegal” on the grounds that President Obama was not born in the United States (and thus ineligible to be President under the Constitution’s Article II, §1).
The Army is acting correctly. Lieut. Colonel Lakin is a serving officer, who has not been asked by his superiors to commit war crimes or other illegal acts. Whatever Colonel Laken believes about the President’s Constitutional qualifications, and whatever his grounds for so believing, the Colonel does not have standing to challenge the orders of the Commander in Chief.
The time for challenges to the President’s qualifications to fill his office has long since past. President Obama has been returned as President by the popular ballot and the electoral college, the results of that election certified by the Senate, and accepted by the courts and by the Colonel’s military superiors. In any case, such challenges are best lodged in other places, and by other persons, and not by serving officers. The very idea of military officers deliberating like some sort of debating society about what orders they will obey is ludicrous, dangerous and subversive of discipline. Lieut. Colonel Dr. Lakin, in his capacity as a military officer, has nothing to say about it; and should either shut up and soldier, or resign and accept the court-martial and the consequences.
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