Hussein Obama's ineligibility is destroying the entire command structure of the United States military. It has begun.
(Note: There's an interesting discussion concerning this situation ongoing at VFR.)
Update (July 18): A federal judge, as reported in the Ledger-Enquirer, has now dismissed Major Cook's case on grounds that the military's revocation of his deployment orders also serve to revoke his standing in the case. How convenient.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
You knew it had to come to this at some point
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19 comments:
Hah. And replacing it with a Chicago style system of intimidation.
Actually, I was just musing on the principle of "presumption of innocence" as a principle of law and I find myself drawn inevitably towards the conclusion that the Founding Fathers basically intended for America to be a nation of vigilantes, in the original sense of that term.
Which kinda bugs me. I mean, does my own vigil therefore make me a good American? I have a hard time reconciling that with the realities of the situation. In theory it's all very well to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, but the Constitution is not America.
What is America? I don't know. To me, it is a land filled with blessing and promise, given as an heritage to those who would live in freedom. While the Constitution expresses that freedom, it is just a document of the outcome of a particular (if remarkable) debate over how to make a nation without infringing individual liberty.
What are Americans except the free people who rightfully inherit the land set apart for those who will bear the burden of their own decisions? Can I be yet called one such? I have made my choice. I stand by it. But I will not bear the consequences. It is impossible for me. Thus I will not inherit the land by right, even should I possess it I am not an heir.
Well then. It seems that, while my vigil does not itself disqualify me, yet I am not to be confused with an American. That's quite reassuring, to me. For various reasons.
Still, I'm also relieved that Americans are beginning to wake up to the Obamanation which has besieged their homeland. It must be hard for this Major to get Baracked like this, but somebody has to be first over the top.
Isn't it shocking that the military recinded the order? I have never heard such a thing. When I was in they were going after soldiers who did not want to serve under UN command. This is going to throw attention on this issue like we have never seen if the word gets out.
Hah. And replacing it with a Chicago style system of intimidation.
Yeah; surprise, surprise, eh?
DR, I get the feeling that you're right. This has the potential to blow this eligibility issue wide open. I don't want to get too excited about the prospects here, but this single case will probably do more to focus attention on the issue than all the other eligibility lawsuits combined.
Well, they've had soldiers sign on to this before (and still have them). Soldiers protesting the administration still only gets play if the media is sympathetic.
The big difference in this case is that the administration is responding directly and illegally to the soldier involved. The smart thing would have been to issue a conscience waiver. "Nobody's saying you have to go if you don't want to."
But Obamatards don't understand the military at all. They wanted this to go away fast, so they pressed to rescind the order, which was quicker and more final (as they see it) than a conscience waiver. They also basically see a conscience waiver as a prize rather than an insult.
Then they turn around and try to intimidate potential copy-cats by having this officer terminated from his civilian employment. Not only is that highly illegal, it's also about as dumb a move as they could possibly make. These goons seem to actually believe that American soldiers serve primarily for the money, and further believe that they are deathly afraid of pink slips.
Yeah, most soldiers exhibit some aversion to the color pink, but that ain't the reason, Barack.
Chiu,
I started to ask earlier whether you wanted to change your position on Obama's understanding of real people. Then I remembered that I need to keep Obama separate from the people -- did I say "people?" I meant magots -- who are actually calling the shots in these kinds of matters.
Hmmm...from the manipulative solipsism discussion, right?
Obama isn't one. That doesn't mean he's particularly adept at thinking about other points of view, it just means that he doesn't deny that other people exist. Being human, Obama has an instinctive desire to surround himself with people who voice agreement with his ideas.
Now, an adept communicator is committed to understanding how other people think, and finding agreement underneath apparent dispute. But real communicators also will identify points of fundamental disagreement, and that can be a very discomfiting experience to those who've become accustomed to the communicator's sincere efforts to build bridges.
A manipulative solipsist, on the other hand, has no problem always saying what is likely to have a useful effect on any nearby 'puppet'. The main difficulty for a solipsist is simply figuring out the right manipulation, since their world-view excludes serious consideration of other people as people rather than puppets.
I happen to be an inquisitor. We aren't really interested in anything other than satisfying our own curiosity about the world. That description may...mislead. Curiosity is far too weak a term for my driving impulse. But more grandiose ideals like "Truth" or "pure knowledge" would be merely fatuous.
Obama is simply an ordinary person who likes to feel secure by having people agree with him. He relies on that more than most because of certain elements of his background, and also because of limited personal courage.
The stupid moves of this administration often come from Obama's herd of true believers. But the overall idiocy is a result of the fundamentally flawed worldview of the manipulative solipsists running the show. This particular incident falls into the former category.
Okay, I've got to do some reading about these different types of personalities, so that I can form a respectable knowledge base on the subject and understand what the hell you're talking about. lol
Any suggestions?
Is he destroying the command structure of the military? Doesn't he have the authority, as commander in chief, to rescind any order issued by those under his command?
I think what he is doing is attempting to remove the basis for the law suit.
Personality types...lol. You can find information on narcissistic personality disorders easily enough, which covers Obama and a lot of leftists. I doubt that you'll find anything about manipulative solipsists though, they don't like being put under microscopes that much. Also, it isn't a personality type so much as an internal world-view.
Simply put, I mean people who genuinely adopt solipsism as the foundation of their 'ethical' system (such as that term applies for people who decide that nobody else really exists). Most actual manipulative solipsists would never admit to such a belief (what's the point of telling a puppet that you think it's a puppet, after all?), and many of them react to exposition of their solipsism with...well, about how you'd probably react if your toilet started complaining about how inconsiderate you're being when you use it.
Solipsists are still subject to human emotions, they get frustrated and everything. But they also have a certain slickness and adaptability, what looks like a willingness to be accommodating of others. That's the manipulative side.
I don't know how common they are in the general population. And there seem to be different degrees. But I'm confident that Obama isn't one. He's too needy.
Continuing with the original topic, even though Obama has the authority to rescind orders, doing so to avoid being forced to prove that he is legally authorized to exercise command is tantamount to admitting that he has no actual command authority. It sets a really nasty precedent.
Having a service board grant a conscience waiver would have been more appropriate (though if you read between the lines of what this Major was saying, it was something he was trying to avoid). It would have closed the question completely as far as this Major's case was concerned, he'd have to fight to have the waiver revoked (which would be uncharted territory) before he could regain standing to sue.
As it is, he is still subject to having new orders cut at any time, so he still has standing. And of course now he has another case with far better precedent.
Turning around and using extralegal influence to order a civilian employer to fire a specific individual without cause is the clincher. It's completely illegal, and it's highly offensive to any professional soldier. It basically says "I'm not just unfamiliar with how military authority works, I can't use it properly even to save my Presidency."
Manipulative Solipsists are the people I'm interested in. I'd never even heard of the term before you came along and introduced it to me, Chiu.
Mom, Chiu explained my meaning about how Obama is destroying the command structure pretty well. It is a dangerous precedent that has been set in this particular case. What is done is done, but it goes way, way deeper than this single case.
As an ex military member who comes from a family whose military service stretches several generations back, I know for a fact that a large proportion of U.S. military men all throughout the ranks are real ... touchy about the legitimacy of their commanders, and the connection that legitimacy (or the lack thereof) has to their being at the mercy of their commanding officers' decisions. Yes, all the way up the line to the president.
Indeed, they're more likely to call into question a president's legitimacy than they are their unit commander's.
The people that voted for Hussein Obama (not altogether unlike those that voted for Bill Clinton, but there is a difference nonetheless) showed that either they don't understand what military men are all about, or they just don't care about the military. It is a combination of both. But as to the latter group that just doesn't care, they cannot even begin to imagine how deeply they've touched a nerve amongst fighting men who put their lives on the line to defend this country and keep these people safe. And in return for their trouble they get an illegitimate CiC? How much more hostile to their very protectors can leftists possibly be?
I predict that what you're going to see in the future is a lot of chaos in the command structure of the military. And you simply cannot have that in any well ordered, disciplined system, which is why I said that Hussein is destroying that command structure by his refusal to establish his legitimacy as president, thus Commander in Chief, of the armed forces. If liberals could understand how horribly bad was their mistake in electing Hussein to the presidency, particularly regarding the implications concerning the U.S. military, even they might change their minds at this point. But, again, what's done is done. It'll all just have to play itself out.
Terry,
I do understand what you were saying. My question is to the point at the heart of the matter.
Would you consider it treason to undermine the command structure of our military during wartime?
Of course since no one in Congress saw any reason to challenge the election results prior to passing them on to the electoral college, even though the question had been raised, wouldn't they be culpable as well?
"Oh what a tangled web we weave.."
Well, I think that Congress and Hussein & Co. are all a lot more treasonous than any military member could ever be in such a matter.
Ah, the eternal question.
Whether or not you're breaking the law depends on what is legal, doesn't it? Treason may be a particularly heinous crime, but in that respect it is a crime like any other. If Obama isn't Constitutionally eligible to act as President, then it violates the Service Oath to accept him as one.
That Oath has no limitation, by the way. It still binds me or Terry as much as it binds Major Cook. Endless complications in my own case, but not beyond what can be reconciled. Lucky me (sooo not bitter, eh?).
Obama...is not an American citizen. Can he be guilty of treason? Perfidy, I'll grant (which makes this an academic discussion). It's completely against the laws of war, which do apply because Obama's true loyalties are involved in armed conflict with the United States of America. But as they are technically non-state actors anyway, it's all rather academic.
As Major Cook rightly (if somewhat naively) points out, he would be guilty of a war crime if, having strong reasons to doubt that his orders are legitimate, he failed to question those orders. This is one of the foremost principles of international law, famously established by the Nuremberg hearings. Every lawful combatant must be instructed in this principle for a nation to be in compliance with the laws of war, just so that the "I was only following orders" defense cannot be employed.
In the end, laws are nothing more than what people are willing make them. I voluntarily bound myself to defend the Constitution...against all enemies. Such choices are the heart of any law.
One of the commenters at VFR: "...is that really a standard that you want to set? A soldier can disobey his commander in chief if he has (questionable) doubts about the legitimacy of his commander in chief?"
This may be highly interesting in this context:
One of the most prominent figures of the military resistance against Hitler was Generaloberst Ludwig Beck. This is from one of his memoranda:
All honest and serious German men in responsible national positions will have to see it as their mission and duty to use all possible means and methods to avert war with Czechoslovakia, regardless of the consequences. Such a war must inevitably lead to a world war that would mean the end of Germany.
The highest ranking officers of the Wehrmacht are most befitting and capable for this task since the Wehrmacht is the operational instrument of power for the national leadership in conducting a war.
At stake here are ultimate decisions for the survival of the nation. History will burden these leaders with a blood-debt if they do not act according to their professional and political knowledge and their conscience.
Their soldierly duty to obey has its limits when their knowledge, their conscience, and their responsibility forbid carrying out an order.
[…]
There is a lack of greatness and recognition of duty when at such a time a high-ranking soldier regards his duties and tasks only within the limited framework of his military assignments without awareness that his highest responsibility is to the nation as whole.
Extraordinary times require extraordinary actions!
Ludwig Beck was born in 1880. Following his family's tradition, he begun his his army service in an artillery regiment in 1898. After WWI he joined the scrap Reichswehr. While he saw, like many other career soldiers, the Nazis' rise to power first as an opportunity to reverse the consequences of the Versailles treaty, the removal of his homosexual former buddies in 1934 (the so-called "Röhm Putsch") by Hitler, triggered off a change of mind.
As Army Chief of Staff from 1935, he saw his role as an independent adviser. With this view, however, he stood in sharp contrast to those officers who, from an early stage, did not just permit themselves to be used as Hitler's henchmen, but acted as willing executioners.
When his attempts at rallying support among army commanders failed, he remained unswerving in his decision to resign not to be involved in Hitler's military dillettantism, driving the nation into war against Czechoslovakia. Beck remained unimpressed by Hitler's early political and military successes. He had long been aware that the war triggered by the attack on Poland in September 1939 would inevitably result in Germany's total destruction.
He was, too, deeply distraught about the moral rotting inside Germany. From the winter of 1939 on, Beck was the centre of the military resistance against the Nazis and the groups related to it. He had been designed to become head of state had the coup of July 20 succeeded. After a suicide attempt, General Beck was "helped" to finalize it, late in the evening of July 20, 1944.
Notabene that my intent is NOT to equate Obama with Hitler. My intent is to compare cases of doubtful legitimacy of supreme command: Hitler's initial claim to power was, without doubt, legal, Obama's isn't as long as he can't or won't submit the necessary proof of eligibility. When Hitler showed the true extent of his megalomania and criminal intent, virtually all commanders went on to follow him. Yes, that was opportunist, but not JUST opportunist. (Civilian) historians tend to underestimate the soldierly oath of loyalty. Now service under Obama is very much what it was under Bush. The war in Afghanistan is as justified (or unjustified) as it was under Bush. There is no reason, apart from a, IN THIS CONTEXT, petty formal legal reason, to reject service in the military. Sorry, but I think the commenter from VFR I quoted above makes a VERY valid point.
Nora, yes, I think the VFR commenter makes a valid point too, as I acknowledged several times both here and at VFR.
"Is this the sort of precedent you want to set?"
Umm, no! Why? Because it destroys military order and discipline; it threatens to destroy the entire command structure of the U.S. military, and to put the country at great risk. Afterall, and as I was told innumerable times by my superiors while in actual service, "this ain't a democracy, it is a dictatorship." Yes, yes, it's an effective dictatorship as it applies to me so long as you give me more incentive to go along than not.
Someone ought to ask Hussein O. & Co. that question.
Okay, okay. Forget about asking Hussein himself the question. Whatever his answer might be, it matters not. Because he's not a legitimate citizen of the United States, much less president and CiC.
But like I also said in that VFR thread, apparently even the United States military does not deny that Maj. Cook has standing in the case. Correction, they're denying his standing since his deployment orders have been rescinded. Which means that they acknowledge that Maj. Cook (and every other military member by extension) had standing while his deployment orders were active and valid.
Now, call me crazy but if one is subject to be deployed at any time, then I'd say, based on the military's position in this case, that that person has standing during such time.
Here's my simple position on Obama's "legitimacy": Until such time that he establishes it, he isn't.
But thanks for posting the information on Beck. Very interesting in this context to be sure.
Chiu,
You're right. It is impossible for Hussein (or any foreigner, for that matter) to commit treason against the U.S. I should make sure I'm clear on that in the future. But his actions are, nonetheless, treasonous. Because he's acting under the pretense of being a natural born U.S. citizen.
I don't know whether Major Cook is a natural born U.S. citizen or not, but I'd lay good money down that whatever he claims to be in that regard, he is. Indeed, the U.S. military has long since properly vetted Major Cook, unlike Hussein Obama.
But like I also said in that VFR thread, apparently even the United States military does not deny that Maj. Cook has standing in the case. Correction, they're denying his standing since his deployment orders have been rescinded. Which means that they acknowledge that Maj. Cook (and every other military member by extension) had standing while his deployment orders were active and valid.
Indeed, and that makes it so creepy, doesn't it? WHAT IS GOING ON THERE? What is that man doing to your country?
He is destroying it, Nora. Many of us warned way ahead of time that his election to the presidency would destroy America. We firmly resisted all of these so-called Macheavellian strategies, and so forth. Not because they weren't interesting, but because they were ultimately more helpful to his cause than a hindrance to it. But to no avail.
I almost hate to say this, but it is time to lock-and-load. Almost.
"...is that really a standard that you want to set? A soldier can disobey his commander in chief if he has (questionable) doubts about the legitimacy of his commander in chief?"
It's not a standard that any of us need to set. The founding principle of having laws of war at all is that soldiers must follow those laws regardless of whether or not they are ordered to disobey them. Major Cook might be seen as stretching a point when he says he could be prosecuted as a war criminal, but the fact remains that to follow orders when you believe your chain of command to lack legal standing removes you from the category of being considered a lawful combatant.
To bear arms and wear the recognized uniform of a lawful combatant in a war-zone when you have strong reason to suspect that you are not a lawful combatant is called perfidy, among the most serious categories of war crimes one can commit. True, in this case the commission of perfidy is merely technical in character, since if Obama is not legally commander in chief then all U.S. forces acting in any capacity other than strictly defensive actions are guilty of the same crime...following illegal orders.
But that doesn't change the fact that we are talking about serious war-crimes. Even if the war itself is legal, you still have to follow the laws of war. "Well, someone ordered me to" is not a justification.
Soldiers who do not concern themselves with whether their orders legal are termed "mercenaries" (there are a number of other ways to qualify as a mercenary, but I won't bother to discuss them), which cannot be lawful combatants under the laws of war. A soldier that follows orders he suspects to be illegal out of fear of financial loss is really a mercenary, not just "technically" one.
I don't necessarily agree that there even should be laws for war. Sherman said, "War is cruelty. There's no use trying to reform it, the crueler it is the sooner it will be over." I consider him America's foremost thinker on matters of warfare, whether or not he is correct on this point. I would clarify that only that quarter which is offered freely can be of any use in securing a lasting peace. The more you demand as a matter of law, the less can be given as a token of good faith.
But if you're going to have laws of war, then the debate over whether soldiers have a responsibility to confirm the legality of their orders is settled. You can't have laws of war unless soldiers (and particularly officers) bear a responsibility to reject unlawful orders.
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