Marine says he faces discharge over Obama comments

A politically active Marine who has questioned President Barack Obama's authority said Thursday that he is facing administrative discharge proceedings over his comments.

Sgt. Gary Stein, who founded the Armed Forces Tea Party, said his commanding officer at Camp Pendleton near San Diego has accused him of violating a catch-all military justice provision against conduct endangering "good order and discipline."

Whoever thought there wasn’t enough evidence was dead wrong. And now a law enforcement body is conducting a criminal investigation regarding the same records that these military higher-ups said was no problem.

If a “Lakin” right now asks the chain of command to investigate and put their conscience at ease, what excuse will that chain of command give, given that law enforcement is conducting a criminal investigation over the same issue? They gonna say that Sheriff Joe just isn’t credible?

At what point does the failure to investigate problems become criminal negligence? Everybody wanted to know who knew about Abu Ghraib and when, and somebody’s head had to roll from that. Well, whose head is going to roll when Sheriff Joe finds out that Obama is guilty of fraud, perjury, obstruction of justice, and treason? These people in the chain of command better start thinking clearly.

“HE never said he would refuse to obey lawful orders. He said he would refuse to obey UNLAWFUL orders. Show me where disobeying unlawful orders is forbidden in the military’s codes or rules. I’ve been told that it is a LEGAL OBLIGATION. And show me where insisting on following the Constitution is “contempt”.

Understood. But where is the line officially drawn between lawful and unlawful orders? In a long, drawn out process involving the military justice system and the service member’s chain of command. That’s bottom line.

Look way, way back at the Lt. Calley trial for the My Lai massacre. Look at the trial over the same incident of the Huey helicopter pilot who literally interposed his aircraft between the Americal GI’s and the villagers in an effort to stop the same massacre. And, if you’re privileged to be a Vietnam vet like me who only retired a year ago from the Army JAG system (not a lawyer), then you get to see how both those individuals and their courts-martial are regarded by the Army legal community today.

Not a pretty sight, I promise you.

I’m not familiar with those courts-martial. What should I learn from them?

When our soldiers are trained about lawful v unlawful orders, what are they told? I realize there are sticky situations where it’s hard to know. I would hope that the UCMJ would give a soldier in good standing the benefit of the doubt when considering convicting somebody for following their conscience. Especially if they have tried to get answers in advance and nobody will give them.

What was argued here was that as long as you’re not told to do something criminal you’re supposed to obey and ask questions later.

But I’ve presented the scenario where the commander tells Soldier A to attach gas to the showerhead, Soldier B to gather the prisoners to the shower, Soldier C to turn on the shower, and Soldier D to move the bodies in the shower out for burial. That’s the lilliputian way of accomplishing a criminal deed - by assigning different individuals a portion that is not by itself criminal so they each have to obey - like handbells that each play just their note without being allowed to care what the whole melody ends up as.

That’s the argument that was used for Lakin. He was just supposed to get on the plane and that’s not criminal...

But I know that unlawful orders include those that are given by somebody not authorized to make that level of a decision. I’ve used the example of Lakin’s brigade commander telling him to bomb Iran. What should Lakin (or you, if it was you) do if your brigade commander told you to go bomb Iran and you knew that the only person who can authorize that is the CINC and the CINC did not authorize it? Obey first and ask questions later?

That’s exactly the same scenario as Stein is contemplating, only in this case it is Congress who has the authority to decide whether we can do combat operations in Syria for no other reason than to oust the leader of a sovereign nation who is cracking down on internal protesters. That doesn’t fit into the Authorization to Use Force that was passed following the 9-11 attacks. And the military leadership has said they don’t need authorization from Congress.

Seems to me that the question is a worthy one and should be answered BEFORE Obama and the DOD play “chicken” with the men who have to decide whether the combat order is lawful or not.

So why is it wrong for Stein to bring up the question before push comes to shove? You can bet your bottom dollar he’s not the only one who thinks combat orders like that would violate both the War Powers Act and the US Constitution.

This alleged POTUS will keep doing whatever he darn well pleases until somebody draws a line in the sand. And if nobody does, then there’s no way to know what is “lawful” because we HAVE no law.

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