No, because whistle-blowing is a verbal or written report of conduct you believe to be unlawful. It is not a refusal to carry out orders.
Officers are taught that you can refuse to obey illegal orders. But you better be damn sure you're right about the order being illegal. Considering that every single other person in the chain of command above him, and all of his peers, believed those deployment orders were lawful, what he did was essentially a mutiny. And a stupid one at that.
He openly admitted that he did it as a test case. Refusing to obey orders so as to create a test case is simply bogus. As I said, if we excused what Lakin did, then you'd have to excuse any other officer who refused to obey Dubya's orders because they disagreed with his election, Trump's orders because they disagreed with his, etc..
That absolutely cannot be tolerated.
Like many of us, Lakin could not at the time imagine his argument would fail to gain meaningful and powerful allies.
If that's Lakin's argument, then he was an idiot. As I pointed out above, not a single other officer joined him in this, and surely he had discussed his thoughts with others. Every single one of his superiors considered Obama's orders lawful, and Lakin would have known that the very first time he pushed back on deploying. The court-martial would not have been the first reaction. the first reaction would have been him sitting down with superiors asking him if he was out of his freaking mind.
He knew he was a loner out on a limb, and hopped out on that limb anyway. Zero sympathy.
Exactly, Lakin believed his chain of command was corrupted and on the available record he was correct.
Much of what you say, of course, is correct. However,
Considering that every single other person in the chain of command above him, and all of his peers, believed those deployment orders were lawful…Every single one of his superiors considered Obama's orders lawful…
That is pure conjecture, there is no way you could know that. I am quite sure there were others and particularly Jag officers that silently agreed with him. In any event, it is not relevant; the issue was not to be decided by a poll or vote. It was to be decided at the Joint Session, specifically called for such purpose, with Congress asking Obama for a valid birth certificate, which perhaps for its own reasons it did not do. You will recall even VP Cheney failed to conform with the format of the JS and call for objections.
He knew he was a loner out on a limb, and hopped out on that limb anyway. Zero sympathy.
That he was a loner is again not relevant. I will wager you have had occasion to be in a professional gathering where all but one participant was incorrect and the latter prevailed. Why risk more than one military career even if the odds were in one's favor? There was little to be won at the personal level other than perhaps a standing O from one's peers.
You view this from the very closest perspective which is Lakin’s refusal to obey an order, without regard to whether the order was legal. If you were a commissioned officer in the Marine Corps (and not the product of a liberal college) I could better understand your “zero sympathy” viewpoint. (You are probably well aware that the officer’s oath is to the Constitution and not to the President/Commander in Chief.)
However, I view it from a much wider view. IMO, Lakin’s case raises serious doubts as to whether and to what extent one can rely on the federal government for assistance if one sees a duty to protect the Constitution against domestic enemies.
It’s been fun.