Lt. Colonel Terry Lakin, U.S. Army
There is a code of conduct among military personnel and police officers, which says that if one among them is committing an act that is wrong it becomes the duty of the others to speak up. I was not in the military service. I did serve in the ranks and files of law enforcement for twenty years. I understand that code of honor. It was written in the operations manuals of the two agencies in which I worked full-time. In fact, within Colorado it is a felony to not report a peace officer who engages in the commission of certain acts, such as use of excessive force during an arrest or other police action.
There is another unwritten code of conduct within the same services. It is also the code among criminals – “Don’t rat on your friends”. The hard, real truth is that a soldier or a peace officer who takes the step to come forward with information about the substantive wrong-doing of another member within the ranks will probably be labeled a snitch for the rest of his career – or ostracized and driven out – or both.
All of which brings me to the situation, once again, of Lt. Colonel Terry Lakin. Lakin (photo above), a highly decorated U.S. Army officer and flight surgeon with eighteen years of dedicated service, to all appearances did some reading up on his Commander In Chief, Barack Hussein Obama.
Anyone who has done much background work on Obama fully comprehends that it is impossible to learn much about his background, save what he told us in his two books – because it’s all sealed up by Court Orders. I am frequently astonished to find that people I encounter have no idea of the lengths to which this man has gone, and the amount of money he has spent, to cover his life’s footprints. He could not even sign up to play Little League baseball with what he’s presented as proof of his citizenship. And he could not pass a standard background check to be a municipal police officer, because of his known associations with people like Bill Ayers – a founding member of the Weather Underground.
Now comes Lakin, who refuses to deploy to Afghanistan for another tour of duty. Further, he refuses to obey any orders, until Obama shows his hole card in this virtual Texas Hold ‘Em game that has been going on since 2008. The bets are on the table and it’s a high-stakes casino. Lakin’s General Court Martial re-convenes on December 14, 2010. He is charged with missing a troop movement and disobeying orders. If convicted, he’s going to prison for a long time and there goes his career down the drain.
As a soldier, Lakin’s duty is to obey orders from his superiors, including the ones issued by his C.I.C. It is also his sworn duty to be sure that he is obeying lawful orders. He wants to ascertain that his C.I.C. is not a pretender to, and a usurper of, the Office of President. Sounds reasonable to me. The JAG who is presiding over the trial, Colonel Denise Lind, will not allow Lakin access to any of Obama’s documents by which he, and we, can determine Obama’s lawful eligibility to hold the office of Commander In Chief. That in itself should be a very disturbing thought for anyone who has worked within a justice system wherein defendants are always entitled to examine and test all of the evidence, including that which can exonerate them.
But Obama keeps shaking his head and refuses to turn over that Hole Card. So, either Terry Lakin is a criminal and a slacker who deserves to go to prison or he is a hero who is being pilloried by the unwritten code of conduct – “Don’t rat on your friends”.
My vote: He’s a hero.
I’m guessing you aren’t aware of the fact that Lakin has fired his original attorney, Rolf Jensen. His current counsel, a firm with a lot of experience in military justice, has stated that Colonel Lind’s order was correct and plans to defend Lakin on the grounds that he got bad legal advice from Jensen.
I am aware that Lakin’s first counsel is not on the case any more. And, yes, I am aware that credible military legal experts say that Lind’s ruling on his motion for discovery is correct, according to the USMCOJ. I thank you for your comment and for reading. So, it looks like the whole issue of the CIC’s eligibility is in Congress’ hands – again. Meanwhile, Colonel Lakin is in big trouble.
He is in big trouble. I have the feeling that the argument that he would have obeyed his orders if only his civilian lawyer had told him to won’t play well. In the meantime, now that the House will fall into the hands of the GOP, birthers should concentrate on demanding that the House investigate the President’s past, since the only Constitutional method to remove him from office before the end of his term is if the House votes articles of impeachment and he is convicted in the Senate.
I’m not sure by what means the House could even begin to put together enough material to prepare Articles of Impeachment. The potential evidence of high crimes and misedemeanors, if in fact it exists, is sealed and locked by Court Orders. For the House to accuse the President would require some hard facts showing that he’s committed the crimes. If Obama is pulling off the Grand Fraud in progress, he and his advisors have probably engineered the Perfect Crime. They hid all of the evidence before the act. Someone who knows the truth would have to come forward and testify under oath. I do not look for that to happen.
Why can’t the House subpoena his birth certificate from the state of Hawaii?
The House can subpoena the record – if an investigative committee is assembled and has the wherewithal to gather the courage for the litigation and political/media battle that will inevitably follow. The CIC has already spent a lot of money keeping his records sealed from view. I’m not willing to place a wager on the Repub leadership being willing to take such a large risk – the media will happily pile on and ridicule the idea, in a big way. But, then again, who knows what Boehner et al will do first? It’s not like there’s no damage needing to be undone and they have no work already set before them. This particular issue may not even be on the Repubs’ radar screen. High-stakes game in progress here.