By Diana West
WashingtonExaminer.com
December 18, 2010
Here's the rub, as I understand it: The military justice system isn't empowered to consider whether a president, duly elected, certified and inaugurated, is anything other than what the civilian leadership says he is.
What this means is that Lakin's beau geste may originate within the military order but it falls into the category of civil disobedience, breaking the law to uphold higher principle.
It is a higher principle no one else is upholding. Indeed, Lakin's disobedience highlights the existence of a vacuum of "true faith and allegiance" in the land -- a gross abdication of civilian responsibility to ensure the lawful transfer of presidential powers took place long before Lakin received orders to return to Afghanistan.
Indeed, through peaceful disobedience, Lakin has directed our attention to the moral corruption of our most trusted public servants who, rather than expose themselves to political inconvenience, permitted the secrecy of President Obama to fester in the first place.
Lt. Col. Terrence Lakin didn't rush onto a battleground this week; he walked into a military courtroom. He didn't fire a weapon; he pleaded guilty to disobeying orders related to deployment, and not guilty to the more serious charge of "missing movement." But Lakin put his life, in the sense of his distinguished 17-year career as an Army surgeon, his income, his pension, and his personal freedom, on the line because of his sworn duty to the U.S. Constitution.
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