Soldier Tries To Avoid Deployment to Afghanistan Claiming Obama Not Legally Commander-in-Chief

I can’t blame the guy for not wanting to go to Afghanistan, but this is a poor argument:

U.S. Army Maj. Stefan Frederick Cook, set to deploy to Afghanistan, says he shouldn’t have to go.

His reason?

Barack Obama was never eligible to be president because he wasn’t born in the United States.

Cook further states he “would be acting in violation of international law by engaging in military actions outside the United States under this President’s command. … simultaneously subjecting himself to possible prosecution as a war criminal by the faithful execution of these duties.”

In the 20-page document — filed July 8 with the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Georgia — the California-based Taitz asks the court to consider granting his client’s request based upon Cook’s belief that Obama is not a natural-born citizen of the United States and is therefore ineligible to serve as commander-in-chief of the U.S. Armed Forces.

Cook’s lawyer, Orly Taitz, who has also challenged the legitimacy of Obama’s presidency in other courts, filed a request last week in federal court seeking a temporary restraining order and status as a conscientious objector for his client.

Actually, Obama was born in Hawaii in 1961, two years after it became a state.

Orly Taitz has been one of the driving forces behind the “Birther” movement which claims that Obama is not an American citizen.  Considering that several attempts at legal action to block Obama from taking the presidency failed, it seems pretty foolish to use such a claim in another court case.

9 Comments

  1. 1
    Conrad Strong says:

    These birther conspiracists are just insane. It seems to me that anyone that crazy should not be serving in the military and might actually be a threat to national security.

  2. 2
    Fritz says:

    Yeah — when you join the military, you give up your right to decide who to kill.  Deal with it.

  3. 3
    Mr. Jeffersonian says:

    Perhaps these idiots didn’t get the memo that Hawaii is the 50th state of the Union and not another country LMAO Whatever the reason  they are not doing anyone a favor making such an obnoxious claim, besides these people didn’t seem to mind when the troops were fighting for a President that was never even elected.

  4. 4
    Ron Chusid says:

    The claim is that Obama was not really born in Hawaii. Considering the paper trail which shows he was born there, it would have taken quite a conspiracy to have faked such evidence if the conspiracy theorists are right. First of all his parents would have needed to decide that a half-black child born at that time even had a chance of growing up to be president to initiate such a plot.

    I’m sure he could not succeed with a case questioning the legitimacy of any president, but there sure is a stronger argument to make regarding Bush. It won’t help him as legally Bush was president. The decision of the Supreme Court trumps considerations such as fairness in the 2000 election, and Congress also ratified the election. I think he needs to find some other way to try to avoid deployment than to question the legitimacy of presidential actions.

  5. 5
    wyl says:

    Maj.  Stefan F. Cook posted on Free Republic. I guess that explains his lunacy…
    See UPDATE at http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/7/13/753140/-Birther-Soldier-Says-Obama-Cant-Send-Me-To-War

  6. 6
    wyl says:

    Not surprisingly, he is also a Global Warming denier. As seen from his profile ‘roaddog727’ at Free Republic. (link)
    He is a very active Freeper too.
    P.S. Democratic Undgerground has more on this. (link) It seems he Maj Cook wasn’t looking for excuses for no deploying.
    P.S.S.
    Just googled roaddog727 , found some dirt from the profile on AdultFriendFinder.com:
    44 year old Man in Powder Springs, Georgia, United States Looking For: Women for 1-on-1 sex”
    His age, education  seems to match with the Free Republic profile.  The Adult profile says he is an African American. I was under the false impression that he could be  a typical republican racist redneck.
     

  7. 7
    Christoher Skyi says:

     
    wyl — I think you’re crossing a privacy line here and getting mean spirited for reasons I can’t fathom.  What does Mr. Cook’s sex life or scientific beliefs have to do with the issues at hand?  What are you trying to do with a such comment?
     

  8. 8
    Christoher Skyi says:

    Here’s the specifics of the 14th Amendment — I would think if Obama did not have legal stasis to run for office, that would be been easily determined long Long ago . . .
     
     
    The 14th Amendment defines citizenship this way: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” But even this does not get specific enough. As usual, the Constitution provides the framework for the law, but it is the law that fills in the gaps.
     
    Currently, Title 8 of the U.S. Code fills in those gaps. Section 1401 defines the following as people who are “citizens of the United States at birth:”

    Anyone born inside the United States *
    Any Indian or Eskimo born in the United States, provided being a citizen of the U.S. does not impair the person’s status as a citizen of the tribe
    Any one born outside the United States, both of whose parents are citizens of the U.S., as long as one parent has lived in the U.S.
    Any one born outside the United States, if one parent is a citizen and lived in the U.S. for at least one year and the other parent is a U.S. national
    Any one born in a U.S. possession, if one parent is a citizen and lived in the U.S. for at least one year
    Any one found in the U.S. under the age of five, whose parentage cannot be determined, as long as proof of non-citizenship is not provided by age 21
    Any one born outside the United States, if one parent is an alien and as long as the other parent is a citizen of the U.S. who lived in the U.S. for at least five years (with military and diplomatic service included in this time)
    A final, historical condition: a person born before 5/24/1934 of an alien father and a U.S. citizen mother who has lived in the U.S.

    * There is an exception in the law — the person must be “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States. This would exempt the child of a diplomat, for example, from this provision.
     
    Anyone falling into these categories is considered natural-born, and is eligible to run for President or Vice President. These provisions allow the children of military families to be considered natural-born, for example.
     

  9. 9
    Eclectic Radical says:

    The question of birthplace has been brought up before. George Romney was born outside of the US, to US citizens, and there was some question about his eligibility in 1968 in the Republican primaries. Everyone can remember the speculation about McCain from individuals not entirely versed in the law during the last Republican primary.
     
    It should be noted that the myth that Obama was secretly born in Indonesia would require that his stepfather be his father (which is patently not true simply on the visual evidence) and that his birth father not have existed. This is a pretty stupid rumor in the first place. At the time he was born, his mother had not yet met his stepfather or lived in Indonesia.
     
    Ron raises excellent questions about the conspiracy angle, but here is another worthy of consideration: where did his parents, not terribly affluent at the time of his birth or thereafter, gain the wherewithal to put a massive conspiracy into place?
     
    Of course, many of the true believers will reply that they didn’t… that the conspiracy came into being after the 2004 election when he suddenly became a candidate. They’d argue a US Senator could engineer any conspiracy he wished. This is the joy of conspiracy theories, they don’t demand any kind of evidence because the lack of evidence in itself is why there IS a conspiracy.
     

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