lisab said:
Good question. I've wondered about the intense passion felt by the birthers, tea partiers, etc. They don't seem to have any concrete problem to complain about, just vague notions such as "socialism" and "government out of control". Their emotions seem tinged with real hate - so what is causing that? Is it Obama's "funny" name? His unusual upbringing (the years spent in a predominantly Muslim country)? Is it his race?
Maybe all those.
But as far as an officer refusing to deploy - we had that happen here locally, a guy who believed the Iraq war to be illegal. He faced court martial. I'll look for a link.
Edit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ehren_Watada"
A court martial is a trial, not a punishment. In Watada's case, he was facing a possible 2 year prison sentence for failing to go, plus being dismissed from the military (at his point in his career, losing a chance to collect retirement is less an issue than it is for someone only two years from retirement).
He was also facing additional punishment for the public statements he made.
I'm surprised things turned out as well as they did for Watada.
You can't fail to deploy based on the rationale that the entire war is illegal. He could have refused to take part in specific actions that he felt were illegal. The latter would raise a lot of flak for him, but his actions would have to be really out there for them to result in a court martial (there were some rather courageous military members that refused to participate in "aggressive" interrogation practices and there was no way anyone would have wanted to take that to court martial).
None the less, if Watada felt strongly enough about it, I'd say the possibility of winning his case and setting a precedent that the war was illegal might be worth two years of prison. Others have endured longer imprisonment for causes they believed in.
And I agree his statements were conduct unbecoming of an officer because he linked his comments directly to his military status in an attempt to incite discipline problems in the military. That was a slam dunk offense regardless of how his failure to deploy charge turned out. For Watada, that was apparently the cost of making a stand (which makes me believe he considered the publicity of a court martial to outweigh a potential two year prison sentence, plus whatever sentence he got for his public statements).
His First Amendment rights protect his right to say whatever he wants about the war and he could even take part in war protests. He just can't directly link his statements to his role as a military officer, nor can he make those statements to his troops while performing in his role as a military officer. He has to make those kind of statements on his own time as an average citizen.
Lakin could be looking at the same type of punishment for his statements, but probably not since his statements have seemed to be more an explanation of his own personal actions vs statements encouraging others to take the same action. Plus he's looking at similar punishment for the actual offense of failing to deploy. His cause is a little too bizarre for him to expect the military to accept some sort of settlement that results in the publicity going away, so I don't think his prospects are very good.