Another idiot thinks Obama isn't our President...

...and is trying to use it to get out of military service? W.T.F.?

Source

US Reservist Stefan Frederick Cook received his active duty orders on June 9th, and by July 8th he filed suit under lawyer Orly Taitz, the slime lawyer heading up the class action lawsuit against Obama, challenging his Presidency. This is ridiculous. Cook wanted "conscientious objector" status, because he didn't want to go to Afghanistan if the President isn't a Republican. Oops, I mean because he believes that the President isn't the President. What? This turncoat should be court-marshalled for this. Isn't there some kind of military code against bringing frivilous lawsuits against your Commander-in-Chief?

Good thing the judge had some sense. US District Judge Clay Land dismissed the lawsuit today because the soldier had already received a reprieve from the military, rendering the lawsuit moot. But the Judge had some good stuff to say about this stupid lawsuit:

..."[The Founding Fathers] concluded that the Judicial Branch, the unelected branch, should not inject itself into purely ‘political disputes,’ and that it should not entangle itself in hypothetical debates which had not ripened to an actual legal dispute.”

But here's the clincher: Cook believes this crap.

"...[Cook] fears that if he executed Obama’s orders, he could be prosecuted as a war criminal
for following the orders of an illegitimate commander-in-chief."

But here's where he could, and should be, prosecuted in a court-marshall:

Land asked Taitz whether Cook requested to simply have his orders rescinded, instead of filing a lawsuit.

Taitz said she filed an Article 138 complaint with the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Michael Mullen. An Article 138 complaint gives members of the armed forces under the Uniform Code of Military Justice the right to request redress if they believe they had been wronged by their commanding officer.

According to Ausprung, an Article 138 complaint has to go through the soldier’s chain of command. Cook did not go through his chain of command, Ausprung said.

Anyone who believes this garbage is an idiot. But using it to get out of military service? Wow. "Coward" isn't a strong enough word.

We do not need to get involved in Iran again.

History is supposed to teach us things. Perhaps Obama's silence on Iran's election is him looking at history and realizing that when we involve ourselves in governments and elections that we don't agree with, the long run result is almost always disastrous. One needs only to look at Latin America to see that.

We have this tendency to go into the world and use our military might to shape countries into what we believe they should be. Our CIA was involved in the student massacre in Mexico in 1968 during the worldwide student protests of 1968. This story repeats itself again and again in Latin America, and now we are seeing it repeat in the Middle East.

We put Saddam Hussein in power. Then we took him out. Hmmm.

I read an interesting article today. Iran Had a Democracy Before We Took It Away, which you can read here.

It was Washington that orchestrated the 1953 coup to topple Iran’s democratically elected government, the first in the Middle East, and install the compliant shah in power. It was Washington that forced Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh, a man who cared as much for his country as he did for the rule of law and democracy, to spend the rest of his life under house arrest. We gave to the Iranian people the corrupt regime of the shah and his savage secret police and the primitive clerics that rose out of the swamp of the dictator’s Iran. Iranians know they once had a democracy until we took it away...

"...in the 1980s, the U.S. sided with Saddam Hussein in the Iran-Iraq war, providing him with military equipment and intelligence that helped make it possible for his army to kill hundreds of thousands of Iranians,” Kinzer said. “Given this history, the moral credibility of the U.S. to pose as a promoter of democracy in Iran is close to nil.

Especially ludicrous is the sight of people in Washington calling for intervention on behalf of
democracy in Iran when just last year they were calling for the bombing of Iran. If they had had their way then, many of the brave protesters on the streets of Tehran today—the ones they hold up as heroes of democracy—would be dead now.”

Washington has never recovered from the loss of Iran—something our intelligence services never saw coming. The overthrow of the shah, the humiliation of the embassy hostages, the laborious piecing together of tiny shreds of paper from classified embassy documents to expose America’s venal role in thwarting democratic movements in Iran and the region, allowed the outside world to see the dark heart of the American empire. Washington has demonized Iran ever since, painting it as an irrational and barbaric country filled with primitive, religious zealots. But Iranians, as these street protests illustrate, have proved in recent years far more courageous in the defense of democracy than most Americans.

It's an interesting read, and interesting for any student of history. We have time and time again intervened in foreign governments, only to later come to regret going there in the first place, and on occasion we go back, only this time at the cost of thousands of lives.

I'm not proposing going back to complete isolationism. But we should return to a bit of it and stop trying to use our military to change the world. Let's return the military to what is was supposed to be: the greatest national defense force in the world.

N. Korea to fire missile at Hawaii

Reports today from Japan are saying that North Korea may be test-firing a Taepodong-2 missile towards Hawaii around July 4th to coincide with the US's Independence Day celebration. The missile reportedly only has a range of 4,000 miles. Hawaii is 4,500 miles from the Korean Peninsula.

Missile defense systems are ready around and on Hawaii, including radar systems and ground based anti-missile systems. Hawaii is now ready, and able, to shoot the missile down mid-air.

Source

As I've said before, in a previous post, I think Obama should order the missile shot down as soon as it enters international airspace. This launch is deliberately testing the US's resolve. We need to give the North Koreans something back: that we will NOT allow them to even come close to harming us.

Seriously, we entered Iraq because of the possibility of WMDs. But we won't shoot down a missile test last month? We better shoot this one down. The North Korean government is as unstable as plutonium. Oh wait, they have that too.

On Thursday, the independent International Crisis Group said the North is believed to have between 2,500 and 5,000 tons of chemical weapons, including mustard gas, phosgene, blood agents and sarin. These weapons can be delivered with ballistic missiles and long-range artillery and are "sufficient to inflict massive civilian casualties on South Korea."

Suspect in Military shooting pleads not guilty...

Thanks to Bluepitbull for first blogging about this...update from CNN:

For those that don't know, Abdulhakim Bledsoe shot up a military recruitment center yesterday, killing one soldier and wounding another.

Bledsoe faces 1 count of first degree murder and 16 counts of engaging in a terrorist act.

He is going to plead "not guilty." Not sure how he sees this one going...

Before the not guilty plea, authorities said Bledsoe waived his Miranda rights Monday and gave a video statement indicating that there were "political and religious" motives in the shooting.

He "stated that he was a practicing Muslim, that he was mad at the U.S. military because of what it had done to Muslims in the past," homicide detective Tommy Hudson said in a police report.

Police recovered three guns from the vehicle: an SKS semi-automatic rifle, a .22-caliber rifle and a .380-caliber automatic pistol, Thomas said. No explosives were found.

The victims were shot with an SKS rifle, according to the police report.

I have to agree with Bluepitbull on this: The recruiters should be armed. Maybe they could have defended themselves, especially if this starts occuring on a regular basis.