Would you like a court-martial with that Article 90?

The Columbus Ledger-Enquirer has a story about yet another soldier who is deluded that his Commander-in-Chief is a foreigner and he does not have to obey orders to go to Afghanistan. He's arguing that under Article 90 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, he does not have to obey illegal orders. He contends that Obama is a foreigner, so it not the legal President, and he does not have to obey orders to deploy to Afghanistan.

I posted a link to the story last night on the Ledger-Enquirer story displaying 8USC1401, which is citizenship law building on the 14th Amendment. The sections that apply, I believe, are (d) and (g), depending on whether Obama's dad is a resident alien or a foreign national. Links are at the end of this entry.

The crux of the matter is NOT where Obama was born - are children born in US bases in Europe where a parent is from the host country not citizens? - but whether his mother is a citizen and whether she had enough time in the US borders before Obama was born. Depending on the status of his father, his mother needed to reside in the US or its territories for either 5 years or 10 years. Since we know she was in Kansas, then Washington State, then Hawaii, it stands to reason that his mother DID have enough time in the country to make him a citizen (trips less than 6 months outside the country do not count against contiguous years living in-country).The whole birth certificate argument is a red herring bandied about by those wishing to spread controversy, spread dissension, or just remain willfully ignorant of the law.

I left a discussion about this on the Ledger-Enquirer story last night, but the ignoranti (since smart people are the "cognoscenti") still insist on yammering about the birth cert. Not one has referred to law, except for one citing the 14th Amendment, which strictly doesn't apply in this case (since that was about affirming that former slaves were indeed citizens; subsequent case law built on it does, however).

Several have claimed that since another country recognizes him as a citizen, he can't be a US citizen. Bunk. Plenty of countries recognize dual-citizenship, but the US does not. The US only cares if he has met the terms to be a US citizen; it cares not if any other country can claim him (or anyone else). If a Jew in the US wishes to become an olim and go to Israel on aliya, and applies for Israeli citizenship, it does not automatically revoke US citizenship; the US government just doesn't recognize his Israeli citizenship. So it is with Obama. Whether Kenya, Indonesia, or even North Elbonia can claim him, Washington doesn't give a rip.

So here's the link to the story. The comments themselves are instructive in what's wrong with deductive reasoning and the school system in this country, and with what passes for debate.
http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/news/story/776335.html?mi_pluck_action=comment_submitted&qwxq=7583437#Comments_Container

And here's the law as I found it. Sections (d) and (g) were added no later than 1956, so they apply to Obama, since he was born in 1961. The reason for the passage of one of those sections was that GIs in Europe during World War II were busy knocking up the local womenfolk, and the section was added to clarify the citizenship of the children of said knocking-up. This is also why most Vietnamese kids fathered by US servicemen during the Vietnam Conflict (it wasn't a war) can be considered citizens, even though neither they nor their mothers were ever in the US. I can remember my parents complaining loudly about that back when I was in my teens.

http://law.justia.com/us/codes/title8/8usc1401.html

Like him or not, Hail to the Chief.