I just saw a presser with Lt Watada .... this could get *real* big

[Stinky The Clown]

In the presser I saw about 30 minutes ago on MSNBC, Lt. Watada cited as his reason for not following an order to go to Iraq the notion of an illegal order.

The UCMJ cites an illegal order as not only a reason not to follow it, but it says it is a soldier's *duty* not to follow it.

This case could grow some serious legs in a hurry.

As I think about it, and not knowing much more than what I heard, it occurs to me that a serious defense of this young man would have to call into discussion not only the actual order he refused to follow, but the underlying legality of the war that led to the order.

My memory of forty years ago is not as clear as it might be, but I don't recall anyone following exactly this course. I do recall conscientious objectors ... but no one seeing it as their duty to just simply refuse an order to go to Viet Nam.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. It reminded me of Babylon Five

where the head honcho refused to go along with a Bush-like Earth president because he had given an illegal order. It was high drama on sci fi, and now how drama in reality. I agree, this could be BIG.

[SteppingRazor]

2. The problem with this defense...

Is that the soldier in question must prove that his orders are illegal. The judge in a court martial can rule that those orders apply only to direct orders, which he almost certainly will do. This removes the larger scope of the war and leaves the Lieutenant trying to prove that simply being shipped to Iraq -- not the Iraq War itself -- is illegal, which will be far harder to prove.

[Stinky The Clown]

5. I understand what you're saying .... and I'm sure no lawyer ......

.... but it seems to me the order itself calls into question its purpose .... and that, in the end, leads to the reason we're in Iraq.

I hope this guy gets some really high end anti-war pro bono lawyers in his corner. It seems to me this case is **exactly** what any high end lawyer wants to get involved with.

[YDogg]

3. Grow, legs, grow!!

:)

[godhatesrepublicans]

4. I just hope he inspires more to follow his lead. Nonviolent resistance!

Is there anywhere to donate to a defense fund for soldiers not willing to fight an illegal war?

[Peace Patriot]

7. Try googling Veterans For Peace--I think that would be a good place

to start. Also, the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC).

I just got this, at the www.afsc.org site

http://www.afsc.org/youthmil/default.htm - a site about youth & militarism takes you to

(LONG LIST OF WAR RESISTERS GROUPS, first go to http://www.afsc.org/youthmil/default.htm, then click on "Operation Refuse War: A Week of Action"): http://www.operationrefusewar.org/

ALSO: The War Resisters International - www.wri-irg.org - and how to donate.

And I haven't even done Veterans for Peace yet (a new organization).

-------

More searching: http://www.operationrefusewar.org/ ---gets you links to the following (these are the best of the best, of peace groups): (rst go to http://www.afsc.org/youthmil/default.htm, then click on "Operation Refuse War: A Week of Action")

Sponsoring organizations (of a week-long war resisters' day this May) include the War Resisters League; War Resisters' International; the American Friends Service Committee Youth and Militarism Program; the Center on Conscience & War; the Washington Peace Center; the National Youth and Student Peace Coalition; the Military Law Task Force of the National Lawyers Guild; the Fellowship of Reconciliation Disarmament Program; the Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors (CCCO); Veterans for Peace; and the Student Peace Action Network (SPAN).

Here's an excellent war resisters' site: http://www.veteransforpeace.org/

Many of these groups, especially Veterans For Peace, are actively engaged with soldiers who want to refuse, as well as youth who want to join the military.

[MADem]

6. But...but....but...

Zarqawi is dead, ya see!!! Don't look at the lieutenant, look at the pictures of the bombs dropping, the photos of the dead guy, and the press conference!!!

[eleny]

8. I think this will outlast al-Zarqawi's death

al-Z will last for a few news cycles and even perhaps up W's numbers for a while. And then it will be overtaken by the truth of Watada's allegations about the war. This puts the whole ball of hairy wax into the spotlight for public debate while his case is decided. And it educates the public about the UCMJ.

Try and catch the Bernie Ward archives from last night. You can scroll through until you get to calls about Watada. The right wing is flailing, trying to treat the UCMJ like they do the NSA spying legalities. Military, according to some, should only do as they're told no matter what.

[brofdog]

9. Troubling Precedent

LT Watada's decision troubles me for many reasons.

LT Watada weaves immoral and illegal to best support his desire to leave the Army and not deploy. These terms are not interchangable. Immoral is not necessarily illegal and illegal is not necessarily immoral.

If the orders to deploy are illegal giving LT Watda the grounds to refuse them then what of the soldiers that follow those orders? Are they war criminals for helping prosecute the war? I don't think so but then how do you allow some to choose to refuse to follow orders without condemning those who do and vice versa?

A war cannot be judged on its morality. War, at its core, is immoral and represents a failure of man not a triumph. If we allowed soldiers to reject orders to war because a war was immoral then no soldiers would have to deploy. War is an unfortunate reality (actually similar to abortion). We need our most moral leaders in front of troops not abandonning them.

What LT Watada is doing is making a professional decision about what constitutes his duty based on a political opinion, not a moral or legal opinion. This cannot stand. The military must to the greatest extent possible abstain from things political. It has been a key factor to our stability as a nation since Revolutionary Days. Would there have been support for mass defections from the military when President Clinton order the armed forces to attack Kosovo? The argument could be made that President Clinton possess the legal but not the moral authority to order the nation ito battle. The parallels are not precise but when you allow soldiers to use their political opinions to judge which orders to follow and which to refuse you set a dangerous precedent.

The order to deploy is not illegal. What laws are being broken? Being in Iraq is not illegal. We have the consent of the elected Iraqi government. He is refusing to deploy because of his concern that he would be placed in a situation where he might be asked to commit an immoral act. Isn't that exactly where we want our brightest, most thoughtful, most moral leaders?

Instead LT Watada pushes his responsiblity to the next guy who may or may not be as capable. The Army provides the opportunity for those who honestly come to the conclusion that they cannot support the concept of war by having a concientious objector system. However, LT Watada does not refute all war, just this one. The system cannot accept a political decision such as this. LT Watada will not be singled out any more than he may make the most noise and draw as much attention to himself and his plight for mostly political purposes. He will be punished for refusing to do his duty without prejudice or malice. He swore an oath and now he is reneging on that oath. It is no more complicated than that.

In the end, many people believe that President Bush should be impeached because of what they believe is in effect a failure to uphold his oath of office. Shouldn't we hold LT Watada to the same standard?

[MindPilot]

11. A very insightful and well written post, and welcome to DU

The whole illegal order thing is very much a catch 22. A member of the military does have a duty to disobey an illegal order. However, when that order is given by a superior officer it is by definition legal and the recipient of that order does not have the authority to question its legality.

Confirmation of the illegality of the order doesn't come until after the trial.

[Karenina]

12. Gobbledegook BULLSHIT!

He's defending the CONSTITUTION rather the *pretenders who seek to shred it.

[Llewlladdwr]

26. How exactly is he doing that?

Sorry, but I agree with brofdog. An order to deploy is not in and of itself illegal. An order to pick up a weapon and fire at enemy soldiers in combat is not illegal. That's what soldiers do, and they don't get to pick their wars, especially if they're volunteers.

Anyone who joins the military needs to be very certain that they're willing to both kill and die. If they aren't then they're fools.

[Shipwack]

13. I second Mindpilot's praise and welcome...

I still want to cheer the LT, though, even though I know his actions are wrong. Maybe I'm just enjoying seeing yet another person defy this administration.

[Peace Patriot]

15. Congress did not declare war on Iraq, and its handing over of its sole

power to make such a declaration to Bush--in the Iraq resolution--was illegal and unconstitutional. Every Senator and House member who voted for it should be impeached. We have NO RIGHT to be in Iraq. We invaded illegally, as to our own law, and in violation of numerous international agreements, then we set up an occupation government to our liking. That is a gross violation of national and international law. The fact that there was no power willing or able to take on the U.S., to stop us from this outrage, does not make it any more legal.

And it's OKAY to have a mix of legal and moral motives. Moral arguments are what move us to take courageous action. Legal arguments are our MEANS of holding the immoral accountable, when they violate our laws. And the political arena is where we are supposed to be holding our leaders accountable for both immoral and illegal acts. Slaughtering tens of thousands of innocent people, and torturing many more, for no good reason, is BOTH immoral and illegal.

Lt. Watada is on firm ground. Most of the world considers our invasion and occupation of Iraq to be way out of bounds, legally and morally. It was the action of a Hitler. It was this same kind of action that led to WW II.

Would you have propounded law and order in Hitler's Germany? There is little difference in this case. Believe me, I understand what you're saying. For instance, I want law and order re-established in our election system. We now have Bushite corporations counting all our votes with 'TRADE SECRET," PROPRIETARY programming code, in a deliberately engineered NON-TRANSPARENT election system, comparable to the one in Hitler's Germany and Stalinist Russia. We now know Al Gore won in 2000. And Kerry won in 2004, by overwhelming inference of the available evidence in highly non-transparent conditions. I want a Gore/Kerry ticket in '08 to RESTORE order. The same with the military. I want the UCMJ and the Geneva Conventions ENFORCED. I want legality, morality and ethics to be RESTORED. Our society is on very thin ice, indeed, right now--with a President with a 28% approval rating, who has gained and retained power illegitimately--asserting all kinds of extralegal powers, in violation of all kinds of laws. The Bush junta has taken us to the brink. The agreements among us, as a society--including agreements of obedience by soldiers--have always been based not so much on law as on our faith in each other. We go along with certain things because we are in general agreement about orderly Constitutional government. We are, or have been, in agreement about what THE LAW MEANS--what the rules are, what the limits are. And, in that context, I would agree with you.

But in the absence of a legitimate government, and in the absence of lawfulness--on the illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq, on torture, on the indefinite detention without charge of "enemy combatants," on rendition, on secret prisons, on the CONTINUED slaughter of innocents in Iraq, and other grossly illegal and immoral acts--an American soldier has a right and a duty to refuse to participate.

He's not running away. He's standing there, willing to take the consequences. THAT is courage. And to beat him over the head with technical arguments about what kind of orders he is refusing--a general order to go enforce the illegal occupation of Iraq, or specific orders to kill people there--is your right under our Constitution, but I think you need to think about this situation in the larger context of outrageous lawlessness in the White House and the Pentagon. The legal crap they will throw at him is not the important thing. And it's not even important that over 70% of the American people oppose this war (and nearly 60% have opposed from the very beginning). What's important is HIS understanding of what a lawful order is IN THESE CIRCUMSTANCES.

Other soldiers have to make their own decisions about this. They are the tools of it. They are the cannon fodder. We know they are not responsible for it, in general, because we know that, for one thing, they can be shot for deserting, and, for another, they can be jailed and their lives and careers ruined for refusing. They have little or no power, once they join up, to avoid situations of illegal and immoral action that have been set up by the illegal and immoral actions of the people above them in the White House and the Pentagon. Their INACTION does not in any way invalidate his ACTION. Individuals COUNT in America. If Rosa Parks had been the only one to refuse to sit at the back of the bus, would you say she was WRONG because no one else refused? The lawful powers-that-be were WRONG. Their laws segregating black and white were WRONG. She broke the existing law! This is sometimes necessary in a democracy, and in a civilized society. George Bush's power to order this man to Iraq for more illegal killing of Iraqis is WRONG. That's Lt. Watada's position, and I agree with him. And I completely trust that, given a LAWFUL order, this man would not hesitate to obey it. I don't think the UCMJ is at risk from HIM. The UCMJ at risk from George Bush--who has outright defied it by ordering torture.

[Stinky The Clown]

16. You don't say .......

I find your entire framing pretty interesting. And this line: "What LT Watada is doing is making a professional decision about what constitutes his duty based on a political opinion, not a moral or legal opinion. This cannot stand." How do you know what's in the guy's mind? Do you have some insight no one else has?

The parallels with Clinon, Kosovo, and abortion are a new twist too.

Welcome to DU.

[Joe Chi Minh]

17. There is, in principle, an element of truth in what you say, but

in terms of actual sin, where war is concerned, the choice to fight to defend one's country, people and ultimately family, seems to me to be more moral than the pacifist option. (I'm not talking about people who put their bodies on the line as medics, etc).

Grace builds upon nature. It doesn't entirely repudiate it. Successful faith healing has become somewhat rarer than in the early Christian centuries, so the Catholic Church counsels recourse to the medical professions, at least in the first resort. In the same way, the Roman Catholic Church considers a war to be just, under a specific set of circumstances. On the other hand, it is not 'carte blanche'.

However, this is a spiritual dilemma, in which faith really kicks in: when the Pharisees' cut-and-dried morality-by-numbers is no longer relevant. You have to make a decision on the basis of what you consider right in the particular circumstances, however knotty the dilemma, and can only pray that it's the right one, bearing in mind that "all things work together for good to them that love God". St Martin of Tours, the patron saint of soldiers, made the same decision as Lt Watada.

Is it right to make no attempt to do whatever is in your power to defend a member of your family or a stranger? I don't think this is what Lt Watada is doing. On the contrary, this is a different scenario altogether, and he knows it. Furthermore, whatever he help he could render to his compadres in Iraq, from a broader perspective, could not compare with the probable benefits to society to flow from his personal witness - which is unlikely to be without onerous personal cost to himself. No, not death, as he would continue to risk in Iraq, but if he were to give himself to be burnt at the stake, and lacked charity...

Should he kill innocent Iraqis to help protect his buddies, albeit at the cost of his life. Acting nobly act in that regard, while implicating himself in the slaughter of the former? Or, knowing what he knows, understanding what he clearly understands, make a high-profile stand on that war of unprovoked aggression for imperial, geopolitical hegemony and local plunder? Even just forbearing from killing innocent Iraqis for the sake of his conscience, as other conscientious objectors, whether officially designated as such or not, doubtless have done, would seem the more moral choice.

[nadinbrzezinski]

19. Actually you have the right to disobey an ilegal order

in fact it is your duty. this is what Lt. Watada is doing. Is it easy? No... is this getting mroe attention than it should (if the Army had any brains) absolutely, but the Nuremberg standard applies

Does this mean that the rest of the troops might be culpable? That is the problem posed by Nuremberg, precisely that is the problem. Nuremberg also does not impose that for those E-4 and bellow, but officers are not excepted, not even platoon commanders (O-1). Is it easy to walk the path the Lt is choosing? No... in fact it takes some brass ones to do that, and yes it will remain at the level of the Lt, if the army is bright... for if they extend this, conceivably that brush could tar the general officers who should have refused to go on a pre-emtive war, which was an ilegal order, again from Nuremberg, which indicted teh principals of waging agresive war (what today we call pre-emtive war)

Oh I am not a lawyer, but have partially walked in those shoes, and I had to justify my refusal to obey ilegal orders or issue orders stemming from the initial ilegal order.

[Bonobo]

21. I disagree. It is illegal because it is immoral for one thing.

Another is that the power to wage ware does not reside with the POTUS.

[The Magistrate]

25. Actually, Sir, Morality And Legality Are Not Even Distant Cousins

Much that is illegal is quite moral; much that is immoral is quite legal.

This officer is on fairly shaky ground, whether or not one approves of what he is doing. No court in the United States, whether military or civil, is going to declare the occupation of Iraq illegal in itself, and the fact that some illegal acts have been carried out in the course of it does not make the whole enterprise illegal. That one could make several arguments for its illegality on various grounds does not matter: no court this comes before will uphold those arguments.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

22. LOL

uh huh.

[RethugAssKicker]

10. Unfortunately, this HERO is going to do big time !

[Joe Chi Minh]

18. You sound as if you're rejoicing at the thought!

[RethugAssKicker]

20. Not at all... Just the opposite

IMO, he's a real hero....but the military unfortunately is going to fry him.

[Joe Chi Minh]

24. When the dust has settled, and another government is in place,

God willing, in the not-too-distant future, surely the lads and lassies who went AWOL from such excecrable wars of wanton aggression as Iraq and Vietnam - if there has not already been an amnesty for the latter people - will be pardoned.

But somehow I don't think the probable consequences will have loomed too large in the lieutenant's calculations. It was a case, literally, of "A man's got to do, what a man's got to do"! Ironical, isn't it, that true to Republican form - these days, at least - John Wayne was, himself, a chickenhawk of the first water, I believe. Didn't go AWOL, just didn't join up.

[On the Road]

14. I Heard of a New Recruit

a few years ago who was inducted into the Army and went through training camp without incident until he was asked to train with weapons. He said he would follow any order except that he would not fire a gun under any conditions. The guy was quickly given a discharge. Just an interesting comparison.

[Stinky The Clown]

23. That's an entirely different thing.

Shooting a gun is hardly an illegal order.

[Llewlladdwr]

27. For all you folks supporting the LT.

How will you feel when the troops disobey orders under a Democratic administration?