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Posted on 08/20/2006 7:12:11 AM PDT by Valin
SEATTLE - An Army officer who refused to serve in Iraq because he believes the war is illegal was steadfast in his resolve ahead of a military court hearing, saying the decision was "my obligation to this country."
"I made this decision a long time ago," Watada said during a telephone interview. "It is my obligation to this country. I‘m not happy about it and I didn‘t want to do it, but I had to."
His lawyer, Eric Seitz, said he has lined up two witnesses to support the soldier‘s claim that the war violated domestic and international law: University of Illinois professor Francis Boyle, an international law expert, and Denis Halliday, a former United Nations assistant secretary-general.
"You don‘t join the military just to blindly follow whatever orders you‘re given," he said. "An order to go to an unlawful and immoral war based on false pretenses is no different than to kill innocent civilians."
If he wasn't on an ROTC scholarship then I would suspect his sole purpose in getting a commission was to refuse deployment to Iraq.
with alll the anti-American loonies out there...he has only 2 witnesses?
My question is, what are they 'witness' too?
Him being a coward and a traitor?
Ok. Bring 'em on.
I guess they were a little short in the 'looney left' pool this week!
:0)
Actually, you can and should disobey illegal orders.
The Lt's problem is that there is absolutely no reason to believe the order illegal.
It was given by the President, and fully supported both with votes and funding by the Congress.
The SCOTUS has ruled a vote for funding a war is the same as a vote authorizing a war. So all of this 'defense' about it being an illegal war is a waste of time. And while the Lt may be too stupid to understand that, his lawyer does.
But for the war protestors and his lawyer, this isn't about the Lt. It is about getting a stage to make an ineffective protest, and the price will be the time the Lt spends in prison.
Their protest.
His prison sentence.
Real friends!
But he deserves them...
Army 1st Lt. Ehren Watada took a break yesterday with father Bob Watada, stepmother Rosa Saka- nishi and lawyer Eric Seitz at Fort Lewis, Wash.
Watada has said he did not apply for status as a conscientious objector because he isn't opposed to war in principle, just the war in Iraq.
If he made this decision "a long time ago"; why did he not resign his commission at that moment? Instead he took the pay checks and refused a lawful order to deploy.
Watada's statements to reporters, in which he said he felt the Bush administration deceived Americans in order to initiate the war.
In the final video, taken at the Veterans for Peace convention last weekend in Seattle, Watada said it is up to military personnel to stop the war.
"It is time for change, and change starts with all of us," he said. He went on to offer the veterans a "radical idea."
"To stop an illegal and unjust war, soldiers and service members can choose to stop fighting it," he said.
Watada's statements against the war, as well as his refusal to go to Iraq, could adversely affect the morale of his fellow soldiers now serving in the Middle East.
Watada asked to be sent to Afghanistan instead of Iraq, and on two occasions asked to be allowed to resign. All requests were denied.
University of Illinois Professor Francis Boyle, an international law expert, said the Iraq war was not authorized by the United Nations Security Council and was approved by Congress under false pretenses.
He said Congress approved going to war only after being lied to by the Bush administration about Iraq having weapons of mass destruction and Saddam Hussein's alleged ties to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
"This constitutes ... a conspiracy to defraud the United States government," Boyle said.
After researching the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Watada has said he decided it was an illegal and unjust war.
if Watada had deployed he would have been facilitating a crime against peace.
Further testimony on international law came from defense witnesses Denis Halliday, a former United Nations assistant secretary general, and retired Army Col. Ann Wright.
http://tinyurl.com/mmk2h
“I think he's come to realization that it's an unjust war. It's an illegal occupation of another nation and he refuses to play a part in it,” Daniels said. “The fact that we have this lieutenant who says, ‘I'm not going to Iraq,’ that says a lot. That's a good start.”
Watada's lawyer, Eric Seitz, said he expected the missing movement charge, but was somewhat surprised by the other charges, because they raise free speech issues.
"What he said about the war and the way the war began and the misrepresentations by the Bush administration are all true.
"Not only does he have a right to make those statements, he has an obligation to make those statements."
It seems he has teamed up with the Sheehan bunch.
Watada believes he is taking a stand against an illegal war. He joined the military after the Iraq war began, believing that the Mideast nation had weapons of mass destruction and was linked to al-Qaida.
"I did not believe at that time that the president would betray the trust of the American people."
Watada graduated from Hawaii Pacific University and reported to boot camp in June 2003.
Later, however, he began to have doubts about the war, he said.
"Within a year, I wanted to find out everything I could about the war's effect," he said. "I concluded that the war is not only morally wrong but is in fact illegal."
In January, he asked his commanding officers at Fort Lewis for the Army to allow him to resign. His request went through in April, and the Army denied it in mid-May. So he decided to refuse to go to Iraq.
"There was a lot of turmoil within me," Watada said. "It was a very tough decision to make."
"I can't be true to myself and apply for something that I wasn't," he said. "I joined the military to fight wars when they are just."
Military Families Speak Out and Veterans for Peace, crammed the small Associated Ministries hall in Tacoma at the first news conference to voice their opposition to the war and support of Watada. Many held signs that said, "Thank You Lt."
Sounds like Watada is fomenting a mutiny. He should be tried and executed for that.
"The wholesale slaughter and mistreatment of the Iraqi people is not only a terrible moral injustice but a contradiction of the Army's own law of land warfare. My participation would make me party to war crimes," said Watada in a taped statement played at a Tacoma news conference.
Joe Colgan (war protestor), whose son Benjamin was killed in Iraq, said sending sons and daughters to Iraq was "unpatriotic."
"I ask that we all think about our moral conscience and what we have done in God's name," said Colgan.
What gives this IDIOT the idea that HE can second-guess his COMMANDER-In-CHIEF?
Other than that the 'unlawful', 'immoral war' part is your unsupportable opinion....
This guy disgusts me.
Civilians certainly have a right to say such things,but I'll wager that the UCMJ forbids uniformed members of the Armed Forces from so doing.
It is not up to the service member to decide on his or her own what constitutes an illegal order or command; we are instructed through both UCMJ and the Rules of Land Warfare and the Geneva Conventions on what orders are legal and what are illegal to give.
Illegal orders, as defined, are NOT in fact ORDERS, and no service members are obligated by law or oath to follow them.
For example: Your commander tells you to give him $500 for a 30-day leave request. That is not an order and you are not only under no obligation to obey him, but you are obligated to report him.
What constitutes a lawful order by a superior is not normally complicated. Anthing outside of those parameters is not an order, per se.
I learned within the first 10 minutes of boot camp - with no uncertainty about it - that the military is not a democracy.
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