Update on 1LT Watada

[desertvixen]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13730344/

Army charges officer who refuses to go to Iraq
Lieutenant who believes the war there is illegal may face 8 years in prison

FORT LEWIS, Wash. - An Army lieutenant who said he refused to deploy to Iraq because he believes the war there is illegal was charged Wednesday with three counts.

According to calculations by military lawyers, 1st Lt. Ehren Watada, 28, could face nearly eight years in prison and a dishonorable discharge if convicted, said his attorney, Eric Seitz of Honolulu.

Watada is charged with conduct unbecoming an officer, missing movement and contempt toward officials.

Watada’s father, Bob, said from his home in Hawaii that he’s worried the military may send his son to prison but he’s also hopeful a military court will find him innocent.

“I think his reasons were valid and we will have to see what comes of that,” he said.

Watada, a member of the first Stryker Brigade Combat Team, refused to go to Iraq last month after researching the war. He said he would be willing to serve in Afghanistan or elsewhere. The Army refused to allow him to resign his commission.

Watada’s stance prompted rallies of support near Fort Lewis, in Seattle and in Honolulu, his hometown.

A preliminary hearing will be held to determine whether he will be court-martialed.

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.

****

Interestingly enough, the letters to the editor section of this week's Army Times has several responses to the initial story.

I agree strongly with the wife who wrote that she doesn't want him serving alongside her husband, an attitude I can definitely understand. Doing our job is hard enough, and we don't need to have people that we don't know we can trust next to us. Trust is such an important part of what we do that we can't get along without it. Trust is what makes problems like sexual harassment a huge problem in the military - besides the obvious harm it does, it also erodes trust. Not just between the victim and the harasser, but between everyone.

The other letter that really struck me was the one written by an active-duty officer, in which he points out that as soldiers, we are not given the luxury of deciding what conflicts we participate in. Duty requires us to fulfill our obligations - and as an officer, his primary obligation should be to the men and women under his command.

DV

Comments

[oilhistorian.livejournal.com]

Of course, this all shows a huge ignorance of history on the part of said active-duty officer. Forget that ever since 1946 the US military has defined the primary obligation of a soldier as obeying all lawful orders (courtesy of the Nueremberg and Tokyo War Crimes Tribunals), we also have the very relevant examples of Robert E. Lee and John Bell Hood -- both of whom resigned their commissions rather than particpate in a war which they felt was unjustified on the part of the legally-elected US government ...

I doubt there'll be much of a push to rename Ft. Hood any time soon ...

[desert-vixen.livejournal.com]

I think the captain is taking the stand that many of us in the military have taken: the order to deploy to Iraq is a lawful order until and unless a court determines that it is not. That it is not our place to determine whether or not an entire conflict is lawful or just.

As for your historical examples, I would argue that Lee and Hood were first of all generals, and second, that they served in a very different period of history than the present day. For better or worse, Watada signed a contract with the United States government (and if he didn't realize that said government reserves the right to extend that contract without your approval, he should have read it a little more closely) and he is NOT fulfilling his obligations, either to the government or to his soldiers.

DV

[oilhistorian.livejournal.com]

Lee and Hood weren't generals when they resigned their commissions. Lee was a colonel, Hood a captain. Both were graduates of West Point and had sworn an oath to protect and defend the Constitution. Both had received an education in exchange for their military service. Both decided, because of political differences with the then-current government of the US, to void their contract with the US government. Indeed, Hood's action was even more egregious than Lee's. Lee at least could claim loyalty to his home state of Virginia. Hood was angered by Kentucky's official neutrality in the war and "emigrated" to Texas where was stationed at the time. Anything you say about Watada can be said about Lee and Hood. Indeed, Watada is willing to go farther than Lee or Hood since he is willing to serve the US in Afghanistan. Neither Lee nor Hood were willing to serve on the frontier in blue in 1861.

As for the first part of your reply: I accept your reasoning as valid for you. However, the post-1946 reality argues otherwise. The legacy of Nueremberg is that you do have to determine whether a conflict is lawful or just -- just as Lee and Hood did 145 years ago. Ask the three CIA officers who now can't travel to the EU b/c Italy has sworn out arrest warrants for them for kidnapping an Islamic cleric.

[desert-vixen.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the clarification about Lee and Hood. Obviously, American military history is not my strong point.

As for the second part of your reply (in response to my first part), see a separate comment below, since I want to respond to both you and lilytree together, rather than type the same thing twice.

DV

[a21ozcoldcup.livejournal.com]

Interesting point above about Generals Hood and Lee. I'll be curious to see how that pans out. I personally don't feel that is the right answer on the LTs behalf; if he felt this way after doing some research prior to a deployment, well I'd say suck it up.

I wouldn't neccessarily want to serve beside him but on the other hand a lot of people don't neccessarily want to go overseas but they do and they do a fine job. I'm sure they could have moved him to a less relevant position if they were concerned about his ability to perform where he is now.

Unfortunately the Army doesn't give us a choice as to WHICH conflicts to fight in, only whether or not we object to the concept of war due to personal reasons and I'm sure he was aware of this when he joined.

[lilytree.livejournal.com]

I was going to bring up the same point that oilhistorian mentioned. Nueremberg says that absolutely soldiers are responsible for determining whether the orders they are being given are legal. "Just following orders" is not an excuse that is allowed.

I wonder about this issue of "trusting" him to serve with you, because if he finally does, I don't see it as being any less trustworthy that the men who were drafted in Vietnam. He didn't say that he hates the military, or the people in it, but that what we are doing over there is wrong and illegal. Which it is. I'm pretty sure we aren't supposed to invade sovereign nations just because we don't like their government.

[desert-vixen.livejournal.com]

Where the trust comes in is that I definitely see people having to stop and think, "Is he going to decide this is OK with him? Are we going to have to wait for his decision?".

He wasn't drafted. No one in this army, at this point (to the best of my knowledge - if they're still in, they obviously got over being drafted) was drafted. We're all here because we made the decision to join. We volunteered.

For myself, personally, I don't think the decision to go to war in Iraq was RIGHT. Whether or not it was legal is another question - and one that I am not qualified to answer. Staff Sergeant Hart-Myhre does not get to make that determination for the rest of the Army, and at the same time, cannot decide that the entire conflict is just "not for her". No one else in the Army gets that privelege - the leadership makes the ultimate decision.

See the separate comment below, since I'm addressing the point raised by both yourself and oilhistorian.

DV

[desert-vixen.livejournal.com]

My enlistment oath states that I will "obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice" (in addition to "support and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic".)

His commissioning oath states that he will "well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office upon which I am about to enter." Interestingly enough, nothing in the commissioning oath about obeying the President.

The order to get on a plane and go to Iraq is a lawful order. They are not telling him to do anything except show up with his gear and head over there. If he was to get there, and then be ordered to do something specific - for example, shoot an unarmed civilian for no reason other than the fact that they're Iraqi - that would be an illegal order.

I think the soldiers who tried to hide behind the "following orders" bit at Abu Ghraib *were* wrong.

Watada's duty should be first and foremost to the soldiers under his command. The US Army is not going to leave Iraq just because an O2 has decided that it's not a legal war. So, yes, I think he should be over there with the soldiers that he was responsible for training, continuing his responsibility to them and the United States government. I think he should be bound by his contract, just like the enlisted soldiers who got stop-lossed and went. None of them really enjoyed it, but they understood that they had entered into an agreement.

On the one hand, I want to respect Watada for taking a stand for what he believes. On the other hand, two points.

One, as serving members of the military, we are curtailed in our expression of the freedoms we defend. This is one of those things that if you cannot agree with, you need to not join. I realize that people's opinions may change, and I sympathize with the fact (see some of my recent posts about contemplating getting out) but it's not that simple.
Two, we don't get a say on what conflicts we're going to fight in. His statement that he would go to Afghanistan, while nice to have on the board, really doesn't mean a damned thing. This isn't a "pick your conflict" situation.

No, I have not deployed to Iraq, because they keep putting me in units that aren't deploying. I have sent my husband, and our friends, and I'm sure I'll be sending Brian again.

No, I do not *as a person* support the decision by the administration to invade Iraq. As a soldier, it's NOT MY PLACE to criticize the administration in public, using my status as a soldier. I also feel, however, that having gone in and turned Iraq upside down, we have a responsibility to stay until they can put things right side up again, or until the Iraqi government asks us to leave.

*As a person*, I think the Bush foreign policy is beyond screwed up.

*As a person*, I would dance with joy to learn we could get rid of Bush early.

But as a soldier, I follow orders until I am confronted with one that I cannot, in good conscience, accept. I do not criticize my commander-in-chief in public, as a soldier.

DV

[lilytree.livejournal.com]

Although it is not your right/place to say it is illegal in your mind, I think it is absolutely necessary that someone steps up and questions it from within.

If someone from Japan came over here, occupied our country, overthrew our government, killed not only the people who were fighting to reinstate our government, but anyone else who was in the way, we would absolutely think that was illegal and wrong. When Iraq invaded Kuwait it was wrong. I also agree that the situation in Afghanistan is different, because they did attack us first. It's not ideal but it isn't the same as us trying to manufacture a regime change.

It is illegal to invade foreign countries. That is the whole basis of how foreign policy should work. You respect my borders, I will respect yours. I may not like your government, but I can't do anything about it as long as you play within your lines. Cross your lines, and expect the force of the power of the world to come down upon you. But we aren't playing in our lines, we're now playing in others, weaker than us because we think we're better and we know how to live their lives better than they do.

And, you should read the big studies on obedience, the Milgram Experiment and the Stanford Prison Experiment. It goes even more so for soldiers, and once you start to lose the context of what is right and wrong, it is frightening. The Stanford Prison one shows exactly how Abu Grab happened and will happen again. It explains how otherwise nice and normal people became Nazi soldiers responsible for thousands of deaths. All those people weren't evil, things just got out of hand. It doesn't excuse what they've done, but if they were not in that situation, they likely would have never dreamed that they could ever do anything like that.

[desert-vixen.livejournal.com]

I've read about them.

I agree that there are problems, although in my opinion, part of the cause is the people going on their second or third deployment with not enough of a break. No one is coming back unchanged, and inadequate mental health care combined with the military culture towards admitting that one needs help with something like that is not helping the problem.

I agree that the Bush attitude towards foreign policy is essentially an eff-d up version of "I'm the biggest kid on the playground and I'll make you do it my way". However, my only real option is either to a) get out or b) pray that 2008 goes much much better than 2004.

DV