LT Watada: Trials and Mistrial

External Link

Yesterday, Wednesday, the trial of 1LT Ehren Watada, accused of missing movement and unbecoming conduct, ended in a mistrial (due to, some say, prosecutor bungling). Watada had refused to deploy to Iraq with his unit and made public statements denouncing the legality of the war both before and after his unit deployed.

Watada's lawyers had wanted to bring the legal standing of the invasion into the trial as a defense, as justification for his actions. A military judge ruled this out. My opinion on this is that it isn't even relevant to his defense.

Even with the assumption that the invasion was illegal, one would have to prove that the current actions in country are illegal. Moreso, that simply going to Iraq with his unit was illegal. Certainly, you can (and in fact have a duty to) refuse an illegal order, but was his deployment order illegal? Then, all soldiers in Watada's unit who did go are criminal?

I do have some amount of respect for him. He didn't run off to Canada. He didn't try to claim conscientious objector when he clearly isn't. He stayed to take his punishment (although that might not count as bravery as he was certain he would be proven right).

But LT Watada has said that he arrived at the opinion that the war is illegal based upon after comments that his commander in Korea made about "being prepared." So, when he was assigned to Fort Lewis, feeling that he would likely be sent to Iraq, he studied up. This is when he figured it all out: the war, the invasion, the occupation is illegal because... the President lied about why we went there.

Let's see. He's 28 and a college graduate. He joined up in March 2003 (not exactly "in the wave of patriotism that followed the September 11, 2001 attacks on US soil" as at least one report might have you believe Link). He was stationed in Korea and then assigned to Fort Lewis in 2005.

He figured out the war was illegal in 2005? And then he didn't try to do anything about it until JAN 06, when he "wrote to his superiors explaining his refusal to fight in Iraq and asked for permission to leave the army." It took him nearly three years of military service to attempt to get out, all the while an war that was "morally wrong" and "a horrible breach of American law" was going on. It took him a year of study to figure this out, and this man was a "top graduate" from his university?

It's possible that it took him that long to key in on the "facts" that swayed him. It's hard to conceive it for me. But, regardless of that, he missed movement with his unit. He spoke out publicly against the war, stating that if he had gone he would have been a war criminal. That statement labels every soldier who goes to do their duty as a war criminal! I feel that those statements qualify for "actions unbecoming."

But with the mistrial, it 's possible he will face no structured punishment at all. And that worries me.

Locked Post

Advanced Search

Watch this post

Do not email me updates for this post Email me updates for this post