[Winstonm]

First Lietenant Ehren Watada has been court martialed for refusing an order to deploy to Iraq, although earlier he had volunteered to go. He is making the claim that the war is illegal, started due to governmental lies and corruption, and therefore the orders are illegal. He calls upon Congress to investigate and determine whether or not the war is legal.

Here is a link to an interview if you wish to read it: http://hotzone.yahoo...zone/blogs19056

He is taking the stand offered by the Nuremberg trials, that a soldier has the moral duty disobey an illegal order.

Hero or coward?

[mike777]

If his legal argument is that the war is illegal...he lost...

[DrTodd13]

What is a "war" if not the offensive use of troops to take over a country, depose and kill its leader. Only Congress has the power to declare war and they didn't, therefore, this is an illegal war. Such plain reading of the constitution has not been in vogue for 50 years at least so what does this guy expect? He is courageous for standing up to the entire system but at the same time if no one in government is calling this an illegal war then I seriously doubt whether one soldier's accusation is suddenly going to cause them to realize the error of their ways.

[luke warm]

i frankly hope he's successful... that would *force* the congress to declare a war before a military engagement could be so termed... however, even if he somehow gets the courts to agree that a war declaration is solely in congress' hands, he will end up in levenworth... the order he refused to obey was a legal order... legal military orders are not limited to war

[Winstonm]

luke warm, on Jan 6 2007, 11:15 AM, said:

i frankly hope he's successful... that would *force* the congress to declare a war before a military engagement could be so termed... however, even if he somehow gets the courts to agree that a war declaration is solely in congress' hands, he will end up in levenworth... the order he refused to obey was a legal order... legal military orders are not limited to war

The concept he is arguing, if I understand it correctly, is that the U.S. invasion of Iraq is a war of aggression, a violation of international law, and as such is an illegal war - his refusal to deploy would be based on the assertion that to do so would violate international law - in other words, the opposite of Nuremberg's "I was just following orders" argument.

By the way, he is only being charged with conduct unbecoming and another lesser charge so his total sentence cannot exceed 8 years - still, a healthy dose of captivity.

What really struck home to me is what he said about the immediacy of this war, how we really aren't feeling it here in the U.S. because, unlike Vietnam, there is no threat of the draft and taxes are not being raised to fund the war - if there were more immediate impact here at home over the war, I would believe the supporters of the mission would drop into the single digit range.

I, too, would like to see a return to Congressional declarations of war before we start sending troops into combat - but since the precedent has been established with Korea, Vietnmam, and other "conflicts", I don't see this happening. Maybe another way out would be laws passed that the cost of war has to be repaid totally within 5 years of the war's end - then we would all know just how much tax bite we would feel to fund this nightmare.

[luke warm]

Winstonm, on Jan 6 2007, 12:44 PM, said:

luke warm, on Jan 6 2007, 11:15 AM, said:

i frankly hope he's successful... that would *force* the congress to declare a war before a military engagement could be so termed... however, even if he somehow gets the courts to agree that a war declaration is solely in congress' hands, he will end up in levenworth... the order he refused to obey was a legal order... legal military orders are not limited to war

The concept he is arguing, if I understand it correctly, is that the U.S. invasion of Iraq is a war of aggression, a violation of international law, and as such is an illegal war - his refusal to deploy would be based on the assertion that to do so would violate international law - in other words, the opposite of Nuremberg's "I was just following orders" argument.

if that is his contention, it will fail... we could debate whether or not international law trumps u.s. sovereignty (and/or nat'l security) if you want... wars of aggression, from the u.s. gov't's pov, don't exist... as has been noted, for a conflict to rist to 'war' status, the congress must have something to say about it...

so it's really about *acts* of aggression, even military acts... semantics, maybe, but words do have meanings

[Winstonm]

Quote

so it's really about *acts* of aggression, even military acts... semantics, maybe, but words do have meanings

Excellent observation, as what we have is "undeclared" war - but it makes one wonder what a world court would say about the conflict; would a world court allow us to escape due to word games?

The more I see of Iraq, the more pronounced becomes the feelings that perhaps the more "farsighted" have been right all along, that this invasion was indeed planned well in advance of 9-11 and part of a neocon agenda finalized by the PNAC. It's hard to believe - or accept, anyway - but it is harder still to justify Bush and company's actions and words another way.

Clinton was the most political president of my lifetime, a chameleon who could argue 16 sides of the same question, depending on the polls, and sound convincing and beliebable each time - a true political gift, but not much in the way of determined grit. Bush is the antithesis, but too much so to seem believable to me.

His latest pronouncement that the election defeat was America's way of saying they didn't like the way the war was going so new paths to victory had to be found simply left me dumbfounded - the man cannot be that seriously deranged to believe his own words. His insistence of continuing the military presense in Iraq, actually increasing the presense when the elections said plainly - get the hell out - no longer seems just incredibly pigheaded as before, but now takes on the tone of having a greater overall meaning, an ideal which he serves that he believes in more than he cares for his own place in history.

I would not be surprised if before he left office that we had expanded this war to Iran and Syria as part of a greater plan.

[hrothgar]

luke warm, on Jan 6 2007, 10:17 PM, said:

Winstonm, on Jan 6 2007, 12:44 PM, said:

luke warm, on Jan 6 2007, 11:15 AM, said:

i frankly hope he's successful... that would *force* the congress to declare a war before a military engagement could be so termed... however, even if he somehow gets the courts to agree that a war declaration is solely in congress' hands, he will end up in levenworth... the order he refused to obey was a legal order... legal military orders are not limited to war

The concept he is arguing, if I understand it correctly, is that the U.S. invasion of Iraq is a war of aggression, a violation of international law, and as such is an illegal war - his refusal to deploy would be based on the assertion that to do so would violate international law - in other words, the opposite of Nuremberg's "I was just following orders" argument.

if that is his contention, it will fail... we could debate whether or not international law trumps u.s. sovereignty (and/or nat'l security) if you want... wars of aggression, from the u.s. gov't's pov, don't exist... as has been noted, for a conflict to rist to 'war' status, the congress must have something to say about it...

so it's really about *acts* of aggression, even military acts... semantics, maybe, but words do have meanings

Maybe, maybe not:

Jimmy raises a valuable point: It's rare that a sitting government which has just launch a war/police action/whatever they're calling it would permit members of the military to refuse to serve based on a claim that this specific conflict is "unjust". I don't think that I've ever seen a government claim that its going to set off and commit some war crimes. The Nuremberg trials famously occur when an external agency evaluating a pattern of behavior. In the case of the Nuremberg trial said external agency was the allied tribunals specifically empowered for this task. (Hypothetically, we could se a situation in which the Internation Criminal Court would serve in the same capacity)

Where things get interesting is the following: The government that we have in the United States today looks quite different than the one that authorized the use of force in 2002. For example: ABC News just polled the 77 Senators who voted to authorize the use of force in Iraq. ABC News asked the Senators whether they would have changed their vote if they had perfect foresight. The results of that poll are available here:

http://abcnews.go.co...=2771576&page=1

Its possible that the external agency could be the same government with more information available to it.

I'm not sure whether the change in public / government opinion about the war is significant enough that Lt. Watada will be able to prevail with his legal argument. I suspect that its going to be an interesting commentary on the military's opinions about the war. Its particularly interesting that this case is coming to the forefront at the same time that Bush appears to be pushing for the "surge" option.

[Winstonm]

Quote

Where things get interesting is the following: The government that we have in the United States today looks quite different than the one that authorized the use of force in 2002.

It seems that Bush and the "at the time" White House counsel Alberto Gonzales were concerned about this as far back as 2002, that a change in Congressional power could lead to the President being brought up on "war crime" charges by a special prosecutor and the Justice Department. site: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4999734/