I didn’t put this in GD because all I’m asking is whether the lieutenant who refused to go to Iraq has any real chance of being acquitted. His argument is that the war in Iraq is illegal, thus to obey the order to go there would be to obey an illegal order. My personal fantasy is that he is found not guilty, thus spurring military officers up and down the ranks to refuse to go, essentially stripping the civilian government of authority over the military, forcing Bush and Cheney to resign and putting Nancy Pelosi in the White House. (Mmmm … Nancy Pelosi in the White House! That’s so hot!)
But that’s fantasy. So, in my opinion, is any idea that Lt. Watada won’t do a long stretch in Leavenworth.
Um, perhaps you want to rethink that bolded statement and why if such a thing were to come to pass it would be a very bad thing.
Lt. Watada can only be sentenced to a maximum of 4 years, so I don’t think he will get a long stretch in Leavenworth. Also, since going to war is by its nature a political decision and the politicians weighed in and made their decision, the war is not illegal for the purposes of Lt. Watada.
He will be convicted, he will do a little time, and he will get on with his life. Given that he is becoming a cause celebre for some I doubt that he will have trouble finding employment even with a dishonorable discharge. But the point must be made that we are NOT allowed to pick and choose. Were we allowed to the military would become essentially useless for all purposes, both foreign AND domestic.
He has no chance of acquittal. Zero. The order to deploy to Iraq is clearly not an illegal order. If he were ordered to torture prisoners, or shoot civilians, or commit some other crime, he would be obligated to disobey that order. But the order to deploy to Iraq was a legal order and he is obligated to obey it.
The only question is whether the Army will give him a slap on the wrist and a dishonorable discharge, or make an example of him and give him a dishonorable discharge several years from now.
I’m with you guys. Morally he’s completely in the right–it’s a bad war, undertaken on spurious grounds–but he’s clearly in the wrong legally, and he’s going to jail.
I was thinking of the civilian oversight over military even as I wrote it, but went ahead with it mostly to express my disgust with the way the current administration has abused the finest military in the world. It’s like a turning hundred-thousand-dollar driving machine over to a teen-ager and having him go out and mow down pedestrians with it. And, as I said, it’s pure fantasy anyway.
Four years probably doesn’t qualify in most minds as a “long stretch,” but I’d think anything more than a couple of weeks would be pretty unbearable. The worse part, I would think, would be the complete lack of a future afterward. I mean, even those of us who opposed this war from the very beginning have nothing but love and admiration for the men and women who are being ordered to fight it. And while I think I respect the lieutenant’s willingness to throw away his future to make a political statement, I do think he’s put himself in a no-win situation for absolutely no reason. My father always told me, before you dig in, make sure the ditch is worth dying in.
I’d like to ask Airman Doors, do military folks have any respect or sympathy for this guy? I could see opinion coming in on either side.
Hell, I respect his position. I have no issue with the man personally. In fact, I respect that he’s taking a stand for his beliefs, reminiscent of what Muhammad Ali did during Vietnam. But that doesn’t mitigate the fact that he quite clearly broke the law and must pay the penalty. The biggest strikes against him are that he volunteered after the Iraq invasion and stated for the record that he is not a Conscientious Objector, which was his only out.
The military, I’m sure, is as polarized on the issue as everybody else is. Ask 10 people and get 10 different opinions.
Personally, I don’t. He joined the Army in 2003, when conflict with Iraq was a distinct possibility, and he joined as an officer. He knew what he was getting into.
His dad is a prominent politician and antiwar activist, and I think he was joining the military intending to make a big political stink. Seeing how the military expected him to lead others, it wasn’t an honorable thing to do.
I generally have a lot of respect for conscientious objectors and antiwar activists, even if I disagree with them. However, Lt. Watada’s actions didn’t seem honorable to me, being timed as they were. Besides, as I said, as an officer he had an obligation to lead his soldiers, even if he disagreed with the war.
The honorable course of action would have been to go to Iraq, get as many of his soldiers home alive as he could through his leadership, and then oppose the war after his obligation to his soldiers had been satisfied.
Incorrect. Congress did not vote on whether to go to war. They voted to give Bush the authority to do it on his own if necessary.
I’m not arguing that this would help Watada’s case at all. Calling his deployment an illegal order is still a hard (probably impossible) sell, but I have to correct the assertion that Congress directly approved the invasion of Iraq. It did not.
Minor correction: his dad, Bob Watada, was for many years the executive director Campaign Spending Commission (recently retired), which I am pretty sure is not an elected office. However, Bob Watada played a prominent role in the investigation into illegal campaign contributions and was in the media often.
For the record, I respect his stance, but I do not think he has a chance to be acquitted.
You snipped too much of my quote … or too little, however you want to look at it. My real fantasy is that the military simply refuses to do what the Commander in Chief orders, rendering him and his VP militarily powerless, forcing them to step down and letting the Speaker of the House assume control and command. Like I said, it’s pure fantasy, but of the “for want of a nail, a shoe was lost” variety. I wouldn’t have posted something like this in Great Debates – maybe I should have gone for Mundane Pointless etc.
