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Monday, February 5, 2007

The Watada Court-Martial

posted by on February 5 at 8:30 AM

Last June, Army Lt. Ehren Watada of Fort Lewis became the first officer to refuse to deploy to Iraq. He called the war “manifestly illegal” and said that his Army oath and his conscience required him to resist the “illegal order” to board a plane with the rest of his unit.

Today Lt. Watada’s court-martial begins at Fort Lewis, just south of Tacoma. If convicted, he faces up to four years in military prison for disobeying the deployment order and making public statements about the war that Army officials now say amounted to misconduct.

My intern, Sage Van Wing, is down at Fort Lewis this morning and will file a Slog report after the opening day of the court-martial ends.

My August 2006 Stranger feature on the Watada case is here.

And here’s a preview of the court-martial that I wrote for TIME.com. My prediction:

It seems clear that the court-martial of Army Lieut. Ehren Watada, which begins Monday on a military base south of Seattle, is not going to turn out the way the officer and his supporters in the antiwar movement had originally hoped.

RSS icon Comments

1

his conscience required him to resist the “illegal order” to board a plane with the rest of his unit

Really? You don't think the fact that the plane was going to Iraq was a factor of importance?

It seems clear that the court-martial of Army Lieut. Ehren Watada, which begins Monday on a military base south of Seattle, is not going to turn out the way the officer and his supporters in the antiwar movement had originally hoped.

I'm quite sure Watada was fully aware that he would be court martialed and likely do prison time.

Posted by Daniel K | February 5, 2007 9:16 AM
2

Daniel: The plane was bound for Kuwait, I believe. That's why I didn't say it was going to Iraq.

Posted by Eli Sanders | February 5, 2007 9:21 AM
3

You mean the giant puppets can't save him?

3,099 and $364 billion in a few minutes.

Posted by Fnarf | February 5, 2007 9:32 AM
4

He will serve jail time. He is a moron. If you want to protest the war, becoming an officer and then doing it is pretty ridiculous. I just feel bad for his soldiers, the enlisted men and women that he was supposed to lead. I am against the war, and have been before we invaded. But for an officer to leave his unit right before a deployment, is the up-most disrepect.

Posted by Monique | February 5, 2007 9:43 AM
5

it would have been nice if the stranger had actually covered the citizens hearing where the arguments watada wanted to make at his court martial were publicized: www.wartribunal.org

isn't the bigger issue whether he's correct that the iraq war was, and its current occupation is illegal under international law that the us is obligated to uphold?

Posted by wf | February 5, 2007 9:48 AM
6

No, it's not the bigger issue. Lieutenants don't get to have bigger issues. They do what they're told to do. Watada is wrong, and he's going to pay for it.

The bigger issue about the war must be, will be, handled on a different and much larger stage than this one. There is no such thing as "international law" and the US has not broken it. We have, however, destroyed our own constitutional process, our reputation in the world, and our ability to use our power to achieve useful goals. These are far worse crimes than breaking any kind of "international law". Bush's war has done hugely more damage to the United States than Mohammad Atta and Co. ever did; and the punishment for that is going to confine US (not him) for fifty years.

Posted by Fnarf | February 5, 2007 9:58 AM
7

I have said this before and was beat up on Slog but here it goes again. First of all, he joined the military on his own accord; he was not drafted. And sorry to say it, he joined the military and you go where they tell you to go. If he had been drafted then I would be all for him not going and doing whatever he would need to not to go to Iraq. When the military was out doing it's high school recruitment drives I told the various recruiters I was not interested. Why? I paid attention to US History and the thing called Vietnam. Moral of the story, if your government has fought a needless war before it can do it again.

But on the other had the protesters who are calling him a traitor ect ect are fucking FREAKS!! He is not some vile villian destorying America, we have that in the White House. He is someone who did break the law and yeah, he should be penalized for it.

And the other issue, Congress has not passed a resolution declaring that our involvement in Iraq is illegal as of yet. So, the illegal war agrument will not stand up in a US Court of Law. Please read the Constutution on that one.

If you want to help this guy out, GET YOUR ELECTED DEMOCRATIC REPRESENTATIVES IN DC TO GET OFF THEIR ASSES AND DO MORE THAN "NON BINDING" RESOLUTIONS!!!!!

Posted by Andrew | February 5, 2007 9:59 AM
8

With you on your post Fnarf. And just as a closer, I am all for rule of law for everyone, including those in the White House. Hell, I think we need to have a Constitutional Convention to rethink the entire executive branch and the powers that it should have. Maybe the Roman Republic had an idea with the 2 person executive elected every year. (These consuls in the pre-Imperial period served for one year and there were two of them at one time to avoid one becoming a "King").

The problem this war brings out is a constitutional failure that Congress will not deal with and the Executive branch obvously will not deal with.

Posted by Andrew | February 5, 2007 10:10 AM
9

I've had a difficult time wrestling with this issue. I see a dilemma in Watada's oath to protect and obey the US Constitution, and his morally equal duty to protect the lives of the people under his command. If he finds the origin of the Iraq war morally wrong and doesn't speak out against it, Watada will have disregarded his duty to protect the lives of the people under his command. The notion that one must follow orders and are exempt from their morality is a defence that has not served well in the history of military justice, and disallowing Lt. Watada the opportunity to state his case would be contrary to that established tenet.

---Jensen

Posted by Jensen Interceptor | February 5, 2007 10:43 AM
10

Let me be clear: I admire Lt. Watada and his decision to go this route. I just don't agree with the people who think he will or should be let off. He should go to jail. That's the WHOLE POINT of civil disobedience.

The protestors on both sides, as has always been the case throughout this insane war and the buildup to it, disgust me.

Posted by Fnarf | February 5, 2007 11:12 AM
11

"There is no such thing as "international law" and the US has not broken it."

Didn't the US sign onto the Geneva Conventions and the UN Charter? Do those treaties not count as international law? Watada isn't saying the war is morally wrong, that he personally disagrees with it. He's saying that the war violates international treaties signed by the US President, under powers granted to him by the Constitution, that the nation is obligated to uphold until it withdraws from them.

Pretending that international law doesn't exist makes you no better than the paleocons who want to abolish the UN.

Posted by wf | February 5, 2007 11:20 AM
12

people who join the military prove they're idiots the second they sign the contract. Watada is no different, except his dose of kool-aid didn't last as long as the other morons in the military. military people are the lowest of the low. they are left without options in the real world so they cop out and join the service. they deserve death for what they're doing to innocent people in iraq.

Posted by usa | February 5, 2007 11:29 AM
13

Wow, I've never seen so many people advocate the ‘I was only following orders defense.’ Scary.

I suppose you all think that the Nazi soldiers were perfectly justified to exterminate the Jews and the Poles and everyone else they could get their hands on because "for an officer to leave his unit right before a deployment is the up-most (sic) disrespect." Their commanding officers said "shoot" so they shot, and burned, and tortured, and murdered.

We need more soldiers speaking out against this immoral, despicable war, and yes there are international laws against unprovoked wars of aggression, unless our leaders’ signatures on treaties really are just meaningless shams. And finally, soldiers do have an obligation to refuse to follow illegal orders, like murdering unarmed civilians, look it up.

Fuck.

Posted by Original Andrew | February 5, 2007 11:36 AM
14

usa you're the idiot, because you actually found a way to make it look, erroneously, like people who oppose the war hate all soldiers and basically want them to die. you're such a lame stereotype. even if you don't mean to be a troll, you are.

Posted by wf | February 5, 2007 11:39 AM
15

Re #13: The problem is the order he refused was not, itself, illegal. He was merely asked to deploy to Iraq. There's nothing illegal about that. Now, if he were asked to shoot a bunch of civilians, say, then he'd have grounds to refuse that order as illegal.

Posted by Orv | February 5, 2007 11:50 AM
16

Orv,

I'm sure that's a great comfort to the hundreds of thousands of dead Shocked and Awed men, women and children in Iraq and their friends and families.

Thanks.

Posted by Original Andrew | February 5, 2007 12:01 PM
17

orv: if the occupation is illegal, what makes administering it legal?

Posted by wf | February 5, 2007 12:19 PM
18

Didn't Nuremburg set the standard that pre-emptive war is, in itself, a war crime? And, therefore, our troops are, de facto, participating in a war crime?

Posted by keshmeshi | February 5, 2007 12:32 PM
19

ORV Wrote:
"Re #13: The problem is the order he refused was not, itself, illegal. He was merely asked to deploy to Iraq."

Not really, Orv. IF Watada and/or his commanders understood that the deployment ultimately would lead to Watada participating in an immoral and illegal activity, they all would be subject to complicity. You cannot follow orders and use it as a defence
to participate in an immoral activity,
and you can't state an order is a moral one when it is understood the result of that order may cause an immoral act.

---Jensen

Posted by Jensen Interceptor | February 5, 2007 12:36 PM
20

@ WF: Where, in any of those treaties, does it say we can't attack another country? Have you read the Genevea Convention? Do you even know what its about? For sure, the reason behind the war, as approved by congress, was that we "felt an immeninent threat". I think that is BS, but there is nothing illegal about it. So, no, I am sorry but a war that was started with congressional approval is legal in the USA, the UN, etc. The Genevea Conventions are about how we deal with civilians and captured soldiers/combatants. As a whole, we do pretty damn good.

If you *knew* any soldiers, you would know that they have strict policies on when/if they can return fire. The very fact that they are being prosecuted for crimes they commit, is a great step forward for how wars are fought. And MANY soldiers don't want to kill civilians, in fact almost all of them. However, when civilians are speeding through a check-point, or throwing shit at Humvees then they will get fucking shot.


@USA: I won't even respond to your idiotic comments, troll.

@Original Andrew: Don't try and compare deploying to Iraq to the genocide in WW2. They are not the same thing. Most of the Iraqi deaths are from IRAQIS, not AMERICANS. If the IRAQIS would stop blowing eachother up, the death toll would drop dramatically.


And finally, Fnarf has it right. The Lt. can use this opportunity to question the war, but the simple fact remains: The congress approved it, as did the Parliment in Britian. And he does need to go to jail, because he broke the law.

Posted by Monique | February 5, 2007 12:39 PM
21

Great post Monique. But what do we do to fix the bigger context of why this was was allowed to happen? We want to treat the symptoms of the cancer but no one wants to remove the cancer from the body.

Posted by Andrew | February 5, 2007 12:46 PM
22

Monique,

If the Chinese government approved of dropping a bomb on your family because Bush II has WMD and he’s crazy enough to use them, would you enthusiastically support this action because it was government sanctioned?

I suspect not.

Let's talk about jingoism and cause and effect, for that matter.

Posted by Original Andrew | February 5, 2007 1:00 PM
23

International law is a tool of diplomacy and of war, not of actual law. I can see how this would be confusing to people, seeing as how the US is no longer interested in the practice of diplomacy, but that's the way it's supposed to work. Yes, some bad guys occasionally get brought up on charges, but only after they've been defeated militarily and the victors have started to administrate the spoils.

The WWII analogy, like most analogies, doesn't hold any water. Nazi SS who refused orders to kill in the camps would not have been defended in a polite court of law; they would have been shot on the spot.

Crying about dead Iraqis is not going to bring them back to life, nor is it going to stop many, many more of them being killed. If we stay in Iraq, hundreds of thousands more will die. If we leave Iraq, hundreds of thousands more will die. Hundreds of thousands more will die.

And many more Americans will die, too, either way, because of this inept administration. Nuclear terror is a certainty, because we have proven that not only do we not know how to stop it, we are not even interested in stopping it. Someday the scenes of wailing over dismembered victims will be here, not there. Not to go all bin Laden on you all, but we're still on the disaster train and there is no one at the wheel.

3,099 and $364 billion. Bin Laden's plan is right on schedule.

Posted by Fnarf | February 5, 2007 1:19 PM
24

Watada: Guilty.
That's the headline on Seattle Weekly's blog. It says it all - they'll have a fair trial and then convict him. Besides, another solider has already gone through this and lost. The only question left to answer is how much this trial speeds up a closer finish to Bush's war.

Posted by BobO | February 5, 2007 1:57 PM
25

clearly, monique, you didn't follow the link i provided earlier in this thread. the un charter prohibits wars of agression unless authorized by the security council. this was not a war of self defense. we didn't get approval of the security council. and, to answer your question, the geneva convention covers the occupation. it doesn't matter whether i know individual soldiers or not. destroying the civilian infrastructure of iraq and then subjecting its citizens to indefinite detentions and torture are, arguably, war crimes caused not by bad apples but by military policy at the highest levels.

just because the un is extremely weak doesn't mean that the us should ignore the charter it signed. fnarf: again, if you believe that the un is just a tool but not anything that the us has any obligations toward, and that human rights law is mere winners' justice, then i think you're closer to the bush administration than you acknowledge.

Posted by wf | February 5, 2007 1:57 PM
26

Re #17: He wasn't even being asked to administer it yet. The order he refused was to get on a plane and go to Iraq.

Besides, as I understand the case law on this, it's pretty well established that while individual soldiers have the right (and responsibility) to determine the legality of individual orders, they are NOT expected to concern themselves with the larger issue of whether the entire war is legal or not.

To me the troubling part is actually not the charge of disobeying orders. The troubling part is that he's also charged with conduct unbecoming an officer because he publicly disagreed with the government. The idea that people in the military check their First Amendment rights at the door is a disturbing one.

Posted by Orv | February 5, 2007 2:51 PM
27

I respect Lt. Watada for his moral courage. As a former Army officer, and I can only imagine the intense social pressure he must have felt, and the sense that he was letting down his troops.

If I had been his commanding officer, I would have sought to honor his request to go to Afghanistan instead, rather than start up this whole brouhaha.

ALL THAT SAID, I think peace activists supporting him should think hard about what they're wishing for. I'm not interested in having an Army that decides what orders they're going to follow from their elected civilian leadership, no matter how screwed up that leadership is. That is the slippery slope of coups and dictatorship.

Posted by MHD | February 5, 2007 2:52 PM
28

@Original Andrew

Dude, if China had talked about bombing Seattle for months (like Bush II),had made a large campaign for it in the UN, and then annouced the day in which they would attack...I would not be in Seattle. I would have long gone to someplace else, as far from Seattle as possible. The idiots in Baghdad that stayed for all the bombing and killing, I just don't understand. Poor my ass. I don't have a car, but you can bet I'd be walking my ass as far as possible with my kitty in tow.


And you know what, I would think China was being an asshole for bombing Seattle. Just like I felt that America was COMPLETELY unjustified in going into Iraq. The problem lies in this: We have elected officials to represent us. Some people may feel that direct democracy is better (not me!), but the fact is that over 80% of people approved of invading Iraq. So what were our politicians to do???? They are supposed to represent us, and if 80% of us want something, they will give it to us. Hands Down. Even if we had direct democracy, we would be in Iraq right now.


@Andrew...So what are we to do? The problem of this war, and all other "police actions" is that the American people, as a whole, are not smart. We are not. Our foreign policy has always picked the wrong side (see: Taliban, Saddamn in the 80's, all South American dictators, etc). Our policy would not be able to fuction so badly if people were educated in politics and economy. So hands down, the way to avoid this in the future is to have a smarter populace. Or to stop intervening in other countries period. This would mean no help for Darfur, the Balkins, or the Ivory Coast. Not sure what is easier to obtain. People just don't have the patience or the care to really figure out politics, and yet they don't want to say no to people suffering.


And regardless of if we leave Iraq today or in 5 years, people are going to die. Lots of people. And honestly, if we leave now then we will be back there in 5-10 years either fighting Iran, who will invade and take it over, or the crazy dictator that will take over the power vacuum.

My ideas: Talk with Iran and Syria about really helping to stabilize the border. Give them economic incentives. Free up some trade restrictions, based off of their preformance. Plead with the UN to send as many troops as possible. Then wait.

Posted by Monique | February 5, 2007 4:11 PM
29

MHD Wrote:
"I'm not interested in having an Army that decides what orders they're going to follow from their elected civilian leadership, no matter how screwed up that leadership is"

First, I must agree with you MHD, I too think Watada's moral courage deserves profound respect, and perhaps he feels he is doing this with the best interest of his troops in mind.

I also agree with your observation that Watada's commander should have quietly sent this problem to Afghanistan or discharged it in some other fashion. To have allowed it to get as far as it has, is without merit and a diservice to the Army. I have to question Watada's commander's judgment.

I don't think the Watada situation has been simply about following or not following orders from an elected civilian leadership. On the contrary, I
believe the Watada's argument has been
the legality of those orders. As a former officer, you well understand that you are subject to prosecution if you follow orders that are morally or legally questionable or if you fail to advise your superiors that the orders you have been given are in question. It
would be nice to simply state that
"Orders are Orders", however if you firmly believe those orders are illegal, you are morally and legally bound as a U.S. militarly officer to
state in fact that they are illegal.
The lives and well being of the men you
serve and those who serve under you are absolutely dependent on it.

Unfortunately for the Army and Lt. Watada, he isn't being allowed to do this, and it is a very sad day for all.


---Jensen

Posted by Jensen Interceptor | February 5, 2007 4:37 PM
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