When First Lt. Ehren Watada refused to be deployed in Iraq, he probably didn’t have Victorian poet Alfred Tennyson in mind. “Theirs not to reason why, theirs but to do and die,” wrote Tennyson in describing the ill-fated British Charge of the Light Brigade. Watada did choose to reason why, because he views the war as illegal. His offer to resign, or fight in Afghanistan, couldn’t placate an Army determined to make an example
The 28-year-old from Hawaii was due to deploy on June 22 last year but refused on the grounds that he viewed the Iraq war as 'illegal and immoral'. Although his first court martial at Fort Lewis has ended in a mistrial, a new tribunal will be convened on March 19. If found guilty of all the charges, Watada be sentenced to up to four years in prison.
Some of the more intellectually facile arguments against Watada are easy to dismiss. He is patently not a coward who is simply unwilling to fight. He is on record as offering to fight in Afghanistan and is also on record as being an ‘exemplary’ soldier prior to his Iraq refusal. Even if his decision had been made through cowardice it would not make it any less comprehensible.
The plain fact is that many of Watada’s critics are ‘armchair generals’ - people who write and opine without ever having to face the reality of soldiering in Iaq. It is their right and privilege in a democracy to be able to do this, but a certain amount of intellectual and emotional latitude should be expected in return. I suspect most people reading this would tolerate serving in Iraq.
Political Debate
This explosive debate is both political and moral. Supporters of the Iraq war line up mainly against Watada, and its opponents support his cause. This is only natural. However, it detracts from a potentially wider and more fundamental debate.
Tennyson’s soldiers served the old British Empire. They existed to serve its greater glory: its will was the personification of God’s and its cause was in and of itself inherently just. In a democracy, things are not so simple. You may well not view your commander-in-chief as just and inherently correct, and that is your right in a democratic nation. It is your right and, arguably, your duty to dissent. So the real debate provoked by Watada’s trial is what kind of army a democracy should foster? Should soldiers of a democracy be expected to follow orders unquestioningly and execute them without further thought about the consequences?
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - moonraven
Good piece.
Just a couple of quick comments:
1. The war on terror is like a war on bad breath--it simply doesn't exist. BUT, it has been used as a campaign AGAINST--not FOR--civilization, as is obvious in its target: The Cradle of Civilization, which the barbarians at the gates (the US led "coalition") saw fit to destroy by actively cheering on the looting of the museums and the destruction of absolutely one of a kind items.
2. Watada has the courage of his convictions. He should not be on trial. The folks that should be on trial are the war criminals--and THEY should be convicted. If not, justice will never have been served.
2 - Nancy
Unless I misremember, this was the question at the very heart of the My Lai Massacre trials: did "I was following orders" constitute a valid defense. Ditto in Nuremburg for the Nazi officers tried there. In both cases, the answer was "no". Therefore the US has already lost the case based on TWO prior major precedents, QED. If one argues that, as president, Dubya is entitled to legitimately declare war, then an excellent case can be made that he is NOT the "legitimate" president & won the 2000 & 2004 elections through election rigging. At any rate, it would certainly open up a can of worms legally. The military might be better advised to let it go. They would seem to have painted themselves into the proverbial corner on the question of individual responsibility.
3 - Nancy
I was trying to say, if Watada has the right to refuse illegitimate orders, i.e. to refuse to carry out the My Lai massacre, to refuse to participate in Nazi genocide, etc., then he can't be court-marshaled for refusing any other order he holds as illegitimate, or from illegitimate authorities. If, on the other hand, he CAN'T refuse orders, then neither the Nazis nor Lt. Calley should have been convicted, nor anyone at Abu Ghraib, or anywhere else, as long as they were following orders. Catch-22.
4 - moonraven
Catch-22 was all about the contradictions of military service....
5 - JustOneMan
yawwwnn....Watada is a punk! You assholes are making him to be a hero...he is a soldier in a volunteer service. Now that he is afraid to fight he wants to change the rules...please stop sounding like a bunch of morons...
Just One Mans Opion of course
6 - Emry
"...he wants to change the rules..."
Which rules? There's no rule that says a soldier has to take part in an illegal military action.
7 - JustOneMan
"illegal military action"???? tee...hee...hee
Please cite the court ruling Einstein...
JustOneMan
8 - D'oh
In military culture, and in the UCMJ, it is explicity laid out thatthe individual servicemember should NOT obey an "unlawful order".
Now, if such an order is found to be "lawful", then the individual suffers the consequences.
By all accounts, the individual in question, an officer, made his case plain, and accepted the consequences of taking such a stand...at the very least losing his commission and being expelled from the service....at most some time in prison.
The system worked, he registered his protest, and is under trial to face the consequences.
Much ado about nothing, imo.
9 - Clavos
Nancy #3:
Though Calley claimed he was following orders, he was lying. His CO, Capt. Ernest Medina, was also tried and was acquitted of all charges.
The responsibility for My Lai was solely Calley's.
10 - Dave Nalle
I hope Watada's defense doesn't rest on the unlawful order argument. They've got to be able to do better than that. For that argument to win they'd have to prove the war was illegal, and there's not a lot of precedent for determining the legality of wars, plus it's beyond the scope of a court martial.
Dave
11 - D'oh
Which is why he will do the time, imo.
He took a stand, and will have to pay the price for it, because I agree, that justification won't fly at a courts martial.
12 - Dave Nalle
I think he's a dumbass, but I do wonder what the appropriate punishment for him is. I don't think they should come down on him too heavily. How about they bust him down to private and send him to Afghanistan? That would have a certain ironic appeal.
Dave
13 - D'oh
He asked to be sent to Afghanistan instead of Iraq, it wasn't war he was against, or serving in hazardous combat...just Iraq.
1-3 years , stripped of his commission, and dishonorable discharge, would be my guess...could go as low as 6 months.
14 - Dave Nalle
I was thinking that the military needs all the men they can get, so why not let him go to Afghanistan since he's willing?
But I wouldn't be surprised if they decide to make an example of him with a sentence harsher than what you suggest.
Dave
15 - D'oh
Try reading the actual article posted, it mentions his asking to go to Afghanistan, and also accurately states the maximum sentence is 4 years if found guilty of all charges and given the maximum.
16 - Dave Nalle
I've read the article and several others. My point was just that taking his commission and sending him to Afghanistan might be punishment enough.
Dave
17 - MCH
"I was thinking that the military needs all the men they can get, so why not let him go to Afghanistan since he's willing?"
- Dave (Vox Populi) Nalle
Sorry, I can't comment on this, due to Rose's new "MCH Exception."
(Chris: my goal is to get OUT of your dreams...)
18 - Arch Conservative
The war on terror is like a war on bad breath--it simply doesn't exist.
Yeah I guess we imagined 911, the London subway bombings, the Spain train bombings, the bali nightclub bombings, the uss cole, the embassy bombings, the 93 wtc bombings, the murder of theo van gogh, muslim youths rioting in France etc etc.......
It figures someone like you would side with islamic terrorists and blame the USA for the world's problems.
There have certainly been a number of anti American [Edited] posting on BC in the past but you are by far the most reprehensible, anti American, leftist [Edited] that I've ever had the misfortune to have stumbled across on BC.
19 - Arch Conservative
That comment was obviously directed at moonraven.
20 - Clavos
It's a mistrial.
The government blinked...
21 - troll
leave it to the Con to stick his left hand in the humus
22 - S.T.M
I don't understand why people continue to believe there is no "war on terror". Perhaps the choice of name is a dud. Yet it IS real and it doesn't just involve the US - it's a global challenge that sees police forces and anti-terror units from places as diverse as Sanaa, Yemen, and Sydney, Australia, banding together to track down, stop or capture actual or would be mass murderers.
But it really has nothing to do with the war in Iraq ... and it never has. That other war is the War in Iraq. One's about stopping mass murderers, the other's about oil.
George Bush might say the two things are linked - and now they probably are since every fanatical nut of a particular fervent religious belief now wants to be involved and will point to it rightly or wrongly as a classic example of US imperialism - but they are very different issues.
My view (for what it's worth): mass murderers are mass murderers, and insurgents are insurgents. The lines might seem blurred sometimes, but the old Iraqi regime never did have any real links with al-Qaeda.
Iraq as a ba'athist/modern-day Arab-style stalinist state under Saddam was even further removed from the ideals and goals of al-Qaeda than is the US.
As others have said, the Iraq invasion painted as revenge for 9/11 is a bit like Canada invading the US and the US using that to justify an all-out attack on Mexico in retaliation.
Bush and the US administration and its military are right to stand up to mass murderers who kill Americans and others, but wrong to go to war for oil because a madman might use it as a bargaining chip and then tell their own people that it's part of a war on terror. That's the bit that's bullshit.
23 - Dave Nalle
The problem with the term 'war on terror' is that it suggests that terrorism is like a nation you can make war on, when it's really just a subcategory of crime which happens to be politically motivated. Dealing with it is ultimately more a business for police and courts than for armies, which makes it just as inappropriate a name as the 'war on drugs' is.
However, the one way in which the war on terror really is like a war is that there are state sponsors of terrorism and states whcih terrorize their own population. If you throw that in then the war on terror really is like a war. A big, nasty and incredibly difficult and expensive to fight world war which will go on for decades.
All in all, it's probably easier to call it 'zero tolerance for terror' and keep it in the realm of crime rather than war.
Dave
24 - S.T.M
The writer said: "Tennyson’s soldiers served the old British Empire. They existed to serve its greater glory: its will was the personification of God’s and its cause was in and of itself inherently just. In a democracy, things are not so simple."
Oops, little mistake there Darrell, and one that I do love to correct ... while it might also have had an Empire, Britain at the time of Lord Tennyson's writing had long been a parliamentary democracy and a vibrant and vigorous one at that - and one that believed above all else in certain inalienable rights and personal freedoms (sound familiar?).
Indeed, it was Benjamin Disraeli, the great British jewish parliamentarian and later Prime Minister, who described the Charge of the Light Brigade in the House of Commons as a "feat of chivalry, fiery with consummate courage, and bright with flashing courage." He forgot the insanity bit, but let's not cloud the real issue.
This is something I find increasingly bizarre in the modern age when inofrmation is available at the press of a button: too many Americans still make the mistake of thinking that because Britain has a King or Queen, or had one in 1854, it can't be a democracy and wasn't one then.
Truth is, British monarchs for centuries are only constitutional monarchs - much loved but anachronisms nevertheless who are nothing more than figureheads. They are subject totally to the will of the British people and the people's elected representatives in Parliament. On a related note, it's my bet that the British leave Iraq well before the US. And it'll have nothing to do with the Queen.
Democracy takes many forms, and in the case of these two we are talking about, one in fact doesn't guarantee any more rights or freedoms than the other. One's freedoms and rights are guaranteed under common law dating back centuries, the other's by a Constitition largely based upon that exact same common law.
In fact there might even be a good argument to suggest that one has actually evolved into a fairer, more just society in many ways because its constitition is by its very nature and the nature of the law fluid and changing and thus subject to the changing will of the people, while the other is set in stone and hasn't kept pace.
It's bound to cause a drama on this site, but the second amendment might be a classic example of why that argument holds water.
And sometimes I wonder whether the US really is still a democracy and whether at election time, it is the will of the people being voiced or that of the the corporate interests and lobby groups who finance the parties' political campaigns.
Just a thought ...
25 - S.T.M
Dave Nalle wrote: "All in all, it's probably easier to call it 'zero tolerance for terror'."
Nah, Dave, too bloody American mate - it won't catch on anywhere else. People's eyes will just glaze over. Why make it any more unpopular than it already is?
I prefer the term used by Lt Col David Kilcullen, a Bush military adviser, who calls it "the long war". Could that be a primer for the American people? I read it the other night and it just doesn't sound as hokey as "war on terror". Ultimately they both mean the same thing though: zero tolerance for terror.