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and the US Constitution are the fundamental law governing war in this DEMOCRACY. Lt. Watada's commanders--Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld, and all upper commanders who have obeyed their orders to break the laws on illegal mass murder, invasion, torture and occupation--are the ones who should be prosecuted and in jail.
We had a similar situation with Vietnam. The Vietnam War--though it, too, was illegal, and though upwards of 2 million had been killed by the end of it--was never declared "illegal" by anybody in this country, yet amnesty was eventually granted to those who refused to be Drafted (and those who went AWOL were not pursued--an informal amnesty). The American people are the ultimate arbiter of what our government has done, and we punished two presidents and drove them from office, for that illegal war. (LBJ directly, and Nixon indirectly with the Watergate scandal, which was related to the war--the Watergate burglars were trying to stop antiwar candidate George McGovern from winning the presidency, and also burglarized Pentagon whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist's office.)
Times change. The American people will ultimately decide this one as well. 70% of the American people want this war ended. Lt. Watada is expressing OUR view of this war, that it shouldn't have happened, and that it should be ended. The military likes to have robot soldiers who do whatever they're told, no matter how illegal those orders may be. We all know that. But that doesn't mean what the military is right. And it may be that we, the American people, have lost our democracy, and no longer have the power to enforce the will of the people. But that isn't right either. George Bush is currently planning to send MORE troops to Iraq, not less, and spending MORE billions and billions of dollars of our FUTURE money on this war, not less--just like Vietnam--and there doesn't seem to be any way to stop him. We vote out his vile, lapdog Congress, and nothing changes. With the Diebold/ES&S electronic voting machines--run on "trade secret," proprietary programming code, owned and controlled by Bushite corporations--we don't know but that all the seats in the House changed hands. It's very suspicious that a lot of the Iraq vets running for Congress didn't win. So we can't even put in a Congress that can stop this war. But it is still up to us. Not to the military. It is up to we, the people, to decide what our government--including our military--should and shouldn't be doing. That's the right order of things. In prosecuting Lt. Watada, this military court is colluding with war criminals, just as the commanders in Guantanamo Bay have been colluding with war criminals to violate the UCMJ, the Geneva Conventions and the US Constitution--and the Supreme Court!
I do understand what people are saying, upthread, about how the military behaves, and what it does to its "grunts" and especially to its officers, but they nevertheless have the right, the duty, and the OBLIGATION to refuse illegal orders. "Just following orders" is no excuse for war crimes. THAT IS THE LAW OF OUR LAND. It doesn't matter, under the Geneva Conventions, or the Constitution, what "the military" thinks about it. It may matter materially to Lt. Watada, who hasn't run away--he's facing the "real world" consequences of his beliefs and his action. But it doesn't matter in the law that has governed us for over 200 years, and by which we, as a people, WROTE and signed the Geneva Conventions, and enacted the UCMJ. Soldiers are OBLIGED to disobey illegal orders.
It also doesn't matter that Lt. Watada joined after the Iraq War started. Most people didn't know that one hundred thousand innocent Iraqis had been slaughtered by George Bush's bombs in the initial invasion alone, nor that the US military and god knows who in the US military contractor and intelligence "undergrounds" were systematically and routinely TORTURING PRISONERS--and not even just war prisoners, were systematically TORTURING INNOCENT BYSTANDERS--civilians, even children. There are reports of people hearing the screams of children as they were raped in Abu Ghraib! All under Donald Rumsfeld's orders! These vile people! It is unbelievable what they have done! --to their victims, AND to the US military and to all of us, by extension of guilt.
But when Lt. Watada DID find all this out--as these horrors were exposed--he then incurred an OBLIGATION not to participate in it. And he is one of the few who RECOGNIZED his obligation. I don't blame the rest. Most of them are just very poor, ignorant "grunts," who signed up because they couldn't find a job. And I don't even blame most of the officers. It takes extraordinary moral courage to defy your superiors in the military, and to throw your career and your reputation and often your friends away, and do what is right--it's harder in the military than in any other field. The military JAG lawyers did it. They fought tooth and nail against torture. General Shinseki did it. But those types are few and far between.
If they were all doing what is right, then the US military would stand up, as one, and say, "NO MORE!" They would defy Bush and Cheney. These illegitimate leaders are DESTROYING THE US MILITARY. They are also destroying our country--which everyone in the US military takes an oath to defend. It could start with the governors of our states refusing to permit Bush/Cheney to deploy National Guard to Iraq. Then it could spread to the Joint Chiefs of Staff could simply say, "NO MORE! We can't do it. We don't have the troops and we are out of money." (And the Army IS out of money!). Then they could evacuate US soldiers from Iraq and tell George Bush and Dick Cheney to go to hell.
Then we get rid of the secretly programmed Diebold/ES&S voting machines, and elect Lt. Watada president! He would be quite good at it. He has stood up against the Powers and said, "No!" He has represented us--in a way that no one else has, at great peril to himself. I'd vote for him! I'd join a movement to draft him for President, and work to elect him from the brig!
I know it seems wild and utopian. But we shouldn't be trapped by what we think has "always been true." Our view of things is generally limited to the present and the immediate past. We think we are living in an "eternal moment" where nothing can change. But things DO change. Armies have revolted against unjust and mad rulers quite often in history. Unjust and mad rulers quite often have misused and abused their armies. And the armies reach a point where they WON'T TAKE IT ANY MORE. So do civilian populations. It happened in Tsarist Russia. It happened in the Roman Empire. It happened to Napoleon. It happened to Hitler (whose own generals plotted to kill him). And it has most often happened in imperialist wars--where the king or leader at one time had legitimacy, but so ABUSED his armies or his people with out-of-control totalitarian orders that any legitimacy they had DOESN'T MATTER ANY MORE. And we are there, with Bush and Cheney, who never had much legitimacy in the first place. Their rule is based on two stolen elections--provably stolen elections. And the American people are beginning to realize this. If they HAD legitimacy, they wouldn't be behaving this way. Back before their invasion of Iraq, 56% of the American people opposed it. 56%! That would be a landslide in a presidential election. But they ignored majority opinion and proceeded anyway, to shove this war down the throats of the American people AND the US military (whose highest professionals considered it a dubious plan). Now 70% (!) oppose it, and STILL they pursue it. THEY are the defiant ones. Not Lt. Watada. He's following the law. They are not. They are acting as if they are ABOVE THE LAW. And the rest of the military is caught in a vise between what they know to be right, and "business as usual" (it has "always been true") obedience to so-called civilian "authority."
Recently, this Thanksgiving, Dick Cheney was summoned by the King of Saudi Arabia, and was told that, if the US withdraws from Iraq, Saudi Arabia would pour its forces into Iraq in support of the Sunnis, and would furthermore punish US oil giants through OPEC. Summoned. Told. What the hell IS THIS--Saudi Arabia SUMMONING the acting President of the United States, and TELLING him what to do. And next we hear: no drawdown in Iraq, no withdrawal, Bush wants to "win" the war, and is sending MORE troops.
This situation is OUT OF CONTROL. We do not have a president. We have Saudi Arabia's lapdogs in the White House!
And Lt. Watada is being prosecuted, and facing years in the brig, for refusing to obey the orders of the King of Saudi Arabia? How wrong is that?
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