Court-martial of officer who refused to go to Iraq begins

[Yurt]

What the hell does that have to do with anything? He's wearing the uniform of the U.S. Army, isn't he? He signed the pledge when he entered, didn't he? Nobody held a gun to his head when he signed the pledge, did they?

There is no maybe i'll obey or maybe I won't in the military, you either obey the orders you are given or you get bent. What he thinks about U.S. policy in Iraq, moral or immoral, is absolutely fucking irrelevant.

What if you are given an order by a superior officer that you believe is unlawful? Do you have choice then?

[Gunny]

Poll participants are picked randomly. There is no political affiliations (unless it is a political poll and one of the questions ask if they are a member of the DEM/GOP organisations....If Anne does her polls the same way, there won't be a problem...

Questions in polls are gamed to solicit a certain response, and are rarely straight-forward and honest. Pollsters also know where to poll to get the majority they want.

I would not consider a poll conducted by Ann Coulter any more credible than I do CBS, or any other person or organization with a political agenda.

[Gunny]

What if you are given an order by a superior officer that you believe is unlawful? Do you have choice then?

Been covered, but .....

If you know the order is unlawful -- it is your duty to report it to the next-higher up in the chain of command.

If you believe an order to be unlawful, you better be able to prove it. If you cannot, you're screwed.

In this instance, being ordered to report for a movement of troops is and has been completely legal, and is administrative in nature.

The two charges against Watada are the same two charges that anyone who misses a movement of troops are charged with.

The additional charge of conduct unbecoming an officer and gentleman is due to his making political statements against the US government as a member of the US Army.

[OCA]

What if you are given an order by a superior officer that you believe is unlawful? Do you have choice then?

Military law or civilian law? I think if you were told by your C.O. to drop by this house and whack evryone in it you'd stand a good chance of having zero charges of misconduct brought against you if you disobeyed that one but if your C.O. told you to pick up every single piece of dogshit on base with your bare hands well you'd probably better do it.

[Yurt]

Been covered, but .....

If you know the order is unlawful -- it is your duty to report it to the next-higher up in the chain of command.

If you believe an order to be unlawful, you better be able to prove it. If you cannot, you're screwed.

In this instance, being ordered to report for a movement of troops is and has been completely legal, and is administrative in nature.

The two charges against Watada are the same two charges that anyone who misses a movement of troops are charged with.

The additional charge of conduct unbecoming an officer and gentleman is due to his making political statements against the US government as a member of the US Army.

Thanks, did not know it was cleared up, this was my point. The libs are bashing on this, but fail to realize the law on the matter. All they do is point to the initial reason, not the prongs that must be met in order to meet this exclusion.

Thank you.

[Yurt]

Sorry:

My main point I was getting at, is what "illegality" is this guy claiming? If so, is the "illegality" an exclusion under military, not civilian, law?

The military code is not the same as civilian, nor should it be.

[pegwinn]

Sorry:

My main point I was getting at, is what "illegality" is this guy claiming? If so, is the "illegality" an exclusion under military, not civilian, law?

The military code is not the same as civilian, nor should it be.

Bottom line in the UCMJ is the specifics of the order given. He was not ordered to fight by President Bush. He was ordered to be at a certain place and time for movement. His defence is extrapolating that any order to Iraq is fruit of the poisoned tree.

It won't work. Military Juries are far more versed in the law than civilian juries. C follows A and B. Meaning that today or two months from now, he will likely be convicted.

[theHawk]

Generally, I think that is fair enough, too. Unless the war is, IYO, totally illegal. With Iraq it appears far from decided for some. However, what if there was indeed an illegal war. Say Bush decided to invade Mexico, with the support of the Joint Chiefs, because he thought it was a good idea?

I don't really understand why this term illegal is used with this war, or why it would with any war. The Constitution gives the President the authority to use the military. In the case of the Iraq war, they even had the Congress approve of it. You may not agree with the political goals of the war, but that doesn't make the deployment of troops by orders of the Commander-in-Chief illegal. The term illegal war that has been thrown around in the media and by Democratic leaders is simpleton propaganda talk with no actual meaning to it. And if you start argueing that some international court or the Court of Kalamazoe says the war is illegal, well that really doesn't make a difference within the U.S. courts and is completely irrelavant to this case.
Before anyone enlists they ask you if you are a conscientious objector, which is what this guy is. If he willingly lied then thats his own fault. Otherwise he'd probably have to prove he was too mentaly retarded to understand what they were asking at the time.

[darin]

I don't really understand why this term illegal is used with this war, or why it would with any war. The Constitution gives the President the authority to use the military. In the case of the Iraq war, they even had the Congress approve of it. You may not agree with the political goals of the war, but that doesn't make the deployment of troops by orders of the Commander-in-Chief illegal. The term illegal war that has been thrown around in the media and by Democratic leaders is simpleton propaganda talk with no actual meaning to it. And if you start argueing that some international court or the Court of Kalamazoe says the war is illegal, well that really doesn't make a difference within the U.S. courts and is completely irrelavant to this case.
Before anyone enlists they ask you if you are a conscientious objector, which is what this guy is. If he willingly lied then thats his own fault. Otherwise he'd probably have to prove he was too mentaly retarded to understand what they were asking at the time.

It's that way so Libs have better slogans.

"The war is ILLEGAL!"

vs.

"The war is LEGAL but we really don't agree with the Legislative and Executive Branches of Government authorizing the movement of forces to prevent further terrorist attacks!"

[Hobbit]

It's that way so Libs have better slogans.

"The war is ILLEGAL!"

vs.

"The war is LEGAL but we really don't agree with the Legislative and Executive Branches of Government authorizing the movement of forces to prevent further terrorist attacks!"

Why didn't they just stick with calling the war 'immoral?' It has the same ring to it, and morality is ambiguous and subjective enough that they could actually defend it.

[Grumplestillskin]

Questions in polls are gamed to solicit a certain response, and are rarely straight-forward and honest. Pollsters also know where to poll to get the majority they want.

I would not consider a poll conducted by Ann Coulter any more credible than I do CBS, or any other person or organization with a political agenda.

No they are not. Most of these types of questions rgarding the war in Iraq are pretty straight forward. Like: Do you think the US should pull out of Iraq? Do you think the president has done a good job on the war in Iraq? Nothing ambiguous about it. Pollsters like the CBS one do not poll where they want. The phone numbers are picked randomly. You're way too much of a cynic Gunny...

[theHawk]

No they are not. Most of these types of questions rgarding the war in Iraq are pretty straight forward. Like: Do you think the US should pull out of Iraq? Do you think the president has done a good job on the war in Iraq? Nothing ambiguous about it. Pollsters like the CBS one do not poll where they want. The phone numbers are picked randomly. You're way too much of a cynic Gunny...

But even the very questions you ask don't really mean anything.
I would answer yes and quite possibly a no to your two questions. That doesn't mean I want an immediate withdraw now. It just means I think we should pull out of Iraq sometime, and that time would be after our objective of sustaining a government there is complete. And I don't think Bush did a good as a job as he could of, he could of used alot more troops and let them kill and rout the enemy. But if I answered the simple 'yes' and 'no' to such a poll question, it would be spun by the media to make it sound as if I think Bush has done a terrible job and we should withdraw troops now.

[Hagbard Celine]

But even the very questions you ask don't really mean anything.
I would answer yes and quite possibly a no to your two questions. That doesn't mean I want an immediate withdraw now. It just means I think we should pull out of Iraq sometime, and that time would be after our objective of sustaining a government there is complete. And I don't think Bush did a good as a job as he could of, he could of used alot more troops and let them kill and rout the enemy. But if I answered the simple 'yes' and 'no' to such a poll question, it would be spun by the media to make it sound as if I think Bush has done a terrible job and we should withdraw troops now.

You're right! I didn't realize it until now, but the MEDIA is what's wrong with this war. Silly me.

[theHawk]

You're right! I didn't realize it until now, but the MEDIA is what's wrong with this war. Silly me.

No the media isn't whats wrong with the war.

[darin]

Wouldn't it be SOMETHING if this dude got PROMOTED!!???