Individual Liberty — Individual Responsibility 

Illegal War?

From the Seattle Post Intelligencer:

FORT LEWIS -- The lawyer for an Army officer from Honolulu who refused to deploy to Iraq said military prosecutors don't want 1st Lt. Ehren Watada to have the chance to defend himself by arguing that the war in Iraq is illegal.

"They're claiming that the only real issue is whether or not an order was given to Lieutenant Watada, which he refused to carry out and whether he made certain statements to the media," Eric Seitz said Tuesday, two days before a pretrial hearing at Fort Lewis.

Watada's court martial is to begin Feb. 5 at Fort Lewis. He refused to deploy to Iraq on June 22 with his Fort Lewis-based unit because he believes the war in Iraq is illegal.

...

Watada initially was charged with missing troop movement, conduct unbecoming an officer and contempt toward officials. While the Army later dropped the contempt charge, it added another specification of conduct unbecoming based on comments Watada made in Seattle during the national convention of Veterans for Peace.

Watada's lawyer claims that the war is illegal based upon international law because it's a "war of aggression". This echoes what the former secretary-general of the United Nations had to say about it. Authorities in the U.K., Australia, Poland, Bulgaria, and Japan disagreed. They said the war was backed by international law.

Looked at another way, the war in Iraq is nothing but an extension of the first gulf war. In that war, waged against Iraq because of their invasion of Kuwait, coalition forces led by the U.S. stomped Iraq's military. When that conflict "ended" Iraq agreed to cease-fire terms negotiated in Safwan Iraq on March 1, 1991, and then violated just about every one of them. On that basis alone the war in Iraq was justified.

Watada claims that the war "violates our democratic system of checks and balances." That didn't match up with his reasons for enlisting in the Army in the spring of 2003. At that time he supported the war based on the belief that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Now he claims that "we have been lied to and betrayed by this administration."

It's fairly easy to debunk both of those charges. First of all, in October of 2002, the United States Congress gave authorization to the administration to go to war in Iraq. The authorization passed the House by a vote of 296 to 133 on October 10, 2002. It passed the Senate without amendment by a vote of 77 - 23 on October 11, 2002. The president signed it on October 16, 2002. That pretty much knocks the "violates our democratic system of checks and balances" charge out of the water.

The war in Iraq is a legal war. Watada's next claim, that "we have been lied to and betrayed by this administration" doesn't bear up under scrutiny either, unless a lot of people outside the administration were complicit in the lie. Watada claims that his feelings about the war changed as he read up on the war and became convinced that there was "intentional manipulation of intelligence" by the administration.

You'd think we could lay this charge to rest by now, but it keeps coming up again and again. Sen. Harry Reid has said that in the coming year "We're going to find out how intelligence was manipulated, taking us to war."

The thing is, the issue of Saddam's weapons of mass destruction goes back well past 1991. We know that at one time he did have them, because we know that he used them. We know that he continued to work on them after 1991, or that the world believed he did at any rate, and that this was the general consensus before George W. Bush was even elected.

As an example, here's a quote from Nancy Pelosi, speaking on December 16, 1998: "As a member of the House Intelligence Committee, I am keenly aware that the proliferation of chemical and biological weapons is an issue of grave importance to all nations. Saddam Hussein has been engaged in the development of weapons of mass destruction technology which is a threat to countries in the region and he has made a mockery of the weapons inspection process."

Now how the heck did president Bush (or Karl Rove) manage to manipulate the intelligence on WMD's in 1998, nearly three years before his inauguration? For that matter, how did they manipulate the intelligence on WMDs carried out by UNSCOM and reported in 1998?

"Even today, Iraq is not nearly disarmed. Based on highly credible intelligence, UNSCOM [the U.N. weapons inspectors] suspects that Iraq still has biological agents like anthrax, botulinum toxin, and clostridium perfringens in sufficient quantity to fill several dozen bombs and ballistic missile warheads, as well as the means to continue manufacturing these deadly agents. Iraq probably retains several tons of the highly toxic VX substance, as well as sarin nerve gas and mustard gas. This agent is stored in artillery shells, bombs, and ballistic missile warheads. And Iraq retains significant dual-use industrial infrastructure that can be used to rapidly reconstitute large-scale chemical weapons production." —Ex-Un Weapons Inspector Scott Ritter in 1998

It's plain to me that Watada's defense, based on the assumption that the war is illegal, or that the administration lied us into the war doesn't stand up to scrutiny. The war in Iraq is a legal war. Lt. Watada was given a legal order to deploy, and chose to disobey that order. He then made several statements in the press that qualified as "conduct unbecoming an officer".

He deserves to be court-martialed.

Trackposted to Rightwing Guy, Pet's Garden Blog, Perri Nelson's Website, third world county, The Random Yak, Faultline USA, The HILL Chronicles, Blue Star Chronicles, Stuck On Stupid, Wake Up America, Dumb Ox News, Conservative Cat, and Right Voices, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

Also linked to NWBloggers.com and Leaning Straight Up.

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Leaning Straight Up trackbacked with "Lt Watada makes pretrial motions - LSU motions in return"

Lt Watada claims he has a constitutional right to be a deserter coward traitor oathbreaker protester.  Ok, that’s not what he said, but it comes close enough. I admit my bias here and now.  The guy makes me want to hurl.  He i...

The American Empire trackbacked with "Concerning Lt. Watada (Soon to known as Prisoner Watada, with luck)"

I had been formulating a post on this, but why bother when Karl at LSU has said it so well: Lt Watada claims he has a constitutional right to be a deserter coward traitor oathbreaker protester. Ok, that’s not what he said, but it comes close enough...

Layla responded with:

What else is new?  They are literally and absolutely disgusting!  My stomach turns when I read such things.  So much for patriotism and supporting your country and troops!

Perri Nelson responded with:

The sad thing is, this time it's one of the troops that isn't supporting his country.

sam responded with:

from the book War on Iraq by Scott Ritter and William Rivers Pitt (published by Profile Books, London, *2002*): It’s not black-and-white, as some in the Bush administration make it appear. There’s no doubt that Iraq hasn’t fully complied with its disarmament obligations as set forth by the UN Security Council in its resolution. But on the other hand, since 1998 Iraq has been fundamentally disarmed: 90-95% of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction capability has been verifiably eliminated. This includes all of the factories used to produce chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, and long-range ballistic missiles; the associated equipment of these factories; and the vast majority of the products coming out of these factories. The Nuremberg Principles and the Geneva Conventions, to both of which the US is a party, condemn war of aggression as a war crime. Members of the military who participate in a war crime are subject to prosecution, and "I was only following orders" is not a defense--the precedend set in the Nuremberg trials. Under US Constitutional law, as confirmed by the Supreme Court over 100 years ago, any international treaty to which we are a party effectively becomes domestic law. Thus, if a soldier participates in a war crime--even if ordered to do so, he violates US law. It is the duty of every US soldier to disobey when ordered to commit a war crime. Although the blogger may not agree that our Iraq misadventure was an act of aggression (it was), there can be no doubt that Lt Watada is acting in good faith to fulfill his oath to the Constitution of the United States.

Perri Nelson responded with:

I hardly find Scott Ritter to be a reliable authority. He's changed his tune a few times, and that was my point. In fact, your quotation illustrates how unreliable he is. My quotation comes from 1998, and at that time, Mr. Ritter didn't think that Iraq was even close to disarmed. Yet four years later he contradicted his earlier statement. Let's compare... In 1998, Scott Ritter said "Even today, Iraq is not nearly disarmed. Based on highly credible intelligence, UNSCOM [the U.N. weapons inspectors] suspects that Iraq still has biological agents like anthrax, botulinum toxin, and clostridium perfringens in sufficient quantity to fill several dozen bombs and ballistic missile warheads, as well as the means to continue manufacturing these deadly agents. Iraq probably retains several tons of the highly toxic VX substance, as well as sarin nerve gas and mustard gas. This agent is stored in artillery shells, bombs, and ballistic missile warheads. And Iraq retains significant dual-use industrial infrastructure that can be used to rapidly reconstitute large-scale chemical weapons production." but in 2002 he said But on the other hand, since 1998 Iraq has been fundamentally disarmed: 90-95% of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction capability has been verifiably eliminated. This includes all of the factories used to produce chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, and long-range ballistic missiles; the associated equipment of these factories; and the vast majority of the products coming out of these factories. Either he was lying in 1998, when Clinton was president and he had political motivation to support the president, or he was lying in 2002 when Bush was president and he had political motivation to oppose the president. Take your pick. One of his statements is a lie. In any case, this was not a new war of aggression, it was a continuation of a pre-existing war. Saddam Hussein's Iraq violated the terms of their cease-fire agreement with the United States, which included the no-fly zones that they continually violated. Saddam Hussein's Iraq had violated over a dozen U.N. resolutions, including more than one that called for military action as a consequence. For those reasons, in addition to the issues regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction, Congress authorized the war in Iraq. That authorization was bi-partisan and included a majority from both major parties. Watada isn't acting in good faith at all. He chose, based upon political motivations to disobey a LEGAL order. He deserves to be breaking rocks in the hot sun.