After a 20-30 minute eternity that left us all in a stupor of disbelief that the war's legality had just been debated in a military court, on the record, and had lost, badly, the attorney for the prosecution sat down.
Pablo Paredes refused to board the USS Bonhomme Richard as it was preparing to sail from San Diego with 2,000 Marines in December. He surrendered to military authorities a few days later and applied for conscientious objector status.
Paredes was convicted in a court-martial on Wednesday on a charge of missing his deployment. Prosecutor Lt. Brandon Hale said "He is trying to infect the military with his own philosophy of disobedience."
...the government prosecution used an unexpected argument...
... the judge said, "I believe the government has just successfully proved that any seaman recruit has reasonable cause to believe that the wars in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq were illegal."
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