The Watada moment "non legally" speaking ...

Ought we support Lt. Ehren Watada if "Watada's case is a losing one, legally speaking?"

"Legally speaking" is a debater's point. But there are other points to be made. Nixon learned that in his debate with JFK, who wasn't worried about scoring debating points.

At some point we must put down our cell phones, TV clickers and fancy word-writing thesauruses and start dealing with reality.

At issue here is not a winning argument in a debate or even a courtroom.

Those who pick at this event from a point of legality seem to believe that somehow in a courtroom a decision could be made that would fill the streets with legitimately angry American citizens relentlessly pressuring the administration to end the occupation and stop a war of aggression that was initiated and has been conducted under the pretense of defending the Constitution and the nation.

Otherwise, trying to say that Watada's case is a losing one is semantics and hair-splitting.

Of course he isn't a conscientious objector.

But of course he CAN pick and choose the wars he wants to fight. We all can so long as we are willing to address the consequences of attempting to pick and choose. That is where moral indignation fuses get lit.

This is not an attempt to get the American people to demand a court decision allowing a soldier to resign a commission or conscientously object. The ultimate goal of this event, realistic or otherwise, is a trickle-to-a-cascade of like events that create clout.

Moral clout ...

emotional clout ...

indignant clout ...

and a wake-up call to a majority of the citizens that succeeds in getting them off their asses ...

creating the ultimate political clout.

If ever moral values were important to a culture the real moral values of the Watada moment are those to which Americans must absolutely awaken.

I expect and have expected - because of Viet Nam - the act of picking and choosing from every soldier who ever wore the uniform in my life and time as an American soldier and veteran.

Ideally the picking and choosing to fight is easily discernible and takes no time for conscience and soul-searching.

Un-ideally, when crooks and liars instigate violence and war, tricking a nation into aggression and military disaster by flag waving, the conscience stuff and soul searching might be more time consuming.

One-line answers won't get it here.

Finding VFW or American Legion members who say "Send him to jail" and refuse to dialogue the issue is easy for MSM'ers. It's also disingenuous and shallow for the rest of us - especially our young who are much closer to having skin in a game that is murderous, immoral and was never necessary.

The Watada moment is a time for dialogue between all Americans and requires that grown-ups ignore junior high school jingo phrasing and one-line put-downs from pundits and citizens too lazy or distracted by Fox News and American Idol to care.

Otherwise, we run a greater risk of an immoral commander-in-chief destroying our military and making of this country the grand villain of the 21st Century - a villain eventually deserving it's own version of a post-conflict Nuremberg precisely because not enough Watada's stood up and too many citizens said "he can't pick and choose."

•  Fer chissake

  Can we all just stop using Nazi references.  This is nothing like WWII and noone here is like the freakin Nazis.

  by slothlax on Sat Jun 10, 2006 at 09:59:32 AM PDT

  •  the legal comparison is specific and topical here

    The diarist isn't makming exaggertaed claims.  The code of conduct for soldiers versus their need to obey orders is the specific point.

    by lizah on Sun Jun 11, 2006 at 10:38:35 AM PDT

•  Law is based on ethics

  Where law strays from ethics, we have an obligation to protest or to disobey.  Where the line is drawn between protest and disobeyance...  that's a decision for the individual to make and should be respected.

  I support Lt. Watada's decision -- and I appreciate it deeply.  It is a courageous act.

  by noemie maxwell on Sat Jun 10, 2006 at 10:12:49 AM PDT

•  A much closer view than mine eh?

  I appreciate you being where you are and that you have a greater on-the-ground view of things where that action is.

  I mean no disrespect in that and also appreciate that you've responded to my position.

  I remember coming home to straighten out all my family in the early 1970's because, like my WW II father, I'd been there now, and done that ... well to the degree that flyboys can be there and do that.

  So I could tell my father that Viet Nam was nothing like WW II or even Korea and, disregarding the fact that he was drafted and faced a much greater risk to himself in WW II than I did flying 35,000 feet above the conflict and dodging occasional Mig's.

  His stories were of course about places like Guadalcanal, the Battle of the Bulge and even Dunkirk even though he spent the war on Adak in the Aleutians as a radio relay operator.

  His perspective in the early 1980's when he was neareer my age now, just blew me away.

  I grew up listening to him talk about WW II and watching the 1940's and 50's John Wayne and Audie Murphy movies with him.

  But the 50-ish Dad of the early 1980's had more to say about war and his country beyond Audie Murphy and John Wayne.

  A republican voter, he of course had no stomach for LBJ or JFK, but he absolutely despised Nixon for how the 1968 campaign promises about Viet Nam were ignored, repudiated and obscured while the Republican commander-in-chief and his ass-Kissinger only made things worse, not better.

  My Dad was a farm implement salesman who was also a musican, playing a sax and singing for his 3-piece combo in local night clubs. He was not a shy person.

  But, all those years following his WW II service, regarding his political opinions, we were all left guessing as to what he really thought.

  He rarely read and only kept one book, a huge memorial history of WW II that now sits in my bookcase.

  In the mid 1980's Dad came to live with me for a while in Vancouver, WA. The movie Red Dawn had just come out and we watched it.

  After words he said in his quiet voice that no longer sang in night clubs,

  "Gives you something to think about."

  and then this about which I had no idea of his feelings:

  "That sonofabitch Nixon, killed more of our boys than needed to die."

  ***
  I read that the UCMJ forbids denigrating the Commander-in-Chief - something that Lt. Watada has not done. I listened to the Lt. first hand, watched his press conference Q&A and heard nothing treasonable in what he had to say.

  I'm of course post UCMJ and no longer subject to its jurisdiction. So I can tell you ...

  I also hate comparisons to Nazis and was not even thinking about that when I wrote this diary.

  However ... that sonofabitch lied to me and to all of us. He lied to get us to invade Iraq and make of this country an aggressor nation.

  He lied to get our soldiers to shoot to kill when it never had to be that way with Iraq.

  If Nuremberg hurts your feelings, then let's shift it to The Hague. Either way, that sonofabitch deserves The Hague and our country deserves better than the taint he's given us, Nazi or otherwise.

  by Arthur Ruger on Sat Jun 10, 2006 at 10:33:30 AM PDT

  •  Fair enough

    I will also make throw away references that unfairly get focused on.  WWII is overused as a reference point.  The right used it before the invasion and I wrote a LTE about how that was complete nonsense, but the left uses the whole Bush/Hitler thing more than I care for (once is too many).  As far as actually trying him for war crimes, can't say that I agree, but I really could care less if he was.

    There is a lot more the UCMJ than bad mouthing the president.  I haven't seen anything other than what I've read here, but if he was in uniform denouncing the legality of the war he is guilty without question.  And he will miss movement.

    by slothlax on Sat Jun 10, 2006 at 10:47:21 AM PDT

    •  You know ... what I'd really like to read is ...

      your take on the reality or not of what has been described as an unwritten code of silence imposed on military members and their families.

      For a moment earlier this morning when reading a reference to the UCMJ somewhere else, I thought I'd seen a legal basis for soldiers and their families to keep their opinions to themselves.

      When I served, and that was 6 years active duty USAF and 2 years Army Reserve, I did not have much occasion or need to shush my family/extended family  since none of them were speaking out.

      And I myself had little prompting to speak out.

      I came out of a conservative-patriotic republican state and culture (SE Corner of Idaho: 40 miles from Utah and 40 miles from Wyoming ... the 3 remaining states with Bush supporters in the majority.)

      Solidarity in worrying for the well-being of the rest of the guys in my unit seemed to be the highest concern rather than whether or not the war in Indo-China or the Cold War with Russia was legitimate.

      But having said that, I also confess that in retrospect, my outrage against Jane Fonda nad nothing to do with reading or thinking about what she was saying and everything to do with the publicity around her, those inflammatory pictures and the urban legends created back then that have followed her all her life.

      I watched the video "Sir, no Sir!!" for the first time three weeks ago and was shocked to learn that active outspoken anti-war activity within the military was much more widespread than what I'd been aware of.

      I'd like for you (if you will) to read a diary I wrote last August on this site that got more than 350 recommends and a mess of comments.

      What I'd like from you is how you would describe whether or not it is good and useful for military members and their families to be totally muzzled from speaking their mind, as opposed to speaking freely  albeit without dissing the CIC.

      Some of the opposition to Military Families Speak Out comes from other military families who say we should not only shut up, but that we are not patriotic if we do not blindly support and even praise the President despite his inability to define the "noble" in noble cause.

      Thanks in advance.

      by Arthur Ruger on Sat Jun 10, 2006 at 11:27:50 AM PDT