Iraq war objector a thinker, say friends

[leftchick]

http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3453440a1861,00.html

As Malcolm Kendall-Smith faces jail for refusing to return to Iraq. Donna Chisholm and Kim Knight find out what makes him tick.


Forres in north-eastern Scotland is possibly the furthest place on earth from Dunedin.

Linked by their Scottish heritage, the cities now also share the tale of a deep-thinking former philosophy student trying to challenge the world's superpowers over the legality of the Iraq war.

At Royal Air Force base Kinloss in Forres, Flight Lieutenant Malcolm Kendall-Smith no longer spends time at the officers' mess. The Dunedin-trained doctor uses a separate door to go to his quarters. He was suspended from his job as a GP on the base after refusing to obey an order to return to Iraq for the third time.

Since the story about Kendall-Smith facing a Defence Force court martial - and potentially prison - for refusing to obey the order broke last week, little has been told about the man himself.

[WhiteTara]

1. Bravo for Kendall-Smith

:kick: for conscience.

[tomg]

2. He has a remarkable amount of

courage and integrity. What I found particularly compelling was that, according to the article,

"He is not arguing that he is a conscientious objector. He is arguing that the war is manifestly unlawful," Hugheston-Roberts told the Sunday Times last week."

[Catrina]

4. He may win his case

Pablo Paredes essentially won his based on his claim that the war was unlawful.

I hope others follow his example.

Kevin Benderman who asked for Conscientious objector status, is now serving 15 months in jail. They threw everything at him, including false charges of theft, because the military did not stop paying him combat pay. That was thrown out. In the end, he was found guilty of only the 'missing movement' charge. That of course was ludicrous.

Strange that we throw people in jail for refusing to kill other human beings without provocation.

[tomg]

5. The entire case against

Kevin Benderman was ludicrous. You're right. They did throw everything at him. In the US, the Gillette case ruled that one can't be a conscientious objector to a specific war. I am a CO ( applied in 1970, released 1972), and I think that is why I found the Kendall-Smith case so compelling. It attacks the legal legitimacy of a particular war. Granted, I am a CO as defined by U.S.C.M.J., but far too many people faced/ face serious and authentic moral objections to a particular war, and not simply to all wars (including defensive wars).

In the many ways, what Kendall-Smith and others ( including Sgt. Benderman) are doing is a tremendous act of moral courage that, for my money, is quite different that what many traditional COs faced. They really are out there alone. In some ways, it is the same thing that the great Dietrich Bonhoeffer faced, although in reverse. He was the German theologian who was a dedicated pacifist, but one who finally took part ( at least indirectly) in the attempt on Hitler's life, and died at Flossenberg.Likewise, t These men and women are saying that, while they believe ( or once believed) in at least defensive wars, this is a war their conscience can't permit. Real integrity, being out there alone.

on edit: hit submit by accident

[Voltaire99]

3. This is the kind of man I respect.

The project for our survival requires learning how to multiply the Kendall-Smiths. We have far too many of the opposite.