Office who refused Iraq duty says owes his allegiance to the Constitution

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.thenewstribune.com/news/local/story/5974071p-5252808c.html

<snip>gitmo and downing street


Watada conceded the military could not function if individual members decided which war was just. But, as he wrote to Townsend, he owed his allegiance to a “higher power” – the Constitution.

Watada said he began his self-tutorial about the Iraq war with James Bamford’s book “A Pretext for War,” which argues that the war in Iraq was driven by a small group of neoconservative civilians in the Pentagon and their allies in policy institutes. The book suggests that intelligence was twisted to justify the toppling of Saddam Hussein, with the goal of fundamentally changing the Middle East to the benefit of Israel.

Next was “Chain of Command,” by Seymour M. Hersh, about the Abu Ghraib prison scandal. After that, Watada moved on to other publications on war-related themes, including selections on the treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and the so-called Downing Street memo, in which the British chief of intelligence told Prime Minister Tony Blair in July 2002 that the Americans saw war in Iraq as “inevitable” and that “the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.”

Watada said he also talked to soldiers returning to Fort Lewis from Iraq, including a staff sergeant who told him he and his men had probably committed war crimes.

“When I learned the awful truth that we had been deceived – I was shocked and disgusted,” he wrote in the letter to his brigade commander.

Watada’s mother, Carolyn Ho, tried to talk him out of his decision.


What a concept. A man who realizes his allegiances is to the Constitution of the USA. Not George and his minions. I wish there were more patriotic Americans like this with the guts to stand up for what is truly right. This county would be better for it.

[madokie]

1. Now this is my kind of a real man, live true to your convictions

knowing what I know today I suspect I would have been an objector to the Vietnam war, but I was young dumb and full of, well you know, to the point I didn't realize the ramifications of being one of the sheep. I could have been a much more productive citizen if only I didn't have some images and memories seared into my consciences, sometimes my sleep too. War only as self defense and then only after much dialog is my moto.

[NNN0LHI]

5. I don't know what I would have done had I been drafted?

I still wonder about it. I probably would have went along with the program.

I certainly would never have joined up though.

Don

[GeorgeGist]

2. Individual members of the Military make an oath...

to protect and defend the Constitution against all enemies domestic and foreign. Temporally speaking that promise supersedes the promise to obey orders. IMO

[theHandpuppet]

3. Yes, couldn't GWB be considered a domestic enemy of the Consitution?

He's done his best to tear it to shreds.

[bemildred]

4. Bravo. We need more of these. nt