Peace on Earth, or screw peaceniks

[cryowizard]

This guy refused to deploy to Iraq.

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/46660B31-772A-45A1-A2B3-E176923F9B32.htm

I am not a military man, but even I know that a military man doesn't get to choose the deployments he goes on to. His ass belongs to Uncle Sam, pure and simple.

I can't say I support the war, especially how it was sold to us, but fuck this guy for downing the morale at the time of war, and fuck those "peacenik" idiots who undermine their own military by supporting what is basically a mutiny.

The fact that this article appears on al-Jazeera is not helping either. I bet they are happy to see our own fifth column cheer for this guy.

Comments

[mhmeln-57.livejournal.com]

Hm, and i thought Nuremberg trials were pretty clear that a soldier remains responsible for carrying out an illegal order.

If the "morale" of the military can be undermined because someone speaks out against an illegal order, than FUCK THAT MORALE! It IS a mutiny, but somehow Americans LOOOOOVE to celebrate their mutiny in 1776. So what makes 1776 better than 2006?

Blind obedience is what led to nazi camps, Rwanda and...well, Iraq. Are you seriously going to defend blind obedience and declare people like...say, Hugh Thompson, Jr., to be undermining the "morale" of the army. Oh, let me refresh your memory on who Mr. Thompson (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Lai_Massacre) was:

The massacre was halted when Warrant Officer Hugh Thompson, Jr., a 24-year-old helicopter pilot, landed his OH-23 and confronted Lt. Stephen Brooks about attacks on wounded Vietnamese civilians hiding in a bunker. Thompson threatened to have his two door gunners open fire on American servicemen with his ship's machine guns if the attacks continued.

Wataba is a hero for starting a mutiny in this conscience-numb, fill-my-belly-up, godforsaken country. Like many other people we know, he also "hates" his job, but he actually stood up and did something about it. Something other than moving to a better-paying job.

[cryowizard.livejournal.com]

Instead of generalizations, shouldn't we talk about the problem at hand?

We're not talking blind obedience, we're talking military chain of command.

Let's set something straight first:

This guy is NOT given orders to murder people in death camps.
This guy is NOT given orders to kill unarmed civilians or children.
This guy is NOT given orders to commit ethnic cleansing or any other forms of genocide.

This guy IS an military officer who swore an enlistment oath. And here it is:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oath_of_enlistment

"...and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States{{, the governor of the state of _______ (for National Guard enlistees)}} and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice."

Now lets look at the legality of this.

No matter what you and I think, as far as the military of this country is concerned, this war is legal. It was initiated by the President and authorized by Congress, no matter how much you and I may hate this little fact, or the Congress. Or the President.

The opinion of our allies, enemies, UN or whomever the fuck else on the legality of the Iraq deployment means zip in this case.

And that's all there is to the legality of it.

Under the Unformed Code of Military Justice an officer refusing deployment (refusing an order, that is) will be courtmartialed, which is what's happening.

On a more personal note, I dont think he has a leg to stand on, and should go down. He is not a hero who stood up against the injustice -- there is no injustice as far as legality goes.

I say this again and again: no Armed Forces can allow its soldiers to pick and choose the battles they go into, granted the battle has been authorized by the government. If that is allowed, the Military will disintegrate. That's why I don't think he's a hero. His actions, no matter how "well" meaning, undermine the Army's morale, chain of command and overall ability to fight.

The Army either CAN or CAN'T fight. There is no "we fight if...". That, unfortunately, includes fighting unpopular wars like this one. Remember that the military is a tool in the hands of politicians. You hate the war? Good -- organize the citizenry to pressure politicians to change the course. But what you and everyone else who applauds this action are missing is that if you allow this bullshit to go on you wont have an Army to defend you when the JUST war comes. The precedent this would set if allowed is that members of the military can choose the wars they fight, and there is a reason no military in the history of man ever allowed that kind of shit.

My 5 cents.

PS. Oh, and puhleeze, do you really believe blind obedience had anything to do with what happened in Rwanda????

[mhmeln-57.livejournal.com]

i am not sure you and i (and even the officer himself) know exactly what orders he is given. He is given an order to go into a war zone and shoot at people who are hostile to him. He may be given an order to fire rockets at some building, to arrest certain people, to interrogate them, etc. i don't think it's prudent to take upon ourselves to decide what order he is and is not given. At this point, he feels that he is given an illegal order. Your post was against his right to question and refusal to obey the order.

The fact that the President AND Congress OKed the war (and the order for him to be deployed) gives SOME weight to the legallity of the order, but does not conclusively prove it. To him, to me, and hopefully, to the Supreme Court. Again, your analysis of legality of the order stems from authority - President's authoirty and substance of his orders CAN and SHOULD BE questioned by Congress AND Courts. Congress CLEARLY failed to question and stop the President in his illegal conduct. That leaves Courts, and that's the authority that Wataba appealed to. And he WILL follow the procedure for the appeal, which may result in a finding that the order was legitimate and he will go to prison. Or, the courts will find that the order was illegal, as Wataba asserts, and the order to deploy Wataba (and many others) may be declared void. To me, Wataba is a hero because he took the risk of going to prison to argue that the order is illegal.

Your legality argument and conclusion are both based on accepting the authoirty of the President and Congress, which is EXACTLY what Wataba is challenging. i hope this explanation helps you come to a different conclusion with respect to the legality of the war and Wataba's case.

i have to say, your cause and effect statements are not very strong:
If that is allowed, the Military will disintegrate.

Soldiers are not supposed to pick and choose battles. But they should be allowed to use the country's mechanism to question and challenge the decisions of their superiors. We do not have a dictatorship and the "government" is not always right. And if i am allowed to challenge it, so should be every soldier who risks losing his life or limb to such decision. If the government said "shoot all jews", should the soldiers obey? Where do you put the safeguard between an illegal order and the guy with the gun? And what if the safeguards don't work?

Finally, the most important concept - if your "morale" is based on obedience, it's not morale. It's fear, subordination, whatever. TRUE morale stems from MORAL. When the army faces a MORAL war, you don't need morale, you don't need motivation, you don't need punishment. When the war is justified, soldiers WILL fight. So if a VOLUNTARY soldier doesn't want to fight, the problem is not with the soldier, the problem is in you, who gave the order to fight.

Your logical analysis is flawed. There have been unjust wars where soldiers walked out or refused to fight, and they all mobilized for JUST wars. This precedent is not for any war, it's for UNjust wars, and i would LOVE to set such a precedent.

P.S. Do you really think EVERY person who committed genocide in Rwanda was doing it out of desire and not blind passion? Granted, Rwanda is not as good of an example as Nazi Germany, but ANY time you have people blindly following you, you'd better be DAMN SURE you are right. Cause otherwise, you are doing some bad shit with their hands. And if somebody thinks you are being wrong, you'd better listen and double check. My 5 cents.