Lt. Watada's cause worth fighting for

By Francesca Lo Basso
Collegian Editor
November 8, 2006

I’m not sure if true altruism exists, but I know I don’t care. As long as you’re feeding that homeless person, I don’t care if you want it written on your epitaph. However, when people do good deeds for good reasons, they deserve all the more credit. First Lieutenant Ehren Watada is one of those people. He has refused orders to go to Iraq on the basis that the war is unconstitutional and violates international law, as well as Army regulations.

Watada is the Army’s first commissioned officer to publicly refuse deployment on the grounds that the war is illegal. According to CNN.com, the 28-year-old said, “My participation would make me party to war crimes.”

Watada differs from other military personnel who have protested the Iraq War because they generally seek conscientious-objector status, while he is taking legal action. According to TruthOut.com, Watada concluded that the war violates the Constitution and the War Powers Act. He said, “[These documents] limit the president in his role as commander in chief from using the armed forces in any way he sees fit. My moral and legal obligation is to the Constitution and not to those who would issue unlawful orders.”

Not only is he opposing the war based on U.S. law, but upon international law as well. As stated on Britannica Online, the members of the Geneva Convention issued a protocol that specifically prohibited collective punishment, torture, the taking of hostages and other humiliating and degrading treatments. The precedent established by the Nuremberg Trials after WWII declared that crimes against peace, crimes against humanity, violations against the laws of war and a plan or conspiracy to commit any of the aforementioned acts are illegal according to the International Military Tribunal. The United Nations Charter, according to BBCNews.com, upholds human rights and aims to “save succeeding generations from the scourge of war.” In other words, as eloquently put by Watada himself, “The U.N. Charter, the Geneva Convention and the Nuremberg principles all bar wars of aggression.”

Watada is not alone in his claims. United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan announced in 2004 that the U.S. invasion was “not in conformity with the U.N. Charter, and, from our point of view, was illegal.” Watada also said he came to recognize that not only the occupation, but the conduct of the military during the occupation, was illegal. He said, “If you look at the Army Field Manual, 27-10, which governs the laws of land warfare, it states certain responsibilities for the occupying power. The wholesale slaughter and mistreatment of the Iraqi people is a contradiction to the army’s own law of land warfare.”

Watada has been faced with accusations of cowardice, but replies that he is not against war in general, but wars with false justifications.

Watada’s father Bob is currently traveling around the country promoting Ehren’s case. Also, he is raising money for his son’s defense and to allow him and his wife to be present for their son’s court martial. Bob Watada will be in Philadelphia Nov. 9 at 9 a.m. at the White Dog Café.

I think the most important thing for Ehren Watada to know is that he’s not alone. A CNN poll shows that opposition to the war is steadily climbing past 70 percent, and, in the glare of midterm elections, the antiwar movement is at its strongest yet. Watada is not the only member of the military to object to the administration’s actions. A Zogby poll found that 72 percent of American troops serving in Iraq think the United States should leave the country by the end of the year and more than one in four of them believe the United States should withdraw immediately. According to USA Today, at least 8,000 service members have deserted since the Iraq War began.

Resistance in the military is not a futile action. Without the G.I. movement in the ’60s, the Vietnam War could have stretched on indefinitely. Resistance in the military also played a critical role in ending the French war in Algeria and the Israeli occupation of Lebanon. Such resistance undermines the capacity of a government to conduct wars, and challenges the moral claims that are used to justify them. People are forced to examine their own values and whether or not their actions reflect those morals.

In theory, if the Army construes Watada’s public statements as an attempt to encourage other soldiers to resist, he could be charged with mutiny and would face up to eight years in prison. Watada told TruthOut.com, “[I felt that] there was nothing to be done, and this administration was just continually violating the law to serve their purpose, and there was nothing to stop them.” But he realized that there was something he could personally do make a statement against the war, saying, “When you are looking your children in the eye… or when you are at the end of your life, you want to look back on your life and know that at a very important moment, when I had the opportunity to make the right decisions, I did so, even knowing there were negative consequences.”

One of my favorite quotes is by the famous crusader against tyranny, Voltaire. He said, “I may not agree with what you have to say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” That is what America is about: the right to be heard and not to be prosecuted for your beliefs. “We all have a duty as American citizens for civil disobedience,” Watada said. So do your duty – we owe that much to Voltaire, Watada and everyone else who ever fought a just cause.

lobassof1@lasalle.edu