Officer refuses to go to Iraq

I'll let those who are already discussing the WMD continue...I just couldn;t let this one get lost in the fray. It would be nice if that were completely true. While the Iraqis do retain control over all 17 oil fields already in operation, there are many undiscovered/untapped oil fields that are fair game to foreign oil groups thanks to Article 126 in the new Iraq Constitution ("Existing laws shall remain in force, unless annulled or amended in accordance with the provisions of this constitution"). You might say "Well the Iraqi people voted for this," when in reality copies of the constitution were distributed only 5 days before the vote and they only printed a third of the copies needed to give every eligible voter a copy. This article includes orders enacted by L. Paul Bremer, the former administrator of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq. These include the privatization of most of the state owned companies (after firing all the workers including doctors, teachers, engineers, etc), an order stating that foreign corporations doing business in Iraq are not obligated to hire Iraqis for the work (so all those former gov't workers are now unemployed and being passed over in favor of cheaper foreign labor), tax free profits for the foreign companies doing business in Iraq with no obligation to invest in the country or communities they are in, suspension of "tariffs, customs duties, import taxes, licensing fees and similar surcharges forgoods entering or leaving Iraq," immunity for foreign contractors to Iraqi laws (instead the injured party/parties must be brought to U.S. courts under U.S. laws. All of these and more were enacted under Bremer's authority and effectively included in the constitution under Article 126 making them extremely difficult to repeal.Basically these orders made Iraq a multinational corporation's wet dream.So, yes, Iraq technically has control over their oil for now, but as soon as ExxonMobil or Shell or whatever strike a new field it is theirs and theirs alone with little or no taxes. And it is estimated that the 17 oil fields now in existence in Iraq represent only about 35 percent of the oil under the sand. LA Times article - this is a reprint. The original is 2 years old and no longer available on the LATimes website Harper's articleFull Text of the Iraqi ConstitutionCoalition Provisional Authority webpage with all Orders and Regulations listed

I agree with you, JM, when you say that the people attacking Watada and other "deserters" are going about it the wrong way. I don't know if Watada could be convinced that this war is for the good of the Iraqi people and, since it is his belief that this war is unlawful and unjust, he should not fight. I do not agree with this war, but if I did I sure as hell would not want an officer who did not believe he was doing the right thing in charge of other soldiers.I believe that the conscientious objector ststus only applies to those opposed to all wars, but I think it should apply to those who object to individual wars as well for the above reason and for those who object to the reason for going to war. I would have no problem fighting in a war to defend my country from a clear threat , but not for letting corporations get their mitts on a new market (in this case I read democracy as "free-market paradise"). We went about this the wrong way all around and with all the lies compounding and all the shady business recently exposed I'm not surprised at all that some soldiers are understanding that this war and the way the "reconstruction" is being handled is illegal and immoral. They should not have to put their lives on the line for something/someone they do not believe in.And, for the record, I come from a military family with a few still serving and many of those who have served agree with me. My father especially, who was psychologically crippled by another unjust war and my mother (also a vet) who had to watch her husband crumble before her very eyes and my siblings who are witness to the damage as well.

Oh yes it does. You may be a peon in the military, but you still have every right to make decisions about your own life. Yes, they will have consequences (court-martial, serving time...), but I would rather face time behind bars than spend the rest of my life in front of a mirror despising myself or futilely trying to justify what I had done.Every soldier has the same inherent independence of thought and individual conscience as every other human being on this planet. No one has to just "follow orders."

Yes he chose knowing what he was getting into, but his rights as a human being include the right to change his mind. He is like anyone else who may have believed wholeheartedly that the Iraq war was justified, but he obviously changed his mind and decided that the motives for the war did not justify what he was being asked to do.I understand that military culture is different from the reality that most people understand, but that is all the more reason to believe Watada and those like him when they say that they cannot do the job asked of them. They are told to follow orders believing in an ideal and many do not ever question, so when someone does they more than likely have a reason for "screwing" theselves. Whether it is they do not want to die or they do want want to kill others it does not matter. All that matters is that they made a choice for their own destiny. Soldiers make decisions based on their own personal sense of morality, their love for their families and friends and for the same reasons that anyone else does. I would rather see a man/woman decide to back out of a contract than try to justify bombing a group of women and children and/or having to regret that for the rest of their lives. That is the "avail" of which you speak. Fuck career or reputation.Soldiers are not robots devoid of emotion and reason no matter how hard the military culture tries to make them so.Edited by Jaderis, : No reason given.

I agree that any given soldier volunteering in the military accepts killing or being killed as a requisite, but my posts pointed out that there are times when the reasons given are not justified in the soldier's mind and that is when s/he might step down. That is the point I am trying to drive home. That one can be accepting of war for the "right" reasons, but not of every war. No matter what someone accepts at the beginning, their viewpoint is always open to change. Are you saying that if you volunteered in an army to defend your country and then found out that you were really being asked to exterminate an entire race of people (just giving an example BTW) that you would say "well I signed up for this, might as well follow orders" rather than question the motives of the country/government you gave your oath to and damn the consequences?Some people (including myself) are willing to die and kill for certain ideals, but once one realizes that those ideals are not what the killing and dying is all about, that will to die and kill disappears.I know it is not that easy, but that is why I commend those who object. Because they would sacrifice their career and reputation in order not to kill or die for something they did not believe in. It doesn't matter if their reasons are deemed correct by others or by history. They lived according to their conscience and decided that the barbarity of war was not justified by the reasons either given to them or developed from other sources.

I can see we are agreeing on the fundamentals of this issue, like you said, but I am going to swerve a little bit off topic and just say this:You mentioned retreating as a sign of weakness, but the way I see it is that the reason there are resistance fighters in Iraq is that we are there for them to resist. Yes, now there are many who are fighting ideological battles with their countrymen and killing Iraqi civilians, but a foreign presence only exacerbates this problem. These ideological differences existed in somewhat stunted form before we invaded but have been allowed to flourish because of the atmosphere of war and uncertainty in the country. How do we pick sides in a battle of Islamic theology now that those battle lines have been drawn and fought? We are not peacekeepers, but a conquering army and whichever side we choose (and there is bound to be a "side" because the Iraqi government like all governments speak to/for a specific "side") will become a target for the others to fight. "Retreating" will be a signal to the Iraqis that they can and should find their own space in the free countries of the world and all sides may see that we are not pulling puppet strings and controlling their country's destiny from afar (although I also see that laughable because we hold many strings).Resistance fighters are always seen as terrorists by the superior power (history is written by the conquerors). I am not lauding atrocious actions by any means, but you should really stop and ask if the guys planting that roadside bomb would be influenced to do so if there were no American/British/Australian/Coalition of the Willing soldiers to bomb.My original point still stands. Watada was well aware of what the war entailed, but he may have realized over time that this war did not fall under his definition of "what I am willing to kill and die for."

Well, I can 't speak for him, but I would assume that is because Afghanistan was actually harboring terrorists and bin Laden was believed to be hiding there. That was retaliation for 9/11 pure and simple.Al-Qaeda and its ilk had no protection in Iraq and Hussein and bin Laden had an open dislike for one another because of bin Laden's disdain (to put it lightly) for Saddam's largely secular government, featured in his domestic policies and his past war against the fundamentalist Iran. The terrorists were not in Iraq then, but they sure are now. I am not a Saddam apolegetic, but the "war on terror" should not have extended to Iraq. If we wanted to topple Saddam that should have been the stated pretext for war and not the pile of lies that spewed from Bush and Co. I assume that Watada was fed the same falsehoods as the rest of us and made up his mind that this war was not not worth fighting once he realized the call of duty did not extend to toppling a dictator who had nothing to do with the original war on terror. The "Axis of Evil" came up during the hyped up war fever of 9/11 and Afghanistan and we all bought it hook line and sinker, including Watada.I hope that answers that question.As for the rest of your post, I don't think it requires a response. Just a nod of agreement, for now. I need some breakfast