Ehren Watada Update (Iraq)

His sentence commuted, Scooter Libby is hanging out at home. Various Blackwater contractors were given immunity from prosecution after possibly shooting Iraqi civilians without provocation. In the meantime, the court martial saga of Ehren Watada, the army lieutenant who refused to go to Iraq, continues. In February, 2007 Watada’s court martial was declared a mistrial after considerable confusion around a stipulation that Watada had indeed refused to ship out to Iraq and had in fact spoken out against the war. The army tried to limit its case to that and was trying to keep out any testimony about Watada’s position that the war itself is illegal and that as a soldier he was bound by the Nuremberg standard that a soldier has a duty not to follow an illegal or immoral order.

Strangely, it was the Army that asked for the mistrial. Having charged Lt. Watada for making statements unbecoming an officer, the Army attempted to keep him from using the “morality” of the war as a defense. If Watada could not raise this defense, the stipulation made no sense. The judge then threw out the stipulation and granted the motion for mistrial on the second day of the court martial after opening statements had been made, evidence introduced, and witnesses had testified.

In a non-court martial case, this would almost certainly have resulted in jeopardy attaching for double jeopardy purposes. The army proceeded with a second court martial after the mistrial anyway based on the original court martial judge’s finding that jeopardy had somehow not attached. Lt. Watada’s attorney Eric Seitz then sought a writ from a regular U.S. Federal Court based on the double jeopardy issue. District Court Judge Settle granted a stay/injunction which essentially held that there was sufficient reason to believe that jeopardy had attached to force the parties to pursue that matter to its legal conclusion before the second court martial could begin.

In the meantime, Lt. Watada’s obligation for service would normally be ending very soon. Bottom line, the legal maneuverings in this matter have been extremely complicated and difficult to follow. I’ve still figured out the following.

1) The first Watada court martial in February 2007 came at roughly the time we were debating the “surge”. The Military Judge and the Army worked very hard, even risking the mistrial, to avoid having a public trial that dealt with any questions about the legality of the war in Iraq.

2) It’s fascinating that the army continues to invest so much effort into the matter after Lt. Watada’s service obligation should be over anyway. In other words, it would be relatively easy to settle this. It makes me wonder how many more Lt. Watada’s are out there.

3) Lt. Watada is one of the heroes of this war. I do find it interesting that Valerie Plame, Pat Tillman’s family, and Watada were the victims of very odd, well actually embarrassing, treatment by either the administration or the army.

Why is it that this administration has granted immunity to those who killed civilians without clear provocation and yet it wants to court martial Lt. Watada? At the end of World War 2, the U.S. prosecuted Japanese officers who had participated in waterboarding because they had a moral duty to disobey immoral orders. Which side are we on now?


chancelucky