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Cypress
08-22-2006, 04:28 PM
Short version: Soldiers have a right and the duty to disobey an illegal order from the Commander in Chief

Putting the Iraq War on Trial
By Eli Sanders
Time Magazine

Friday 18 August 2006

An army officer who refused duty in Iraq goes to court with a novel argument: he had a duty to disobey because the war is illegal.

When he refused to deploy to Iraq in June, Army Lt. Ehren Watada said he was following his conscience and upholding his duty not to obey illegal orders. But that didn't impress military officials, who promptly charged him with violating Army rules and sent him on a path toward a likely court-martial.

In doing so, they set up an unusual collision between a man who is believed to be the first officer to refuse duty in Iraq and a military justice system that is now effectively being asked to rule on the war's legality.

In a packed hearing room on this Army base south of Seattle Thursday, lawyers for Lt. Watada used the opportunity to put the war itself on trial, trying to prove he was right to see the war as "manifestly illegal," and as a result, to refuse to participate. "A soldier has an obligation to disobey illegal orders," said Francis Boyle, a Harvard-trained professor of international law who testified on behalf of Lt. Watada and whose mentor wrote the Army's field manual for land warfare. "Under the circumstances of this war, if he had deployed, he would have been facilitating a Nuremberg crime against peace."

Boyle, along with a former United Nations Undersecretary-General and a retired army colonel, argued that the U.S. decision to attack Iraq in 2003 without U.N. authorization made the war illegal from the beginning. He went further, arguing that the failure of the Bush administration to find either weapons of mass destruction or a provable link between Iraq and the Sept. 11 attacks showed that Congress was persuaded "by means of fraud" when it voted to authorize the war..............

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0%2C8599%2C1228779%2C00.html

Sir Evil
08-22-2006, 06:26 PM
:lolup: :lolup:

Can't wait to see the outcome of this one!

Amazing the excuses one will use to hide it's cowardice ways. Very simply he could of complied, and then made the charges of it being illegal.

Ok, blast of with the million ways the war is illegal, and perhaps by the end of the thread we can figure out why Bolton is the worst.....

Annie
08-22-2006, 06:28 PM
I'll agree with SE on this. Bottom line, this guy should NEVER have enlisted.

Sir Evil
08-22-2006, 06:33 PM
I'll agree with SE on this. Bottom line, this guy should NEVER have enlisted.

Good thing ya said so, I forgot ol' cyphilis added me to his ignore list! Just one of the fans I've made thus far.....

Annie
08-22-2006, 06:57 PM
Good thing ya said so, I forgot ol' cyphilis added me to his ignore list! Just one of the fans I've made thus far.....

LOL, then I'm sure to have made it. I'm way less tolerant of aholes than ¥øu! Not sure if the props go to me or you?

Sir Evil
08-22-2006, 07:06 PM
LOL, then I'm sure to have made it. I'm way less tolerant of aholes than ¥øu! Not sure if the props go to me or you?

Well kinda hard to ignore me once I'm quoted ya know!......:cof1:

Nonetheless shall be an entertaining thread for sure..

Cypress
08-22-2006, 07:43 PM
I'll agree with SE on this. Bottom line, this guy should NEVER have enlisted.

But, that's not the issue the court will look at. Its irrelevant.

Its an interesting legal question. He'll lose, for sure. But, numerous international law experts, including bush's own top advisor Richard Perle, say the Iraq war was illegal under international law (and therfore, by extention, the US Constitution).

Sir Evil
08-22-2006, 07:47 PM
Don't matter what a million people say about it's legality, bottom line is it happened and ain't nobody gonna make an issue in the courts about it.
What makes it illegal anyway, UN standards?

Ok Runyon, wanna quote me so my point gets across?....:cof1:

Damocles
08-22-2006, 07:49 PM
Don't matter what a million people say about it's legality, bottom line is it happened and ain't nobody gonna make an issue in the courts about it.
What makes it illegal anyway, UN standards?

Ok Runyon, wanna quote me so my point gets across?....:cof1:
The Constitution is clear on this. If a treaty is properly ratified by 2/3 of the Senate (as these were) it "becomes the law of the land"...

Basically it is part of the Constitution. As all States are required to follow it according to the Constitution...

Cypress
08-22-2006, 07:55 PM
The Constitution is clear on this. If a treaty is properly ratified by 2/3 of the Senate (as these were) it "becomes the law of the land"...

Basically it is part of the Constitution. As all States are required to follow it according to the Constitution...

Correct.
Article VI, I believe.

All treaties ratified by the senate, become the law of the land.