On Wednesday, January 31st I had the pleasure of sitting in the front row of a speech that Lt. Ehren Watada gave at South Puget Sound Community College about why he refuses to be deployed to Iraq.
Right now, he is facing up to 4 years in jail if convicted of numerous charges by a court martial, but he's not worried about the punishment. Instead, he's worry about his fellow soldiers in Iraq, and those that will soon be sent. To Watada, Iraq is an illegal and unjust war, and according to the Nuremberg treaty and the United Nations, he is correct. Of course, the big guys in Washington DC don't see it that way.
During his speech at SPSCC, he made many points to his defense, and it is somewhat difficult to regurgitate them at this current moment because of the large amount of material he covered in his speech.
I'll leave it as this.... Sadam Hussein, the deceased former leader of Iraq, killed 40,000 Iraqis during his over 25 year reign as the president of Iraq, but yet the United States has killed over 100,000 Iraq citizens since the world started only a few short years ago. Sad, isn't it?
(To learn more about Lt. Watada and his refusal to deploy to Iraq, visit his website at: http://thankyoult.org.)
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