Cowardly Watada on trial

1st Lt. Ehren Watada, a coward who refused to deploy to Iraq with the rest of his unit, began his trial today. The coward has said the war is illegal and immoral. Hippies are rallying to defend him.

1) "immoral". Using force to remove a regime that used poison gas against a civilian population is not immoral. That, of course, is only the tip of the iceberg. Hussein's secret police beat and tortured tens of thousands of people, plus there were the horrific crimes committed by Hussein's two sons. It would have been immoral to allow the state of affairs to continue.

2) "illegal". Saddam Hussein violated 17 UN Security Council resolutions relating to the cease fire, making war inevitable. The UN was in dereliction of duty and should be held accountable -- or dissolved altogether as ineffective. The UN sat back and watched more than 200,000 Guatemalan civilians get killed, 800,000 Rwandans, and 1.3 million Cambodians, so nobody was surprised when the genocide of the Iraqis was allowed to continue unabated year after year. Likewise nobody is surprised that the UN won't help stabilize the country now. Member nations are enjoying watching the U.S. fail at the expense of the Iraqi people. The English speaking countries, minus Canada, are on their own.

Watada's smokescreen won't win his case. They say he faces four years imprisonment if convicted. I'd like to see him set free -- right after having the letter "C" branded onto his cheek.

From The Seattle Times:

The court-martial will try Watada both for his actions, and his outspoken attacks on the Bush Administration and the military, which the Army charges as conduct unbecoming an officer.