The Ethics of Dissent
5th February 2007
Our family had a lively discussion at dinner time today about the court martial trial of Ehren Watada which begins today in Fort Lewis, Washington.
Watada is the Army officer who decided, after spending months researching his anticipated assignment to Iraq, that the war was a morally indefensible war. He offered to go fight somewhere else, and he even offered to resign. But, he is a soldier, and a soldier is supposed to obey his superiors without question.
Therefore, the Army had to do what it is doing, court martial him. He is being charged on one count of failure to deploy and two counts (reduced from the original four) of “conduct unbecoming of an officer” for making statements against the war and against the Bush administration. While there are many who support him, there are also those who label him un-American, and “a weasel”.
I asked my children what they thought of Ehren, and their comments were interesting. If he is right, my daughter, opined, then they should let him go. She was referring to Watada’s contention that the war is illegal. Unfortunately, that is not the basis of the trial. Read the rest of this entry »
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