Comments Posted By Chap
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Andy, you're right. I picked up on the sentence with that because of the logic error in the sentence, not because of the term. I prehaps should have put a caveat there.
It is, however, the charges that are put against Watada.
Comment Posted By Chap On 29.12.2006 @ 18:39
Rather I am pointing out that it is not “traitorous†in the sense that he seems willing to accept the consequences of his actions.
This makes no sense. An action is traitorous or it is not regardless of whether the traitor "accepts" the consequences. If that's the basis for which you're calling this honorable dissent, then I most emphatically disagree.
More importantly, I think you don't understand the culture and precepts that good order and discipline require for the military to function correctly as both a fighting force and as a culture. This is not merely some schlub off the street--it's a commissioned officer subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice. The man has, if the newspaper reports are correct, violated his solemn oath, and put another officer under the burden of deploying in his place, and put the men assigned under his care at risk because that team is now rent asunder and have not trained for deployment together.
I will give Watada the benefit of the doubt until the trial is complete--although his statements to the press have been in my opinion not creditable to his honor. If the charges are accurate, they are charges that are despicable and dishonorable to the core. The Army isn't "making an example"; I fully expect any armed service to investigate and prosecute every such incident--as they have. The Army *has* to--it's essential to good order and discipline. Other Army types recognize this.
And it's not as though the guy got put there against his will and then the war magically appeared. A person in the military right now on a first enlistment has been in since we've been at war. Even Iraq was several years ago, and only a tiny minority would be on a first enlistment when we were at war in one location and discussing the second. A guy in ROTC who decided War Is Bad would be able to find a way out of being commissioned, although it wouldn't be an easy free ride and would have consequences for his actions. These people who protest after joining are fools for making an oath they didn't comprehend, or for signing up for false pretense (as a protest, as in the photographer's mate in the Navy case right now who's walking a very tight line to perform antiwar agitprop).
Comment Posted By Chap On 29.12.2006 @ 16:19
