The Lt. Watada saga: admittedly, I have mixed emotions on this one ...

If the Army had only gone after Lieutenant Ehren Watada for refusing to obey a legal order, I might have just let it slide by, since I really haven't made my own mind up as to whether an order to serve in Iraq is a "legal order" or not. But damn that crazy Army -- they also charged Watada with two counts of contempt towards senior officials (specifically, President George W. Bush) and three counts of "conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman."

That did it!

I've both listened to Lt. Watada extensively on the radio and watched him on television and he certainly appeared to me to be a fine young officer and gentleman in every way.

In fact, maybe serving in Iraq is obeying an illegal order -- considering that President Bush only last week said "nothing" when asked what Saddam Hussein had to do with 9/11.

Lt. Watada is not refusing to go to Afghanistan where we were at least pretending to chase Osama bin Laden down -- he's already served there, in fact, and his record is as clean as a whistle ... until now!

With all of these counts in the Court Martial, the young man is facing seven years and needs all of our help, I believe, which is partially why this posting even exists. Listening to him on Randi Rhodes was heart-breaking to someone who loves his country (as I do!) and believes that his President has pushed us into the carnage in Iraq for other than patriotic reasons.

A couple of my "patriotic" friends have told me that once you're in the Army and "taken the oath to obey ..." you do as you're told ... period! When I ask what they would do if, as a uniformed German officer, they were ordered to load Jews onto boxcars headed for Auschwitz-Birkenau, Dachau, Bergen-Belsen or Buchenwald, they sort of stutter and stammer. They say, "but that was before ... they weren't Americans ..." and then stop to think about how to finish the sentence.

There is no good answer, I don't think, and besides, free speech (First Amendment) issues are involved.

Even my brother, Richard in Connecticut, who insists that he is a Republican, would agree with me on this matter ... I think.

Lt. Watada met with a number of veterans this summer (below) and it's amazing how many other cases are either pending or have been decided in favor of the soldiers refusing to go to Iraq.