Posted on 02/07/2007 2:47:14 PM PST by jazusamo
see also: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1780928/posts (headline)
also: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1780861/posts
(not dupes - background)
Washington State ping
Big news (but I must say I don't get it).
Crap
I guess his unit is lucky this POS didn't go to Iraq with them . I doubt if he could be counted on to defend anyone or do his job when it came to crunch time!
I'm glad he's got a well definded dense of duty..( Extreme Sarcasm!!)
Quibbles and bits from this guy. One good thing is that Watada is not leading toops in Iraq now.
Thanks for linking those, xcamel.
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Moral: Going AWOL might be OK depending on the political ramifications...
Brian Suits is talking about this right now on KVI.
Brian made an excellent point a few minutes ago. He said he'd like to ask the lefty demonstrators:
"Is it OK for members of the military to ignore the civilian control placed over them?"
That's what he's doing. Great point.
I don't think its bad news, other than the delay of it. The stipulations that trimmed down the number of charges confused the case. In the stipulations he essentially confessed to the thing he had plead not guilty to. So... a mistrial probably is the only thing to do, and start over.
Maybe the bad news is that he's got time to get a better lawyer. It would seem the guy he's got is a doofus.
From what I understand, this guy was pretty crappy at his job anyway and was fired from at least one position in his battalion. He had kind of a made-up position in battalion HQ when he got his sudden attack of conscience.
"Well-defined sense of duty." Ha! That's funny, I'll have to remember that one. :-)
I don't think it's bad news either. As I said on an earlier thread, it will give the antiwar crowd a little more air time but I believe they'll recharge him with the two counts they dropped so he could end up with more hard time and that's a good thing.
Here's what I don't get. The jury is military, not civilian. How could a statement like that be enough to toss the case and start over?
Watada can just say the same thing next time and get a second mistrial.
There are thouands of court martials ever year and they can't get this right? I really don't get what's going on.
Is this the same striker brigade fighting right now in Baghdad?
Yes, I believe it is. I read it somewhere but can't remember exactly where because I've been reading so much about this.
My understanding of this is that Watada signed the statement and admitted that he's guilty of the very thing he's pleading not guilty to in the court-martial, ie ignoring legal orders and missing the movement by not getting on the plane.
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