skip to main |
skip to sidebar
Great piece in last week's issue of The Nation on the status of Lt. Ehren Watada, who is the first commissioned officer to refuse to serve in Iraq. In case you missed what's happened lately, Watada's military court trial for his failure to deploy ended in a mistrial; however, the military courts have threatened to re-try him--contravening, Watada argues, his constitutional right to be spared double-jeopardy.
Now Watada's taking his case to the US courts, asking them to deny the military court the right to subject him to yet another trial on the same charge. And thus far the US court has complied, offering a stay to block the 2nd military court trial.
Watada will go before that judge on October 19th to plead his case, and it should be interesting to see what comes of it. If he loses, Watada goes back to the military court to be tried again--and it will be a miracle if there's yet another mistrial this time around. Moreover, the likelihood of a military court finding in his favor strikes me as slim to none, not least because in order to find him innocent
the court would essentially have to declare the war in Iraq both "immoral and illegal"--the charges that form the crux of Watada's claim about his innocence (i.e., that he was, as an officer, dutybound not to take part in conduct he knew to be immoral or illegal--and by the measure of American law, he says, this war is both). If the court says he is right, then not only has it delivered a slap in the face to the Executive Branch, but it also has on its hands about 200,000+ criminal-soldiers who have deployed as directed to carry out an illegal war. And who the hell wants to deal with that?
I couldn't be a bigger fan of Watada's and I have every finger and toe crossed that the US courts will find that he deserves access to his constitutional rights as much as any other citizen. Because-- and call me a pessimist--I'm pretty confident that this guy stands no shot if the military tries to take another swing at him. See what standing up for your morals gets you in this country these days?
If you watched last night's primetime Emmy Awards, you will have noticed that this year marks the 30th Anniversary of the airing of Roots--the epic mini-series that finally brought the history of black America into millions of homes, black and non-black alike.
Now, wouldn't it be nice to think that 30 years later, the bigger racial battles were behind us? It would be, but we can't--as episodes like those in Jena, LA and now, Tuscaloosa, AL prove.
No one's hanging nooses from trees in Tuscaloosa (not this week, anyway), but as the NYT is pointing out, there's a racialized battle going on down there that Thurgood Marshall would weep to see: the rezoning of the Tuscaloosa public school district has effectively put segregation back on the map in Alabama (assuming you believe it ever left). To quote from the article:
After white parents in this racially mixed city complained about school overcrowding, school authorities set out to draw up a sweeping rezoning plan. The results: all but a handful of the hundreds of students required to move this fall were black — and many were sent to virtually all-black, low-performing schools.
Umm... did it occur to no one on the planning board that this might be a problem? Is this a case of, we don't know our American history? Or was it more a decision based on the arrogance of the (shrinking) majority--something along the lines of, "We are accountable to no one"???
Either way, it should be interesting to see what this Times articles does to help the case of the children who have been impacted by the decision. It's been great to see how the media spotlight has moved things forward microscopically for the boys of Jena...
Proving once again that good things come to those who wait (and that there is some small justice in the United States), Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has tendered his resignation.
According to the CNN report, Michael Chertoff, head of homeland security, is being cued up to take over his post; the President--still on vacation at his Crawford, TX ranch--is expected to make the official announcement at 11:50 am EST.
Thank God for small favors.
Great piece in last week's issue of The Nation on the status of Lt. Ehren Watada, who is the first commissioned officer to refuse to serve in Iraq. In case you missed what's happened lately, Watada's military court trial for his failure to deploy ended in a mistrial; however, the military courts have threatened to re-try him--contravening, Watada argues, his constitutional right to be spared double-jeopardy.
