Its a Beautiful Day in the Reality Based Community!

A lot of good news today- Most importantly The Watada Court Martial has ended in a Mistrial, due to the Judge trying to keep the case from being what it truly is about: The War and a military officer living up to the Uniform Code of Military Justice and to his duty as an American officer, which sometimes means refusing to follow an illegal order.

Watada maintained that his refusal to participate in an illegal war in Iraq was justified, indeed required, under the Army's own Uniform Code of Military Justice. Under Judge Head's rulings, however, there simply would be no way for a soldier to resist an illegal order. Indeed, an American military person could be ordered to commit mass murder or genocide and then be denied the right even to make a case for the lawfulness of his actions. The judge's rulings fly in the face of the Supreme Court's Hamdan v. Rumsfeld decision, which stood for the principle that all US officials are bound by national and international law not to commit war crimes.

The Army maintained that the duty to refuse an illegal order, established at the Nuremberg Trials and enshrined in the Universal Code of Military Justice, applies only to orders to commit particular criminal acts like executing a prisoner. But in Watada, Resister, a January 27 video by New America Media's Curtis Choy, Watada says that responsibility "doesn't just include individual war crimes. It includes the greatest crime against the peace, which is, as they determined after Nuremberg, wars of aggression, wars that are not out of necessity but out of choice for profit or power or whatever it may be."

Watada's dissent was intended to spark a movement of civil resistance on the part of the American people. As he told the Veterans for Peace annual convention in Seattle recently, the peace movement needs a change of strategy.

"To stop an illegal and unjust war, the soldiers can choose to stop fighting it.... If soldiers realized this war is contrary to what the Constitution extols--if they stood up and threw their weapons down--no President could ever initiate a war of choice again," he said.
But the young officer's appeal is not only to people in the military. He told the Veterans, "Should citizens choose to remain silent through self-imposed ignorance or choice, it makes them as culpable as the soldiers in these crimes." In the Watada, Resister video, he added, "No longer can any American citizen or organization simply sit on the fence and say, Well, we don't take a position on the war, because the war in itself is unconstitutional in many forms, and we as Americans have to step up and say either we agree with what's going on or we disagree with what's going on.... If you disagree...then you are going to have to ask yourself what are you willing to sacrifice of yourself in order to correct the injustice and wrongs of this government in regard to the Iraq War."

"We all take part in it--if you pay your taxes, you're taking part in this war. We all have a responsibility, as they determined after Nuremberg, whether you're the lowest soldier or the highest ranking general, or just a regular civilian, we all have responsibility...to resist and refuse enabling and condoning this criminal behavior," he said.

And the other Great news today was the bloggers' Victory over Bill O'Reilly. Miss Kitty, at C&L posted about O'Reilly slated to be a speaker at a National Center for Missing and Exploited children event. This was after Bill had blamed a child/victim of sexual abuse for being raped and kidnapped on national television.

As a group, the C&L crowd and various others contacted the NCMEC about this matter. And the NCMEC pulled Bill's invite to be a speaker. As I posted myself on C&L:

This IS good news, and not only because it takes Bill O down a peg, not only because it verifies that our efforts are working, but BECAUSE O'Reilly, expressing his Blame the Victim attitude hinders the very important efforts of the NCMEC. He is a sexual predator himself and the NCMEC is completely appropriate to distance themselves from him.

So, some Great news! And overheard today amongst a group of millionaire Libertarians/Republicans at work today: "360 pallets of cash? Just given to the goddam Iraqis? What the hell is this President doing? Just giving away money to these damn terrorists?!"

Welcome to the reality based community, Gents. Glad you could make it.