Army Lt. refuses deployment.
geez…I dunno. I am no lawyer, so on what grounds would the war be "illegal?"
But then again, why not assign him to afghan?
Again, no military experience here, so I am sure reassigning is a discipline issue?
I’ve never been in the military but I think once you join, you cannot pick & choose your missions, and you don’t have the same rights as a civilian.
I don’t know all the legal folderol either. What would our military be like if all these guys balked at their assignments? We’d be in a buttload trouble I would think.
D
The general grounds for the kind of refusal is that it’s the duty of all soldiers to refuse orders that are in clear violation of ethics of military service and international laws of war as they have been trained for those. For example it’s a soldiers duty to refuse direct orders to shoot of innocent women and children, yet it still happens sometimes. The problem is where the boundaries are.
He’s not even walking on thin ice in my opinion, since he did join, but I think it’s his right to do what he’s doing as long has he’s willing to accept the results. Better keep him here and now than to have him refuse when they are being fired upon. It a cut and dried case that he’s just refusing orders…I think the grounds specified are an excuse. Why did he join when he did? It doesn’t make sense.
It’s a little different than Muhammad Ali refusing Selective Service (Ali didn’t volunteer for service), but the grounds for refusal are the same. He sees the war as unjust and illegal. He’s likely to be put in prison for 8 years or so.
The parallels between Iraq and Vietnam are starting to come into play more and more.
I was going to say something here about “it’s a soldier’s job to do his job. That’s what he signed up for, so that’s what he’d better do”, but then I read your post Phoo and had a rethink.
You’re right; it’s no one’s job to do something their conscience says is wrong.