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If and when the Lt is asked why he feels that the war in Afghanistan is less morally objectionable than that of Iraq, I wonder how he will answer.

He was still willing to serve the Bush administration... he just wanted to do it in a safer place. Afghanistan may be dangerous... but so is downtown Los Angeles after dark.

As a civilian, a believer of free speech, a believer of democracy, and a believer of freedom of personal choice, I applaud this young Lt. for standing up for himself and against a cause he doesn't believe in.

As former military, I believe he gave up his right to express his personal opinions when he signed up for the army.

The military is not a job. It's a way of life. If you don't follow your orders, people can die.

Relevance? I suspect you are setting up an arguement that works to justify the Bush pre-emptive war doctrine. I would have to suggest you are so off base your gonna need a map and a compass to find yourself.

As in the case of Afghanistan, Al-Qaeda forces had removed them. Like the Taliban, its been charged that Iraq provided them with sanctuary for some period of time before the war began. The only fact challenged - that Saddam had direct dealings (supplying them) - was investigated and has not been discounted, except by the staunch critics of the Administration.

You should carefully read this article on the evidence in hand, in 2003 and after, regarding Al-Qaeda connections with Saddam Hussein:

"... [W]e have no specific intelligence information that Saddam's regime has directed attacks against U.S. territory."

I would like to humbly ask … why it would be a mistake for those of us who consider ourselves "Antiwar People" … to make the Lt. a "champion" or to show him "respect" for what he stands for?

Are you now proposing to dictate to us … perhaps just because you are part of the "US MILITARY WAR MACHINE" and are prepared to "blindly follow orders" … who we should have "respect" for or hold up as a "champion" to our ideals?

She also tells me that she knows of cases of officers that did file grievance with going to Iraq based on the same grounds that Lt. Watada is and still deployed and all … REPEAT, all who did so came back in a body bag … and there is a lot of question in her mind as well as those of her fellow officers as to just how legitimate the deaths of those fellow officers are.

… but you are not entitled to dictate to anyone as to whether or not "Antiwar People" should consider him a "champion". No no no!!! Just as people who "blindly" eat, sleep, and drink every word "Dubya" spews out as "gospel" are entitled to believe him … so are the so-called "Antiwar People" entitled to follow their beliefs. And I might add that their beliefs are often based on factual information, not just something some "A$$hat" conveniently pulled out of their butt.

Personally, I agree with how the LT feels. But I also think that he has to be punished for his actions. It is too important to the discipline of the military. He made his decisions, and he has to take responsibility for them.

His crybaby excuse is just a smokescreen for the fact that he is a coward and is terrifed of doing his duty.

He requested to go to Afghanistan. Do you think the soldiers there are cowards who are terrified of doing their duty?

Thats not the point at all. Afghanistan is much safer. No, those serving in Aghan are not cowards. However, yes, LT is a coward.

Simply amazing that with all this Bush Bashing, he STILL somehow got elected....

I guess the MAJORITY of voting Americans vote for a president they simply hate.

Or is it that this huge majority of Bush haters are the ones who didn't vote? haha

Working for Peace
Excerpt from Being Peace by Thich Nhat Hanh
Excerpts from 1987 edition reprinted with permission from Parallax Press Berkeley CA www.parallax.org

In Plum Village in France, we receive many letters from the refugee camps in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, and the Philippines, hundreds each week. It is very painful to read them, but we have to do it, we have to be in contact. We try our best to help, but the suffering is enormous, and sometimes we are discouraged. It is said that half the boat people die in the ocean; only half arrive at the shores in Southeast Asia.

There are many young girls, boat people, who are raped by sea pirates. Even though the United Nations and many countries try to help the government continues to inflict much suffering on the refugees. One day we received a letter telling us about a young girl on a small boat who was raped by a Thai pirate. She was only twelve, and she jumped into the ocean and drowned herself.

When you first learn of something like that, you get angry at the pirate. You naturally take the side of the girl. As you look more deeply you will see it differently. If you take the side of the little girl, then it is easy. You only have to take a gun and shoot the pirate. But we cannot do that. In my meditation I saw that if I had been born in the village of the pirate and raised in the same conditions as he was, I am now the pirate. There is a great likelihood that I would become a pirate. I cannot condemn myself so easily. In my meditation, I saw that many babies are born along the Gulf of Siam, hundreds every day, and if we educators, social workers, politicians, and others do not do something about the situation, in 25 years a number of them will become sea pirates. That is certain. If you or I were born today in those fishing villages, we might become sea pirates in 25 years. If you take a gun and shoot the pirate, you shoot all of us, because all of us are to some extent responsible for this state of affairs. (pp.61-62)

During the war in Vietnam we young Buddhists organized ourselves to help victims of the war rebuild villages that had been destroyed by the bombs. Many of us died during service, not only because of the bombs and the bullets, but because of the people who suspected us of being on the other side. We were able to understand the suffering of both sides, the Communists and the anti-Communists. We tried to be open to both, to understand this side and to understand that side, to be one with them. That is why we did not take a side, even though the whole world took sides. We tried to tell people our perception of the situation: that we wanted to stop the fighting, but the bombs were so loud. Sometimes we had to burn ourselves alive to get the message across, but even then the world could not hear us. They thought we were supporting a kind of political act. They didn't know that it was a purely human action to be heard, to be understood. We wanted reconciliation, we did not want a victory. Working to help people in a circumstance like that is very dangerous, and many of us got killed. The Communists killed us because they suspected that we were working with the Americans, and the anti-Communists killed us because they thought that we were with the Communists. But we did not want to give up and take one side.

The situation of the world is still like this. People completely identify with one side, one ideology. To understand the suffering and the fear of a citizen of the Soviet Union, we have to become one with him or her. To do so is dangerous - we will be suspected by both sides. But if we don't do it, if we align ourselves with one side or the other, we will lose our chance to work for peace. Reconciliation is to understand both sides, to go to one side and describe the suffering being endured by the other side, and then to go to the other side and describe the suffering being endured by the first side. Doing only that will be a great help for peace. (pp. 69-70)

In the peace movement there is a lot of anger, frustration, and misunderstanding. The peace movement can write very good protest letters, but they are not yet able to write a love letter. We need to learn to write a letter to the congress or to the President of the United States that they will want to read, and not just throw away. The way you speak, the kind of understanding, the kind of language you use would not turn people off. The President is a person like any of us.

Can the peace movement talk in loving speech, showing the way for peace? I think that will depend on whether the people in the peace movement can be peace. Because without being peace, we cannot do anything for peace. If we cannot smile, we cannot help other people to smile. If we are not peaceful, then we cannot contribute to the peace movement.

I hope we can bring a new dimension to the peace movement. The peace movement is filled with anger and hatred. It cannot fulfill the path we expect from them. A fresh way of being peace, of doing peace is needed. That is why it is so important for us to practice meditation, to acquire the capacity to look, to see, and to understand. It would be wonderful if we could bring to the peace movement our contribution, our way of looking at things, that will diminish aggression and hatred. Peace work means, first of all, being peace. Meditation is meditation for all of us. We rely on each other. Our children are relying on us in order for them to have a future.
(pp. 79-80)

I guess the MAJORITY of voting Americans vote for a president they simply hate.

Rhinos_charge raises a very valid point with respect to Western media...

A good movie to watch is one called "Obsession" about radical Islam. One of the points brought up in this movie is that the West is literally being strangled to death by it's own political correctness.

Having lost 5 friends on one tour in Afghanistan, I can say from firsthand experience that whoever said it was safer is full of shit.

Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (National Office)
For immediate release: September 18, 2006

CANADIAN TROOPS BEARING BRUNT OF COALITION CASUALTIES

OTTAWA—Canadian Forces are incurring a disproportionately heavy burden of casualties among coalition forces in Afghanistan, says Canada’s Fallen, a report released today by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

The report, written by defence analysts Steven Staples and Bill Robinson, raises serious questions about why Canada is taking such heavy losses, and whether the government expected such a high number of soldiers to be killed.

The first of its kind in Canada, the report paints a grim picture of Afghanistan where Canada has suffered 32 military deaths, 27 from hostile action (as of September 8, 2006). It finds that, after the United States, Canada has suffered more casualties from hostile action than any other US ally—27 of 71 casualties, or two in five of non-US deaths.

The move south from Kabul to Kandahar, approved by the Liberal government in 2005 and extended by the Conservative government, has been a costly one. Twenty of Canada's deaths from hostile attacks, roughly three quarters, have occurred since the counterinsurgency mission began in February 2006. The mission is so hazardous that a Canadian solider in Kandahar is six times as likely to be killed by hostile attack than a US soldier serving in Iraq.

The report points out that, if the current rate of casualties sustained in Kandahar to date were to continue until the end of the mission in January 2009, there could be 108 additional deaths from all causes, raising the number of casualties since the 2001 invasion to 140 dead—more than four times what it is today.

"As we examined the troubling data, the question arose as to whether the Liberals misjudged the danger, and if the Conservatives ignored it," said Steven Staples, noting that the Department of National Defence has provided the government with accurate pre-mission casualty estimates in previous missions.

"The mission in Kandahar is claiming many lives, and could claim many more," said CCPA Executive Director Bruce Campbell. "This important report casts light on a frequently mentioned, but rarely examined, aspect of this mission.”

-30-

"Canada’s Fallen: Understanding Canadian Casualties in Afghanistan" is the first in a new foreign policy series from the CCPA. It is available at http://NL1169.policyalternatives.ca

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