Blog #22 - Free speech for soldiers?

We saw in the film, The Great War, Pt. 5, "The Mutiny", how Siegfried Sassoon was dealt with when he spoke his mind about the war and the change it had undergone by 1917 into one of carnage and conquest. 
He published this statement against the war and then was sent off to Craiglockhart (the sanitarium). 

"I am making this statement as an act of willful defiance of military authority, because I believe that the War is being deliberately prolonged by those who have the power to end it. I am a soldier, convinced that I am acting on behalf of soldiers. I believe that this War, on which I entered as a war of defence and liberation, has now become a war of aggression and conquest. I believe that the purpose for which I and my fellow soldiers entered upon this war should have been so clearly stated as to have made it impossible to change them, and that, had this been done, the objects which actuated us would now be attainable by negotiation. I have seen and endured the sufferings of the troops, and I can no longer be a party to prolong these sufferings for ends which I believe to be evil and unjust. I am not protesting against the conduct of the war, but against the political errors and insincerities for which the fighting men are being sacrificed. On behalf of those who are suffering now I make this protest against the deception which is being practised on them; also I believe that I may help to destroy the callous complacency with which the majority of those at home regard the contrivance of agonies which they do not, and which they have not sufficient imagination to realize." 1

One thing to remember is that Sassoon went back on his own to go fight with his men, not necessarily b/c he regained his faith in what he was fighting for. 

One recent example of how free speech for active duty soldiers was being tested was in 2006 when anti-war groups like MoveOn.org began recruiting soldiers to lobby their Congressman to push for a time table to withdraw from Iraq. http://www.nysun.com/national/active-duty-gis-being-recruited-to-lobby-congress/42334/   Part of the petition that the 213 active duty soldiers had signed (as of October 26, 2006) stated:
     "As a patriotic American proud to serve the nation in uniform, I respectfully urge my political leaders in Congress to support the prompt withdrawal of all American military forces and bases from Iraq."


Something like this (a petition to Congress) had been done during Vietnam and news of this had inspired some of the active duty soldiers to create a group to join w/ MoveOn and solicit names.  In the article, a spokesperson for the Pentagon stated that it has no problem with members of the military contacting their Congressman personally as long as they don't claim to speak on behalf of the entire military or their unit:

"The members of the Armed Forces are free to communicate with their members of Congress in a lawful manner that does not violate the Uniform Code of Military Justice. In regards to the media teleconference, our position is that members of the Armed Forces that choose to speak to the press in their private capacity may do so, but must not do so in uniform and must make clear that they do not speak on behalf of their military unit, military service, or the Department of Defense unless they are authorized to do so"

However, when a soldier's free speech interferes with his ability to do his duty like Lt. Ehren Watada, the first military officer to refuse to fight in Iraq, as he faced a court martial at Fort Lewis, Washington in 2007. 3  He spoke at a veterans' national convention group called Veterans for Peace in Seattle and publicly refused to serve in the Iraq war b/c he deemed it morally wrong and illegal. 

The U.S. Army court-martialed him and it ended in a mistrial, and an attempt at a 2nd court martial was blocked by a federal judge as double jeopardy, a right found in the 5th Amendment (which means being found guilty of the same crime 2x, though I don't know how that's technically possible since the first trial didn't find him guilty of anything).  Lt. Watada's lawyers apparently tried to put the Iraq war on trial (examining the legality and morality of it vs. Lt. Watada's refusal to serve) and almost all of the lieutenant's character witnesses were tossed as well for being irrelevant. 

Here's Fox News' Michelle Malkin's take on Watada's mistrial in 2007: http://michellemalkin.com/2007/02/07/the-lefts-definition-of-a-herobreaking-mistrial-in-watada-case/

This whole fiasco ended when the Dept. of Justice eventually dropped the case against Lt. Watada in May 2009, and the Army accepted his letter of resignation at the end of Sept. 2009.  But his case brings up several difficult issues:

1. Do soldiers have the right and obligation to resist an order they believe is immoral? Why or why not?

2. We have established that soldiers have some form of free speech.  When that speech crosses the line into refusal to obey orders or criticize the commander / President (remember General MacArthur in the Korean War example I gave last week), then that's another issue.  Do you agree with this concept of free speech for soldiers?  Why or why not? 

Due Monday, May 24.  150 words minimum. 


Sources:
1. http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit/education/tutorials/intro/sassoon/declaration.html Oxford's Siegfried Sassoon poetry collection.
2. PBS's The Great War website link page http://www.pbs.org/greatwar/resources/web.html
3. http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2007/01/05/18344326.php Lt. Watada's court martial
4. Ehren Watada's story at http://www.couragetoresist.org/x/content/blogcategory/22/39/