Open Letter to the US Army: Free Lt. Watada

Lt. General James Dubik
Commanding General Fort Lewis
1 Corps Building 2025 Stop 1
Fort Lewis WA
98433.

Re. Court Martial of U.S. Army Lt. Ehren Watada

Dear Lt. General James Dubik

It has come to my attention that the U.S. military plans to continue the court martial of Lt. Ehren Watada and is currently seeking subpoenas of U.S. anti-war campaigners and reporters in order to prosecute its case against Lt. Watada. I am requesting that you desist from using journalists to prosecute military personnel and immediately dismiss all charges against Lt. Watada's.

In a recent PBS Frontline expose (“The Dark Force”) concerning the scripting of official documents to support the rush to war with Iraq, defense analysts from the CIA and the State Department confirmed that information on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction were intentionally falsified in order to bolster the Bush administration’s pre-invasion plan. (The overwhelming evidence against weapons of mass destruction caused the sudden resignation of CIA head George Tenet and the purging of dozens of Pentagon officials.) Such public evidence about the nature of the Bush administration’s attempt to manipulate Congress to hastily convene an invasion of Iraq should not be overlooked and nor should our responsibility to protect those civilians and soldiers who are in harms way from such political deceit.

As a soldier in the U.S. military, Lt. Watada stated, "[T]he reason I spoke out (against the Iraq war)…I saw that what was being done in terms of this war was so illegal and so immoral, and not being checked. It was a danger to our troops and a danger to our country. So, I think what needs to be done is some kind of accountability in Washington (D.C.) and also investigations into how this war was started in the first place." With no WMD’s found in Iraq, with US military higher-ups admitting to lying to justify a rush to war and with no link found between Iraq and 9-11, the question begs to be asked – Why is America occupying Iraq? If it is to bring democracy to the region, your own former Defense Chief Donald Rumsfeld candidly admitted to the contrary in congressional testimony in March 2003 – “I don’t believe that the United States had the responsibility for reconstruction.”

In Peter Laufer’s new book Mission Rejected: U.S. Soldiers Who Say No To Iraq – an AWOL Oklahoma private describes US soldiers kicking around the heads of decapitated Iraqi’s like soccer balls during a search and destroy mission in the city of Ramadi. Will such crimes ever be prosecuted or can we expect the U.S. military’s continued silencing of dissenting voices by attacking the very cornerstones your country was founded upon – the right to freedom of speech and freedom of association? What Lt. Watada may be excercising is what he learned in basic training- if given an illegal or immoral order, it is the duty of that soldier to disobey it…the invasion and occupation of Iraq is such an illegal and immoral order.

And maybe what Lt. Watada is asking of himself and the country that he serves is – Who is responsible for such criminal behaviour?…for the torture deaths of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison; of the illegality of detaining prisoners without due process in Guantanamo Bay or the rendering of prisoners (Canada’s own Mahar Arar) to be tortured in secret jails in Syria and Egypt and inevitably, of the relevance of a mounting body of scholarly work surrounding the events of 9-11, specifically the manufactured notion that foreign terrorists attacked US soil. It is with resilience and fortitude that Lt. Watada faces the challenges ahead of him and I believe the recent U.S. elections show more and more Americans are opening their eyes to the questions posed by Lt, Watada and various other servicemen and women who refuse to carry out such illegal orders. As Lt. Watada himself explains, “I hope that actions such as mine will continue to help expose the truth behind the fundamental illegality and immorality of the war,"

As Commanding General at Fort Lewis, you have the final decision on whether to proceed with the court martial of Lt. Ehren Watada on any or all charges. Along with tens of thousands of Canadians and Americans, I support Lt. Ehren Watada’s right to refuse duty in Iraq and I urge you not to bring court martial proceedings against him. With already 3000 of your own troops dead by year’s end, there is no time like the present to support your own military personnel by refusing to put them in harm’s way…supporting Lt. Ehren Watada’s cause to refuse active duty in Iraq may not only save thousands of more lives but bring American troops back home to finally end the illegal invasion of Iraq.

Sincerely,

Davis Mirza

Toronto, Ontario

[email protected]