Tuesday, March 06, 2007

Second court-martial set in Watada case

As briefly reported here, [a] second court-martial is scheduled to begin July 16 for 1st Lt. Ehren Watada, who refused to go to Iraq with his Fort Lewis-based Stryker Brigade and spoke out against the Bush administration. The first ended in a mistrial after three days when the judge said he didn't believe Watada fully understood a pretrial agreement he'd signed. If convicted, Watada could be sentenced to six years in prison and be dishonorably discharged. Pretrial motions have been set for May 20 and 21, with the court-martial scheduled to begin the week of July 16.

It is hoped here that things will go right with this trial. We really don't need another "circus" event, although I suspect that Watada's attorney will try to bring up the "illegality" of the war in Iraq again, even though there is nothing illegal about it whatsoever.

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