My 9-11

My mother was killed on September 11th—September 11, 1978—28 years ago today. She died a month short of her 46th birthday, two years younger than I am today. “9-ll” has been a grim sort of anniversary for me for long time, you see.

She and my father had borrowed my motorcycle—a 400cc Suzuki—not one of these lifestyle accessory Harleys you see on the streets these days—for a Sunday afternoon jaunt on the lakeside drive a mile or two from our suburban home. I don’t really know whether September 11, 1978 fell on a Sunday, but that’s the feeling of the memory.

I had two helmets, but one of them was in my locker at the trucking company loading dock where I was employed at the time, so neither Mom or Dad took the one that was at the house. That turned out to be a fatal mistake. They were put-putting along at about 25 miles an hour, on a section of the lakeside drive that was part of the original roadbed of Hwy 66, on the north side of the lake.

A man had been sitting by the shore on one of the turn-outs, fishing and drinking, but mostly drinking. I don’t think the fish were biting that day. I don’t know for sure, but that’s what I suspect. This man had already lost his driver’s license due to repeated DUIs, but he had driven his employer’s pick-up to the lake that day. The man got tired of watching slack fishing lines, perhaps, or maybe he ran out of beer. He got in his employer’s truck, and pulled out of the turn-out at the precise moment my parents happened to be passing by on my motorcycle enjoying a fine September afternoon. This is the intersection of fate that resulted in my mother’s death—that, and the intersection of my mother’s helmetless head with the pavement of old Hwy. 66.

Much of the above is conjecture built on fallible memory. I only know what my father told me about it, and he couldn’t bear to tell me much. I don’t know the precise spot where my mother died. I don’t know how fast the drunk in the truck was driving, but I don’t think it was a high speed collision, my dad would not have going as fast as the speed limit, which I believe was 30 mph. Dad came away from the accident with cuts and scrapes. I don’t know how badly my motorcycle was damaged—I never saw it again, because Dad never wanted to see it again. He bought me a car to replace it.

I never met the man who killed my mother. I don’t even know his name, though I must once have known it. He was tried in county court for my mother’s death under a charge of manslaughter; somehow, he was acquitted. I did not attend the trial; I couldn’t bear it. Odds are he’s dead now—a penchant for drunk driving and associated bad behaviors has a way of shortening the lifespan—your own as well as others. Be that as it may, I never sought him out, either for vengeance, or just to know who it was that killed my mother.

I can—have gone—to that lakeshore, watched slack loops of fishing line lean sideways on a breeze, and listen to that same breeze hum on the mouth of an empty beer bottle. I don’t need to know him. I can be that man, that place, that moment just before…as Tess Gallagher wrote, vengeance is a hurt given to the self in the name of another.

The company that had the insurance on the employer’s truck—which, of course, my mother’s killer was not authorized to drive—offered my father a settlement of something like 3500 dollars. Dad sued them, and won a larger amount. Just how much larger an amount it was I don’t know, because Dad is not very chatty when comes to money, and I never asked, but I suspect a couple of zeros were added to the final check.

My memory is not entirely clear on several points. I was deep into a long nap at my parent’s house when my father called from the hospital. I had been living in an apartment with a roommate, a friend from high school. I think I was still living at the apartment, but my friend and I were having a falling out, and that may have been why I was at Mom and Dad’s place that day.

My fourteen year old brother woke me in the midst of a vivid dream, in which I was pursuing a thin but muscular older woman dressed in dark silverish clothing that occasionally glittered. She walked very fast, taking long-legged strides, through the nightscape of a futuristic but ruined city—or cities—and my dream self followed after, never quite catching up with her.

Still caught up in the dream, I heard my father’s voice on the phone, “She’s hurt, she’s hurt real bad…” What Dad didn’t say, what he was probably incapable of saying, was that Mom was dead, probably killed instantly. I held this against my father for a long, long time—very unfair and completely irrational, but I did.

I got my brother and sister into my dad’s van, and drove to the emergency room. I remember very vividly sitting down across from my father in the little waiting room watching his face as he told me, as he admitted to himself, that Mom was dead. It was an extraordinary thing. I watched him age twenty years in less than thirty seconds. My brother went into a sort of walking coma; he didn’t speak for three days.

I asked to see the body. I wanted to see my mother in death, as death had come to her, before the morticians put formaldehyde in her veins and pancake makeup on her face. A nurse took me to a curtained alcove, where my mother’s body lay on the gurney, with a sheet over it. The nurse turned back the sheet from her face and shoulders, and went down the hall a little bit.

Her eyes were closed, bruised black and swollen, from internal hemorrhaging. Tracks of drying blood ran from her ears down the sides of her neck. I don’t remember much if any blood in her dark brown hair; the fatal injury was what is referred to as a “closed head wound.” As I said, she was probably killed almost instantly. I picked her hand, the hand on which she wore her wedding band—it was still warm, the fingers still supple. Not enough time had passed for her body to cool, for rigor mortis to set in. My mother’s body lay there under a white sheet, but there was a vast black hole pulling at me where my mother had been. I stood there a long time, looking, taking it all in, wanting to remember what death looked like.

I lost some part of myself to that black hole; some fraction of my “I” followed after the absence where my mother had been, as if I had lost my shadow to that greater shadow. I did not get my shadow back for a long time. Part of my shadow never came back.

I had to ask the nurse to help me with my mother’s ring. I did not want to leave it on her body. We had use Vaseline to get it off. By that time, my grandmother had arrived in the hospital, and I gave it to her for safe-keeping, because I didn’t think it would be good for Dad to see it right then.

Oh, how I hated the funeral—a Baptist minister who didn’t even know my mom, speaking over her, selling Je-sus over her dead body—Mom looking like a painted doll in the open casket—People trying to be kind—I hated it. I did not wish to be consoled or condoled. The mania that is my inheritance from my mother had been cut loose of its bonds by the grim reaper’s sickle. The crack in my pot became a rift, and on the other side of that rift was the consensus reality where my family and most everyone I knew lived. To say that my mother’s death changed my life is species of litotes so extreme it becomes hyperbole. Like America’s 9-11, it’s not something you “get over.”

No, you don’t get over something like that. I remember the faces in the pictures we saw over and over, of the dust-covered people on the streets of New York on September 11, 2001. Many of those faces twist in the same contortion—can’t call it an expression—that overcame my brother’s face when he heard my father say, “She’s dead.”

Yet today, on what is a grim anniversary for all of us, I listen to the radio and I hear the voices of the President and his men speaking, with nostalgia almost, of 9-11, “a day of national unity.” I hear vainglory and lies served behind pious sentiment; the day and its victims no more than prelude, an introit to a high mass celebrating an endless war against an “Enemy” that “hates Freedom,” appealing to the very same god—the war god, the god who takes sides—for whom the 9-11 hijackers martyred themselves.

I listen to these voices, and a grim anniversary grows grimmer. In the theater of memory I see a preacher in white robes gesticulating over a painted corpse, mouthing empty words.

Grendel's Lost Sock: Thought for Today

Occam's Razor for Political "Scientists" and Conspiracy Theorists:

Do not succumb to the temptation to explain current events by resort to "a vast conspiracy controlled by a sinister intelligence" when things can be explained by vast incompetence under the misdirection of sinister stupidity.

Flarf Poem composed on a Google of “War is not a Time of Joy”

Call President Bush
for quick deployment
of international force.

Uphold the fragile
cease—“The need is urgent,” Bush said,
“War is not a time of joy,

These aren’t joyous times.
These are challenging times,
and they’re difficult times,

and they’re straining the psyche
of our country,”
The President said.

“Sometimes I’m frustrated,
rarely surprised.
Sometimes I’m happy.”

The President said.
I believe the next verse is
“I thought of, this is, you know…

War is not a time of joy.”
Quite the bout of finger-pointing
is underway. Really.

There is absolutely nothing wrong
with being frustrated.
Bush is human. Really.

These are challenging times,
leaving now would be a disaster.
Pullout is impossible. Got that?

“Nobody wants to turn on their TV
on a daily basis and see havoc wrought by terrorists."
The President said.

Well, he did say he just finished
the plot against America.
War hurts. I want my Jesus back.

“War is not a time of joy,” he said,
Thrilling linguists everywhere
by speaking an entire English sentence:

The President said,
“Nobody likes
to see innocent people die.”

Unwinning Wars

Have you ever noticed that whenever America makes war, a war declared in the media and not in Congress, a war against a word, an idea, a state of mind, a condition, or a category of nebulously defined behaviors, substances, or political entities, instead of a war declared and waged against a nation or nations, that these Wars On are conflicts which America never wins, or at least is never the clear victor? That, in fact, these Wars On never really end, though such wars may subside and flare up, are occasionally discretely abandoned by their sponsors, or else we declare victory and withdraw.

There was/is the War on Crime. In America, the main victors in this war are politicians who are “tough on crime” during their election campaigns. Often the criminals join the politicians creating in a “win/win situation.”

There was the War on Poverty, and America certainly did not win that war. Today, under various dog-whistle rubrics such No Child Left Behind, and Welfare Reform America wages an undeclared War on the Poor.

There was/is the War on Drugs; did America win that war? We just say no to the drug-du-jour, and when next year’s model hits the streets it always seems to be more noxious, more addictive, and more destructive to society than the last drug “scourge.” However, this crusade, like the War on Crime, is a perennial winner for politicians and for the drug businessman too, on the whole.

For a long time, America fought a War on Communism, aka the Cold War; to my mind better called the Hot-and-Cold War. Some say we won that war, around the time the Soviet Union collapsed and the Berlin Wall fell. But both North Korea and Vietnam, “Communist” states to which we served up piping-hot war in the midst of the Cold War, still have “Communist” governments run by the same basic set of people that were in charge when we were making war on them.

We went to the brink of the hottest of hot wars during the episode known as the Cuban Missile Crisis, and since maintained a simmering enmity against the “Communist” regime of Fidel Castro. Yet nearly a half century later we are still waiting for Fidel to just fall down and not get up. The most populous nation on Earth, China, has a “Communist” government run by the same ruling class for almost 70 years. China and its present day ruling class are more powerful than the Imperial dynasties of old. Even in most of the territories of the former Soviet Union, the same ruling class, more or less, is in charge, where there is anybody is in charge; the rich are richer, the poor poorer. Did America really win the so-called Cold War?

For the past few years now, America has waged the War on Terror. How terrified do we, the people, have to be, before our own ruling class can call it a win? How many of our freedoms will we give up before we will surrender the least of our comforts, or give up the strangely comforting fear itself? How many countries must be laid waste, how far must “Democracy” be spread, before the “Terrorist” bogeyman can be retired? How many people have to die before the President the United States of America can declare final victory?

To “Sir” With Something Other Than Love

Open Letter to George W. Bush: Just Shut Up

Sir:

I take strong exception to your remarks on the recent court decision by Judge Anna Diggs Taylor that declared your warrantless wiretap program illegal and unconstitutional. I take particularly strong exception, sir, to your opinion that people who oppose your abuse of the office of President in this (or any other matter)

“…do not understand the nature of the world in which we live."

I think that the people that oppose your regime most avidly understand quite well the nature of the world we live in, and your large and regrettable part in making that world much worse that what it could be. You, sir, understand nothing; you are a liar; a thief; a murderer; and a tyrant, and in all your endeavors ultimately a failure and an incompetent. The truth is not in you, sir. God does not speak to you; or if he does, you’re not listening.

You, sir, have embroiled the United States of America in an undeclared, illegal, and apparently endless war, spent the treasure and the reputation our country, the lives of our soldiers, and the lives of countless innocent civilians on the basis of constantly mutating justifications and in pursuit of ever-shifting goals that recede like the flickering waters of a desert mirage. Virtually every decision you and your advisors have made in prosecuting this war against “ter-rism” has not only been wrong, but wrong-headed and self-deluded as well. You, sir, have condoned, encouraged, incited, and on numerous occasions ordered the commission of war crimes. You, sir, though you have never dirtied yourself with the blood of an enemy—make that “enemy combantant”—are a war criminal, and I dare say, if you were not the President of the United States, you would by now be facing charges in the dock at the Hague.

In the course of waging this so-called “War on Terror,” which is better named the “War to Terrify,” you, sir, have converted the constitutional democracy of which you are the chief steward into a proto-fascist state. For the sake of your war games, you, sir, have mortgaged the future of our children, and bid fair to wreck our country, and perhaps accelerate a world wide collapse of human and natural systems in a planetary disaster.

You, sir, are the one who does not understand the nature of the world we live in.

You, sir, in the words of Sha Zukang, the Chinese Ambassador to the U.N. at Geneva, should “shut up.” Shut up and be quiet.

It is better for you to shut up and keep quiet. It's much, much better.

Grendel's Lost Sock: Quote for Today

"In a world full of excrable excresences, there is always a fetid coprostatis of an idea to make your own."

Ned Seeman

Liquid Terror and the Scent of Fear

In light of the roll out of “Liquid Terror” and its effect on the airlines and airports of the world, Dr. Omed has a suggestion as to how to simplify and improve airport security. Check all baggage. Instead of the current security checkpoints, airline passengers should be checked onto the airport concourse in the same way that prisoners are checked into a county jail.

In dressing rooms under the supervision of security guards, passengers would strip, submit to a cavity search, and their clothes, wallets, purses, ids, pocket change, and what-not would be bagged, tagged, examined for contraband, and checked for transshipment.

Passengers would be issued color-coded jumpsuits or hospital scrub type pajamas, and flip-flops or slip-on tennis shoes. At some county jails, prisoners charged with misdemeanors get an orange jump-suit, and felons get white. Or vice versa. First class passengers get, say, purple, and every one else gets orange. Every passenger would get a coded wristband like a patient gets at the hospital or an inmate gets at the jail, that can’t be removed without scissors or a knife.

The passenger section of the plane would be behind a locked gate, like the prison bus, with an armed steward or stewardess on the other side of it, keeping an eye on everyone with the help of surveillance cams. Passengers seatbelts can be locked by remote control, but you could slip on the complementary handcuffs, if you’re into that. And in each and every barf bag, there would a complementary stale baloney sandwich, just like you get at a city jail. Beats a bag of peanuts, don’t it?

Air travel in the Age of Fear is already replete with restraints and indiginities. Think how glad you’ll be to get off that plane, when you are arrive at your destination, to get your own clothes and personal items back, to have that wristband snipped off, to step out into the open and take a big breath of fresh air. You’ll feel so free. For a moment, anyway. Just don’t make any suspicious moves, until you’re out of range of the cameras and the sniper towers.

FLARF POEM COMPOSED ON A GOOGLE OF “FOG OF WAR”

The fog of war
conceals much more
than can be seen.

In the fog of war,
chips can fall
in different ways.

Why not
have surrogates
do the fighting and dying?

The fog of war,
of course,
is thick.

Clausewitz, and probably
every military theorist since,
has spoken of the fog of war—

The difficultly of telling
what’s happening
when you’re in the field.

The war happened,
and then what happened
happened, and the timing was just right…

Tragic mistakes happen
In the “fog of war.”
Soldiers have since time immemorial died

from friendly fire
and other lethal errors.
In war, stuff happens.

It is devilishly difficult to follow
the ricochets
amid the incendiary fog of war.

But I suppose
we shall have
to try

not to see it as a failure,
attribute the negative outcome
to the fog of war.

On the positive side…
defined goals have melted
into the fog of wars gone by.

Other consequences
of the invasion
are still shrouded
in the fog of peace.

Steal This Postcard

CINDY SHEEHAN ASSESSES THE BUSH "PRESIDENCY"

GRENDEL'S LOST SOCK: THOUGHT FOR TODAY

Human beings are not moved by facts. This is the closest thing to a true fact that you will ever encounter in your human existence. The facts, ma’am, just the facts are just too boring, too inconvenient, too depressing, too…factual—or as Mr. Colbert may already have said (Dr. Omed doesn’t have cable)—too facty.

We, as a people, as an allegedly sentient species, don’t want too much factiness. We do not want to be told the facts; we want to be told a story, a story with a happy ending; or at least a story with a good moral. I don’t blame us; the facts are hard. We want some factric softener added to the wash, so our thoughts will come out fuzzy and warm. “God” is our favorite brand of softener when it comes to the really hard facts. God comes in many brands, and each brand claims unique and exclusive features and offers periodic enhancements to keep the devotion of its customers, but mostly what we want to make those cold, hard facts fuzzy and warm.

Fuzziness is next to Goddiness. Is that so bad? There is a phrase that is invoked by journalists and commentators when a modern army is not performing as advertised, usually against a foe less well-equipped with the latest death technology: in wise tones the words "Fog of War" are uttered. Battles are lost or won in the Fog of War. On the battleground of Gott-Mit-Uns-Kulturkreig we must navigate the Fuzz of God. The hard facts are still there; you just can't see 'em.

Breakfast at Lammas

Upon the fortieth day
under the enemy sun,
Yeshua,

if you are
bar abbas,
son of the father:

Tell
this
stone
to become bread.

It shall be written, Diabolos
By bread alone
may we ask for a stone.

A stone to move,
a veil to rent,
a trump to play,
women to weep,
dead saints to rise and walk,
choirs of angels to sing,
orisons to remember all our sins,
and the blood
of the lamb
to wash in the stain.

Enough to feed the multitudes
and seven baskets
of broken promises
left over.

Take this bread, Yeshua
but do not eat.
Instead, speak into it
as if it were the ear of God.

She will hear you.

Put it quickly in the coals
of the cooking fire
as if the crust were brimful
of your words.

She will answer you.

I am so hungry,
I am a bone gnawed by God.

Take, speak.

Dana Pattillo

Note: Lammas, or Lughnassad, occurs in late July and early August. It is marks the middle of Summer and the beginning of the harvest. It is the first of three harvest festivals and is usually associated with ripening grain. It heralds the coming of Autumn.

Please sir, may I have some more?

THIS IS FUN

The red indicates how much of Florida will be underwater if sea level rises 6 meters.

Create your own maps of sea level rise courtesy of the University of Arizona Enviromental Studies Laboratory:

CLICK HERE

DR. OMED SEES AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH

Yes, pilgrims and seekers, Dr. Omed hied himself to the megamulticineplex to see the movie starring the ex-next President of the United States, An Inconvenient Truth. I gave it to myself as a treat after a long, hot, tiring work day. When I left the workplace at 5:15pm the outside temperature was 103 degrees feloniously Fahrenheit. The A/C in my windowless cubicle in Hell is supposed to keep the temperature pegged at 72 degrees, but when all the equipment is running and the summer sun is blazing down on the flat roof of the building, it just can’t keep up. The idea of sitting in a dark, cool movie theater suddenly became very appealing when I got into my un-airconditioned car, and I yielded to the whim.

I arrived just in time to catch the 5:30 showing, paid eight dollars for the movie, and four bucks for a large diet coke, and was in my seat just in time to catch the last half of the last preview (for Who Killed the Electric Car), the kill-your-babies-and-turn-off-your-cell-phones-you-morons courtesy message, and then the film rolled. I think there were about 8-10 other people in the auditorium, all of them adults (by which I mean I think they were all 40 or above) and not one made a noise through the entire film.

Gore is a very bright man, and deploys his facts (and a light sprinkling of Micheal-Moore-ish factoids) very effectively, eloquently, and with passionate élan. This movie is not a partisan fuckyoumentary in the Moore style, tho’ Gore gets in a few jabs at the hunka hunka burning Bush et alia. It is a substantive and powerful presentation of Al Gore’s crusade, his quest to save his honor, American democracy, and human civilization itself, from itself, with his “slide show.” Gore is a modern Don Quixote with an Apple laptop instead of a lance, but Gore’s windmills really are giants.

The images, graphs, and graphics of this…ultimate hyper-PowerPoint presentation…have a visceral impact, even tho’ I knew most of the information contained in them. At the end of the film, Gore winds up and makes his pitch; he says (I paraphrase here since my verbal memory is one with the snows of yesteryear, like all those glaciers) that we—we, the American people, the greatest environmental sinners in the global passion play—already have everything we need, every tool, every resource, save the will, the political will, to do the job of reversing global warming. Gore says we can do it, we can summon the political will to save ourselves from ourselves in this “era of consequences” and he says it like he believes it.

But as the credits rolled and the soundtrack segued into a Melissa Etheridge song, I sat in the dark with tears leaking out of the corners of my eyes, not because of the sobering message passionately conveyed, but because I didn’t believe him.

I don’t believe we will save ourselves. I don’t think the American people can summon the political will to force the necessary changes on our government and our elites; I don’t think we have time if we could. Fred won’t let me believe it. The movie soundtrack playing in my head was “Man of La Mancha.”

LET THEM EAT CAKE

BASTILLE DAY

On July 14, 1789, the people of Paris stormed the Bastille Prison, where the enemies of the regime of King Louis XVI were held incognito and without trial.

GRENDEL'S LOST SOCK: THOUGHT FOR TODAY

It's only the middle of July, and it's beginning to feel a lot like August, 1914. Kaiser Willehm and Der Dubya are beginning to look like bookends. "The Gods have abandoned us like migrating birds; unburied bodies melt like rendered fat in sun," a Babylonian scribe wrote, once upon a time, 3000 years ago. Happy Bastille Day.

GRENDEL'S LOST SOCK: THOUGHT FOR TODAY

The best liars are those people who think themselves honest and above board; indeed the best way to lie is by telling the truth, in the same way that the best way to keep a secret is not to tell anyone, including yourself.

DR. OMED’S VIRTUAL 24-7 SUNDAY SCHOOL:

THEODICY 101: IF GOD IS GOD

Does God get personal?

Do you have a personal God?

Do you see your personal God often, or do you have to make an appointment?

Is there a waiting list to see God?

Do you have a personal relationship with God?

Or is God someone you read about in a book?

Do you consider your relationship with God deep and meaningful, or as a casual, whenever you drop by sort of thing?

How personal?—Live and in person, God Incarnate (in the flesh)?

How long has it been since you took your meds?

Or do you communicate with God by long distance, so to speak—by prayer?

Is that like calling a 1-900 line?

Does God whisper sweet nothings in your ear?

Does God charge by the minute?

Or is praying to God more like visiting a chat room, only more spiritual?

If praying to God is like visiting a chat room, how do you know He’s really God? He could be some sort of God-wanna-be, a rogue demiurge, or a registered soul corrupter…

If you asked God to do you a favor, would He do it?

If God (the really real God) asked you to do Him a favor, would you do it?

Would you do it no matter what it was (rape, murder, whatever)—after all, this is God talking—or would you tell Him I’ll have to get back to you on that?

DR. OMED’S SUNDAY SERMON:

GAY MARRIAGE IN THE OLD TESTAMENT

I can almost hear the members of my e-congregation chorus as one: “Wait-one-gosh-darn-minute, Dr. Omed, there ain’t no gay marriage in the Bible!” Au contraire, pilgrims and seekers. Shall we examine the text of 1 Samuel 18? Young David has just slain Goliath in battle with the Philistines. He has just met King Saul and his son Jonathan for the first time:

And it came to pass, when he had made an end of speaking unto Saul, that the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul.

And Saul took him that day, and would let him go no more home to his father's house. (Like a new bride?)

Then Jonathan and David made a covenant, because he loved him as his own soul.

And Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that was upon him, and gave it to David, and his garments, even to his sword, and to his bow, and to his girdle.
1 Samuel 18:1-4

If you don’t want to call the covenant between Jonathan and David marriage, call it a civil union. However, later in the chapter Saul gives his daughter Michal in marriage to David, and makes a curious remark:

Wherefore Saul said to David, Thou shalt this day be my son-in-law a second time.
1 Samuel 18:21

The only child of King Saul’s other than Michal with which David has a contracted relationship—is Jonathan. Saul’s words certainly imply that he regarded David as already married to Jonathan.

Later, when Saul and Jonathan are killed, David sings a lament:

I grieve for you, Jonathan my brother; you were very dear to me. Your love for me was wonderful, more wonderful than that of women.

It seem that at least one instance of same sex… civil covenant between two of the Lord’s Anointed was condoned and even approved by no less an authority than the King of Israel.

Fundy Facts TM

Did you know:

Of the patriarchs in the Old Testament, only Issac(Gen 25-28)had just one wife reported, with no concubines mentioned. Abraham(Gen 25:6) was fairly conservative, limiting himself to one wife and several concubines. Jacob(Gen 30) had 2 wives and 2 concubines. King David(1 Chr 24:3) had 6 or more wives and 10 or more concubines (Not to mention his husband, Jonathan). Rehoboam(2 Chr 11:21) had 18 wives plus 60 concubines. Studly King Solomon (2 Kings 11:3) had 700 wives plus 300 concubines. King Solomon also flouted the ban on intermarriage, and "loved many strange women" including at least one Egyptian, several Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonians, and Hittites. (1 Kings 11:1;14:21)

VIA ASSOCIATED PRESS:

Thursday, June 8, 2006 · Last updated 5:11 a.m. PT

Army officer refuses to deploy to Iraq

By MELANTHIA MITCHELL ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER

TACOMA, Wash. -- An Army lieutenant who refuses to deploy to Iraq with his Fort Lewis Stryker brigade said he's prepared to face the consequences, including a possible prison term.
1st Lt. Ehren Watada, who joined the Army in March 2003, said he researched the reasons behind the U.S. involvement in Iraq and concluded the war is illegal and immoral.
"We have violated American law," Watada said. "We can't break laws in order to fight terrorism."

Watada said he would be willing to serve in Afghanistan or elsewhere, but he said he believes intelligence on whether Iraq had weapons of mass destruction was manipulated "to fit a policy that was already implemented prior to 9-11," and he cited "mistreatment of the Iraqi people," saying it was "a contradiction to the Army's own Law of Land Warfare."
Army officials said Watada's decision to publicly declare his intent to disobey orders "is a serious matter and could subject him to adverse action."

His unit - the 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division - is scheduled to begin leaving later this month for a mission in Iraq.

Watada sent a letter to his command in January, saying he had reservations about the Iraq war and felt he could not participate, his lawyer Eric A. Seitz said. Months later, he resubmitted his request to resign, Seitz said.

The Hawaii native was told last month his request had been denied. The Army said it was because Watada's unit is in a stop-loss category, and he has not fulfilled his service obligation. His commission requires that he serve as an active-duty Army officer for three years ending Dec. 3, his lawyer said.

Watada said he would submit another request to resign but added, "I feel it is inevitable ... I will be charged and I will be punished." He said he could face prison time for failing to deploy.
Peace activists, veterans and clergy have come out in support of Watada, whose commanders barred him from attending a news conference Wednesday because it occurred during his duty hours.

Watada did not apply for conscientious objector status, defined by Army regulations as a "firm, fixed and sincere objection to participation in war in any form or the bearing of arms, because of religious training and belief." He said he objected only to the war in Iraq.

An Army fact sheet dated Sept. 21, 2005, the most recent available, said 87 conscientious objector applications had been approved and 101 denied since January 2003.

"I know that my case has brought a lot of attention and scrutiny on me by my superiors," Watada said. "I'm probably very unpopular, if not the most unpopular person on Fort Lewis. But I know out there are people who believe in what I'm saying."