Revise the law on conscientious objection

Commentary

Revise the law on conscientious objection

October 16, 2006 01:54:00 pm

Edited by:

David Miner [attorney for US Army Sgt. Ricky Clousing, an Iraq war objector who recently pleaded guilty to going AWOL]: "A growing number of soldiers question whether they can honorably serve in support of the war in Iraq. My client Ricky Clousing confronted this question after a five month deployment to Iraq ending in April 2005. In June of 2005, Ricky left his Fort Bragg unit after experiencing a 'crisis of conscience' stirred by his time in Iraq with the 82nd Airborne Division. Last week, under a plea agreement, Ricky Clousing pleaded guilty to absence without leave. During sentencing proceedings, Ricky offered his personal observations of deliberate and systemic abuse perpetrated by U.S. troops as the reason for his unauthorized absence. The military judge, operating within a unique feature of military justice, returned a sentence of 11 months of confinement, before referencing the plea agreement term that restricted the general from approving any confinement in excess of 3 months.

As illustrated by these divergent numbers, the Army faced a dilemma in this case. It seeks to instill the "Army values" of integrity, honesty and personal moral courage. Ricky exemplified these values during his time in Iraq by reporting the abuses he witnessed. In his conclusion that the war and occupation conflicted with his moral beliefs and required separation from the military, Ricky applied "Army values" to the disapproval of the Army. Ricky faced the stark choice to violate his conscience or violate the law. He could not apply for conscientious objector status because he could not honestly state he was opposed to participation in all wars.

The solution to the dilemma Ricky and the Army faced is a law that permits conscientious objection to a particular war. A democratic society should allow its soldiers freedom of conscience. Soldiers who volunteer to defend our freedom of conscience should not be required to forfeit their own consciences upon enlistment. This proposal would not likely have significant adverse effects upon the military's mission. But if such a law would limit our government's ability to engage in wars of choice, it would be valuable not just for Ricky, but for our nation as a whole."

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Martin Luther King Jr. wrote his Letter from Birmingham Jail

On April 16, 1963, an incarcerated Martin Luther King, Jr. (arrested for demonstrating in defiance of a court order) wrote his Letter from Birmingham Jail in response to a published statement by eight fellow clergymen from Alabama.

Part of the letter read: We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God-given rights. The nations of Asia and Africa are moving with jetlike speed toward gaining political independence, but we stiff creep at horse-and-buggy pace toward gaining a cup of coffee at a lunch counter. Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging dark of segregation to say, "Wait." But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate-filled policemen curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six-year-old daughter why she can't go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five-year-old son who is asking: "Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?"; when you take a cross-county drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading "white" and "colored"; when your first name becomes "nigger," your middle name becomes "boy" (however old you are) and your last name becomes "John," and your wife and mother are never given the respected title "Mrs."; when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and are plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of "nobodiness" then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair. I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience. Read the full text of the Letter.

Former communist countries admitted for EU accession

On April 16, 2003, the 2003 Treaty of Accession was signed by 10 countries, admitting them for European Union (EU) ascension. After Malta and Cyprus, eight of the ten new EU nations (Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania) were former communist countries. The signing of the treaty in Athens marked the first time that former members of the Soviet Bloc joined the EU.

Learn more about EU expansion from the organization's website.