US Army adds to charges against officer who refused service in ‘illegal’ Iraq war News
US Army adds to charges against officer who refused service in ‘illegal’ Iraq war

[JURIST] A US Army spokesman said Friday that the Army has added a new specification to charges against 1st Lt. Ehren Watada [advocacy website; Wikipedia profile] based on a speech [text and video] he gave in August to Veterans for Peace [advocacy website] in which Watada advocated that "to stop an illegal and unjust war, soldiers can choose to stop fighting it." The Army says the speech is another instance of Conduct Unbecoming an Officer and a Gentleman. In August, US Army Lt. Col. Mark Keith, the investigating officer for Watada's case, recommended [JURIST report; Article 32 report, PDF; Watada legal team rebuttal, PDF] that Watada face court-martial on all charges against him.

The military charged [charge sheet, PDF; JURIST report] Watada in July in connection with his refusal to deploy to Iraq. Watada has resisted deployment because he believes the Iraq war is unlawful [JURIST report]. He is the first US commissioned officer to publicly refuse Iraq duty and faces over seven years in prison if convicted. AP has more.

THIS DAY @ LAW

UN General Assembly approves Palestine partition plan

The UN General Assembly approved UN Resolution Resolution 181 (II) on November 29, 1947, recommending that the British Mandate for Palestine be split into a Jewish state, an Arab state, and an international zone for Jerusalem. The vote in the assembly was 33 for to 13 against, with 10 abstentions. The resolution sparked a war between Palestinian Arabs and Jews in 1947 and a wider war after Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, and Lebanon invaded the new State of Israel in 1948. Read Resolution 181 (II).

UN divided Palestine between Arabs and Jews

On November 29, 1947, the UN General Assembly voted to partition Palestine into Jewish and Arab territories, leading to the establishment of a Jewish state the following year. Read UN General Assembly Resolution 181.

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