Reply #12: IPS: [View All]

Reporter Summoned to Testify Against War Resister

Aaron Glantz, Electronic Iraq, 15 December 2006

SAN FRANCISCO (IPS) - The U.S. military subpoenaed an independent journalist Thursday, demanding she testify as a witness for the prosecution of First Lt. Ehren Watada, the first commissioned officer to be court-marshaled for refusing to serve in Iraq.

"This morning at 8:45 someone came to my house and delivered a subpoena," Sarah Olson, an Oakland, California-based journalist, told IPS. "It's absolutely outrageous. It's a journalist's job to report the news. It is not a journalist's job to testify against their own sources."

Olson interviewed Watada in late May 2006, a few weeks before he formally refused to deploy to Iraq. In the interview, the first lieutenant explained his decision.

"I started asking, why are we dying?" he said. "Why are we losing limbs? For what? I listened to the president and his deputies say we were fighting for democracy; we were fighting for a better Iraq. I just started to think about those things. Are those things the real reasons why we are there, the real reasons we were dying? But I felt there was nothing to be done, and this administration was just continually violating the law to serve their purpose, and there was nothing to stop them."
I started asking, why are we dying? Why are we losing limbs? For what?


As a result of his public comments, Watada was charged not only for refusing to deploy, but also for "contempt toward officials" and "conduct unbecoming of an officer".

http://electroniciraq.net/news/2741.shtml