Reporter Summoned to Testify Against War Resister

"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."

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."

His court-martial is scheduled to take place in February at Fort Lewis, Washington. The military has also approached at least two other reporters, independent journalist Dahr Jamail, who reports for Inter Press Service, and a reporter with the Honolulu Star Bulletin.

Jamail reported on a speech Watada gave at the Veterans for Peace National Convention in Seattle, Washington.

In a "charge sheet" against the lieutenant, the military quotes Watada's comments at the gathering, calling them "disgraceful."

"Today, I speak with you about a radical idea," Watada said. "That to stop an illegal and unjust war, soldiers can choose to stop fighting it... If soldiers realized this war is contrary to what the constitution extols – if they stood up and threw their weapons down – no president could ever initiate a war of choice again. When we say, '...Against all enemies foreign and domestic,' what if elected leaders became the enemy? Whose orders do we follow? The answer is the conscience that lies in each soldier, each American, and each human being. Our duty to the constitution is an obligation, not a choice."

In covering Watada's speech, Jamail posted the officer's comments verbatim on his website and the website truthout.org with a brief introduction, together with a link to a video version of the speech.

Explaining the subpoenaing of Olson and the expected subpoenas of two others, Joe Piek, external affairs chief at Ft. Lewis, told IPS that the U.S. military "does not seek reporters' notes or original transcripts but simply wants to verify the accuracy of the story they reported."

"Are the quotes contained in their stories an accurate representation of the comments?" he said.

Beyond that, Piek said "how the prosecution plans on handling this case is something I don't have knowledge of nor could I discuss it."

The military's approach of journalists in the Watada case has alarmed observers within the media. Television reporter Gary Hill, who chairs the Society of Professional Journalists ethics committee, told IPS the subpoenas are "part of a continuing pattern of the federal government becoming more and more aggressive in going after journalists."

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http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=35857
http://www.antiwar.com/glantz/?articleid=10173