absolutangel64

Bullsh*t tends to come in various forms: book form, televised form, movie form, literal-animal-poo-form, etc. I personally prefer newspaper bullsh*t over any other embodiment because it’s easier to take apart. You’d be surprised how many gaping potholes some people leave in their bullsh*t columns.

Take 1st Lt. Ehren Watada’s column in Sunday’s Honolulu Advertiser. As you may or may not know, this man refused to be deployed to Iraq because he didn’t want to participate in a war he believed was illegal. I think this is rather old news from maybe last week or so, but since then I’ve seen him appear on “Fox and Friends” in an effort to defend his decision, and try to get us to believe that he’s not a pussy.

You can read the bullsh*t here:

Opposing war in Iraq my duty as American

I found Mr. Watada’s attempted justification for his refusing to be deployed to Iraq a less-than-stellar argument. Using the sheep’s skin of protesting “unlawful and immoral dangers,” Mr. Watada has simply used his catch-phrase as a blanket to cover up his own unlawful and immoral tendencies.

For one thing, why would Mr. Watada have enlisted in the military out of the “pull of duty, service and patriotism” in March 2003—which was, by the way, the same month that Operation Iraqi Freedom commenced (March 20, 2003, to be exact)—when he did not believe an invasion of Iraq was fully justified? President Bush had begun campaigning for the invasion and occupation back in September 2002, before Mr. Watada joined, and which arguably gave him enough time to formulate his own opinions opposing the war. And yet, he enlisted despite his so-called reservations. Did he expect to have been deployed somewhere else other than to Iraq, and not have to fight in a war that has become a major subject in political and social debate, and which has undoubtedly defined this generation? Or did he hope to never be deployed at all, and thus be able to freely accept the windfall of benefits of being in the army reserve, such as life and medical insurance and stipends to cover his living expenses outside of active duty?

Is that behavior lawful and moral, Mr. Watada?

Secondly, it is hard to believe that Mr. Watada would have immersed himself in the “books and articles” he read on the war had he not been deployed. As he said in his column: “Since I learned of my deployment last year, I wanted to know everything about war…the turning point came in January 2006.”

Tell me, Mr. Watada, if you did not bother to educate yourself on war prior to about 2005, then does that mean you had no problem with the war since you basically had no idea what it was about? Where did your opinions against the war come from to begin with if you did not bother to read up on the subject until two years after you enlisted?

What Mr. Watada is basically trying to get us true patriots to believe is that he was morally opposed to being deployed to Iraq to fight in the war (for whatever reasons he had since his article made only vague references to a few of them), and yet morally unopposed to accepting benefits from the government, and being voluntarily ignorant to major political and social topics up until they directly affect him—none of which are a part of the definitions of “duty,” “service,” or “patriotism,” in any dictionary. Perhaps Mr. Watada should have done more research before he chose to lie to the American people to cover up his own cowardice.