Justice Department drops case against Iraq War resister

From AllGov.com:

U.S. Army Lieutenant Ehren Watada has faced the possibility of court-martial and jail time ever since he publicly refused to deploy to Iraq in 2006. He was the first officer to buck the Bush administration’s war policy, which turned him into a hero for opponents of the U.S. invasion. Watada won a partial victory on Wednesday in his long running legal battle when the government dropped an attempt to retry the first lieutenant for refusing his deployment orders. The Hawaiian native was first tried in 2007 by a military court, but the process ended in a mistrial. The Army then asked the Justice Department to pursue a case against Watada in federal court, but that effort fell apart.
 
Watada still faces charges by the Army that could result in his court-martial, although his attorney believes those charges will be thrown out of court. If that happens, the Army is likely to pursue some kind of administrative punishment against Watada, who originally said the Iraq war was illegal and unjust, and that participating in it would make him a party to war crimes. Although he refused deployment to Iraq, he said he was willing to serve in Afghanistan.

-Noel Brinkerhoff