Anti-War Sailor Lifts Foes of Iraq Policy
By Joe Garofoli The San Fransisco Chronicle
Saturday 28 May 2005
Sentence for defying deployment orders less than expected.
Pablo Paredes' name will be invoked by antiwar veterans and activists at Memorial Day events in the Bay Area and elsewhere this weekend, but not because he was sentenced to three months of hard labor and busted down to the Navy's lowest rank for refusing to board a ship bound for the Persian Gulf.
Instead, supporters see a pinprick of hope in the no-jail-time sentence that the 23-year-old Paredes received this month - hope that the military's attitude is softening toward dissenters, or at least that the relatively light sentence will encourage other active-duty soldiers to speak out.
Antiwar veterans groups say they have seen an uptick in the number of inquiries from active-duty veterans since Paredes was convicted by a military judge May 11 in San Diego for refusing to board the Persian Gulf-bound amphibious assault ship Bonhomme Richard in December. He has 10 months left in his enlistment but is seeking to be discharged as a conscientious objector.
This week, antiwar activists are watching upcoming court-martial at Fort Stewart, Ga., of Army Staff Sgt. Kevin Benderman, a 10-year-veteran who refused to redeploy to Iraq after his first tour in 2003 and said he was a conscientious objector.
"We've been seeing an extraordinary amount of searching by active duty people looking for ways to avoid deployment or redeployment," said Dennis O'Neil of the antiwar group Bring Them Home Now. The Paredes case, he said, "is planting a seed."
That was the fear that Navy prosecutor Lt. Brandon Hale expressed in court. Paredes "is trying to infect the military with his own brand of disobedience," Hale said. "Sailors all over the world will want to know whether this will be tolerated. Sailors want to know whether what he did is a good way to get out of deployment."
Other dissenters and legal advocates see the case has having more of a cultural impact than legal one.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/05/28/BAGNECVOEI1.DTL
By Joe Garofoli The San Fransisco Chronicle
Saturday 28 May 2005
Sentence for defying deployment orders less than expected.
Pablo Paredes' name will be invoked by antiwar veterans and activists at Memorial Day events in the Bay Area and elsewhere this weekend, but not because he was sentenced to three months of hard labor and busted down to the Navy's lowest rank for refusing to board a ship bound for the Persian Gulf.
Instead, supporters see a pinprick of hope in the no-jail-time sentence that the 23-year-old Paredes received this month - hope that the military's attitude is softening toward dissenters, or at least that the relatively light sentence will encourage other active-duty soldiers to speak out.
Antiwar veterans groups say they have seen an uptick in the number of inquiries from active-duty veterans since Paredes was convicted by a military judge May 11 in San Diego for refusing to board the Persian Gulf-bound amphibious assault ship Bonhomme Richard in December. He has 10 months left in his enlistment but is seeking to be discharged as a conscientious objector.
This week, antiwar activists are watching upcoming court-martial at Fort Stewart, Ga., of Army Staff Sgt. Kevin Benderman, a 10-year-veteran who refused to redeploy to Iraq after his first tour in 2003 and said he was a conscientious objector.
"We've been seeing an extraordinary amount of searching by active duty people looking for ways to avoid deployment or redeployment," said Dennis O'Neil of the antiwar group Bring Them Home Now. The Paredes case, he said, "is planting a seed."
That was the fear that Navy prosecutor Lt. Brandon Hale expressed in court. Paredes "is trying to infect the military with his own brand of disobedience," Hale said. "Sailors all over the world will want to know whether this will be tolerated. Sailors want to know whether what he did is a good way to get out of deployment."
Other dissenters and legal advocates see the case has having more of a cultural impact than legal one.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/05/28/BAGNECVOEI1.DTL
posted by Kangaroo Brisbane Australia at 4:57 PM
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