As you may have heard, Flight Lieutenant Malcolm Kendall-Smith of the Royal Air Force (UK), is being court martialled for refusing to go to Iraq last year. He has subsequently be barred from arguing in court that the order to go to Iraq was illegal - this has already been ruled on by the judge, so he cannot present any evidence of that nature.

The Judge's reason for this was simply that by 2005 there was a explicit Security Council ruling allowing them to be there, and they have been invited by the new Iraq government. The question of whether the original invasion was legal or not didn't come into the matter - Flt Lt Kendall-Smith was never ordered to go to Iraq during the original invasion.

Honestly I think Kendall-Smith is a bit of an idiot. If he didn't want to go to Iraq, he could simply have resigned from the Air Force. As such a junior officer, there is no way that he could influence the decision to go to Iraq, and taking a stand on this is fairly irrelevant as he was not ordered to take part in the invasion.

I can't see any alternative for them to find him anything other than guilty. However, would guess that they would go for a small or minimal prison sentence, followed by a dishonourable discharge from the Air Force.

Posted by Dave Bryant at 8:46 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)