Over at TomPaine.com, Col. Ann Wright–who "received the State Department’s Award for Heroism as the acting U.S. ambassador during the rebel takeover of Freetown, Sierra Leone in 1997"–has an interesting opinion piece on Lt. Ehren Watada’s refusal to deploy with his unit to Iraq.  Here is an excerpt:

For Watada and those other military volunteers who have chosen to go public with their dissent from the war on Iraq, the path of conscience is not easy. By their actions, they challenge an administration whose policy of aggressive, pre-emptive war has placed those volunteers, the institution of the U.S.  military and the nation itself in danger.
Refusing to obey an illegal order is a time-honored tradition in the U.S. military, but that refusal carries incredible risk. If the order is found by a military board of inquiry to be lawful, then the soldier is will be brought before a military court for trial.
Watada’s public refusal to deploy to Iraq puts the military panel who will sit in judgment of his actions in a dilemma.

[…]

Now, these military lawyers must decide whether protection of an administration’s illegal war of aggression is more important to the national security of the United States than recognition that, by the Nuremberg principles, military and civilians have a responsibility to stop their governments from committing illegal acts.
As a retired colonel with 29 years in the U.S. Army and Army Reserves, and as a U.S. diplomat for 16 years who resigned in March 2003  from the State Department in opposition to the war in Iraq, I strongly support Watada’s decision to publicly challenge the illegality of the war.

If only we all had the courage and moral conviction of Lt. Watada, we may never have gotten ourselves into the mess in Iraq in the first place.