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Sgt. Benderman follows conscience, not orders: Refuses to participate in illegal war

by Open-Publishing - Friday 1 April 2005
40 comments

Edito Wars and conflicts USA

The ongoing saga of Sergeant Kevin Benderman’s denial regarding the legitimacy of war and his refusal to participate in it has now crystallized into a war of words and legalities, pitting his beliefs and first-hand battlefield knowledge against an action by the U.S. Government and Army prosecutors who are charging him with desertion for choosing to follow his conscience, in a war declared illegal by U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan.

Benderman is scheduled to stand trial before a General Courts-Martial at Ft. Stewart on May 11 on counts of desertion and missing a unit movement.

Benderman’s wife, Monica says that she is having a hard time expressing her feelings at this point. "Our lives right now have been put on hold by this issue. My husband is baring his soul. I don’t know what more proof these people need, something so simple, so basic, and they do not appear to have a clue."

audio MP3 of Sgt. Benderman

The Investigating Officer overseeing Sgt. Benderman’s Conscientious Objector application, U.S. Army Captain Victor Aqueche maintains that Benderman does not have sufficient grounds to pursue his claim, and Aqueche’ s DOA (Department of the Army) Memorandum For Record regarding Bernderman’s case recommends disapproval, citing non-qualification.

U.S. Army Major S. Scot Sikes, military counsel for Benderman has filed a lengthy rebuttal to Aqueche’s finding, stating in part that "On behalf of SGT Kevin M. Benderman, U.S. Army, I hereby challenge for cause the continued appointment of CPT Victor Aqueche to SGT Benderman’s CO Inquiry. His appointment should be terminated immediately.

It is apparent to every thoughtful observer that CPT Aqueche is not the unbiased, fair, and impartial officer required for such an important inquiry and recommendation. In addition, I request that the hearing from 8 February 2005 be declared void ab initio and that both a new IO and a new hearing date be established. The hearing in question was botched beyond belief, and SGT Kevin Benderman stands to suffer the insult of not having had a fair, accurate, and professionally conducted inquiry."

Monica Benderman is looking forward to their day in court.

"What more evidence does this guy need of Kevin’s sincerity? Honestly with all these soldiers going AWOL then returning and agreeing to return to Iraq, or deserting and speaking from other countries about their commitment to their conscience, here is Kevin going through everything he is, facing the command, the courts martial, not running and fulfilling all duties."

In addition, she stated that the very act of filing for Conscientious Objector status alone is a testament to Kevin’s sincerity, and his commitment to that status should be all anyone needs.

Mrs. Benderman says it is a clear-cut issue. "Killing, the act of it, in any circumstance, is negative. It can’t help but bring negative feelings into a person’s mind. When someone faces his conscience and realizes just how negative he has become, looks deep and admits the reasons, the change is amazing.

"When that person acts on his conscience, and makes a decision to live for life and to seek peaceful solutions to difficult situations even when it goes against the current "norms" of society, it’s a positive change. It is scary for people who still believe that there is a justification for war to face someone who has become positive in their thought process. People who still can’t see the power in turning away from violent solutions will continue to question someone who can. That is what is happening now. Kevin has made a conscious choice to "study war no more."

He has made a statement for himself, and his speaking out about it threatens those who believe war is the answer," she said.

A General Courts-Martial, the highest level of adjudication under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, also carries the maximum penalties for those convicted, including up to seven years confinement, a dishonorable discharge and forfeiture of all pay and allowances.

Forum posts

  • "....choosing to follow his conscience, in a war declared illegal by U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan"....................... The same Kofi Annan, who with his son Kojo is covered with infamy and the blood of innocent children who starved during the "food for oil" program that was overseen by Kofi while he and his son connived in pilfering billions of dollars from it. He is on the same level as a man who steals money from a church poorbox, and the Left is so desperate and degenerate they can’t find the will to condemn him or the wisdom to ignore him. The left once had some truly great thinkers, are they all dead?

    • The previous poster should for a moment ponder for whom and what we are asking soldiers to fight this war. A vet myself, having a soldier that reflects upon his actions with respect to others, even his enemy, is the way to win a war and not just kill.

    • What nonsense is this? Mohammad is quoted in the Qur’an in the Sirat Rasul Allah, in the Sahih Al Bukhari and in the haditha of al Muslim as saying repeatedly that the most acceptable behaviour in the eyes of Allah is to wage bloody Jihad against the "infidel". History has proven that it is discipline and obedience that wins battles and keeps the individual soldier alive. The previous poster would turn American soldiers into amateur philosophers and get them killed in the process. It is not surprising though in that easily 90% of the people who post to this website are self destructive lemmings who wold love to see the American military massacred by Jihadis, not because they love Islam, but because they hate America with such a profound virulence.

    • Wonderful rebuttal: Perhaps you should man some checkpoints and be suitably quick on the trigger! And when you come home to what is left of your sanity, you can forever pull the bodies of parents and children from the cars where "They are all enemies" before falling off to sleep.

    • Once again, bereft of facts, the left decends to ad hominem. You people are so boringly predictable.

    • Life is simple when one can dwell in the abstract. Join reality.

    • Facts, man, facts! Do you have any? Or are you so besotted with your prozac fueled, homoerotic leftist fantasy land that facts no longer matter?

    • Weak. Just give it up. That niche is filled you Anne Coulter wanna-be.

    • Did you toss that one off before leaving for your sexual reassignment operation? I do admire Ann’s mind, you just wanna wear her dresses.

    • You are obviously here in error. You were looking for hotmilitarystuds.com and mis-keyed. Please go with your other "Manly Men" .

    • Another lame ad-hominem, but a telling one. As time passes it is become painfully obvious that the left has become essentially a homosexual enterprise, and , that virtually all homosexuals are of the left.

    • Tell it to Jim/Jeff and Karl Rove, these two are lovers. Who do you think got Jim/Jeff into the inner circle at the White house? And then there is Bush the queerleader, what MAN would dress up in girly costumes with pom poms? If these guys are lefteys then I’m mother theresa. I know its painful for you homophobes to think about your Bush and his "back door" friends. Then there is Mary Cheney, I didn’t see her out campaigning for Kerry, but I guess her being a homo doesn’t count huh?

  • I have had a family member fight in every war this country has ever been in since BEFORE the american revolution, and I have seen firsthand what that means. My father went to vietnam because his country asked him too and because his father - who fought in World War II and Korea - expected him too, even though he knew it was wrong. As a result, he spent the next 30 years shitting blood because of injuries he sustained in the course of that war. Having grown up watching that I have to at once respect his sense of duty and wish that he had listened to his heart and done what he knew was the right thing to do instead of what his superiors told him was the right thing to do.

    There are some people, apparently incluuding two of the folks who posted in response to this article, who would have us believe that it is somehow wrong or immpral to stand up for ones beliefs and oppose an unjust war by refusing to participate in it. By denying our friends, neighbors, and family members who are in the armed forces their right to choose and to to judge for themselves who their enemy is, they deny them their humanity and would reduce them to cogs in a machine, capable only of following orders.

    This is 2005 folks, by now we should all know exactly what being a "good german" and following orders that you know are immoral achieves. It was that mentality that allowed the holocaust to happen, that allowed the war in vietnam to happen, and that has allowed the US government to invade Iraq not once but twice in the last 15 years. The state - and the military industrial complex that functions within the American State in particular - needs war in order to survive, and they require the willing acquiescance of hundreds of thousands of us in order to make war. If we don’t want to see our friends, our neighbors, and our family members continuing to come home wounded or dead - and if we are unwilling to see atrocities commited in our name - the first step has got to be supporting folks like Sgt. Benderman who are willing to do as the Geneva convention requires soldiers of all the worlds armies to do and refuse to participate in unjust wars. Saying that our soldiers were "just following orders" is not an excuse, they are human beings, not machines, and they have a choice - even if they don’t know that they have that choice.

    To the folks who would reduce us to machines and demand that soldiers follow orders they know are wrong, you are traitors to your families, your neighbors, and your country. Your braindead acquiescance to murder makes you complicit in it, and your refusal to recognize the humanity of the troops you claim to support reveals exactly what kind of narrow-minded automatons you have allowed yourselves to become.

    To the thousands of soldiers who have filed for conscientious objector status, refused to be deployed, or gone awol rather then participate in this war, you are heroes. If more soldiers had the moral integrity to do as you have done, there would be no more wars.

    love and solidarity,

    emcee lynx

    www.circlealpha.com

    • Whenever I read a posting like the one above I recall the two immutable laws of leftism:
      1. Leftists lie about everything. Being Atheists, the concept of objective truth has no meaning or value to them. To leftists, "THE ENDS ALWAYS JUSTIFY THE MEANS", ergo, the truth is mutable, the truth is always what you want it to be. That being said, I simply do not believe your claims about the various and sundry alleged soldiers in your family, and even if it were true,which it is not, it has no bearing in the conversation at hand [my family has been here since 1640]
      2. The one thing dearest to the hearts of leftists around the world, the one thing they desire the most, is the destruction of the American Republic and they will do or say anything they can to advance that goal. [publishing misleading seditious statements and rumor concerning the American military included]

    • "Leftist lie"...Uh-huh. Yes indeed, the the truth of the left is always a truth that evolves and morphs to one of convenience and expediance. Before you run off to SPREAD DEMOCRACY please recall that THIS ONE was told we were under imminate attack from a madman that had weapons of mass destruction and could not wait for weapons inspectors or the UN to finish it’s work.

      Here is a volunteer soldier, asked to kill and be killed for a lie. Before you again pontificate on truth, please be able recognize a lie.

    • Here is one for the "conservatives" Bush/Rove supporters: militarystuds.com.

    • God wants you to go kill for George Bush. George himself said so so it must be true. Religious people never lie, and all of that killing that they do is because Jesus was a blood thirsty mongrel who preached taking up arms for any and all leaders whenever they get a hair up their ass. If you don’t believe me then go to church. they will explain to you in the simplist terms that being a nation of mass murders puts you first on God’s list of holymen. There is nothing so holy as blowing the heads off or Iraqi men, women, and particulary those nasty brown children. It isn’t really lies when Bush tells us that Iraq is an immenent threat, and they have WMD that can reach the U.S. in 45 minutes and that they know were all of these weapons factores are and that Social Security is really in jeparody and it is up to someone with the leadership skills and honesty of Bush to "fix" it for us. And that Saddam Hussien was responsible for crashing planes into the World Trade Towers on 9/11....we can all believe him and trust him because he is so honest, and God trusts him, so that should be good enough for you.

    • Iraq was but one talon of the claw that is Islam. Islam has nukes and will get more. The war goes on. Benderman took an oath. Benderman broke his oath. It is only natural that the left would gather another liar unto itself.

    • do you fantasize about being bent over by a "Military Stud"?

    • Benderman has also an obligation to disregard unlawful orders .

    • It is up to a military court to decide whether or not said orders are or are not lawful, at which point if the orders are determined to have been lawful, Mr Benderman will be sent to a military prison, probably San Quentin, probably for a very long time; when this happens, Mrs. Benderman will probably have reason to rejoice in the liberality of American divorce laws so she can get on with her life.

    • Yes. That is the due process and one known to every soldier. He demands even more respect for the choice he is making. It is just sorrowful that the recruitment process just does not allow for eighteen year olds to realize just what the costs can be of what initially are decsions they made in good faith. It is doubly sad that stop loss and IRR call ups further jeopardize gallant individuals. All the reason more why war should be of last resort, and this one was not. I am a vet, and it seems you are too. Just this conversation is a good effort to stop the loss and waste of innocent life.

    • right on! great post.

      off topic- I dig your music. I have many songs on heavy rotation. You gotta put a link straight to that...
      http://www.circlealpha.com/mp3.htm

    • Last resort??? Friend, you have no idea how close we are to the END. I keep yelling at people to read the Qur’an, the Sirat Rasul Allah, The Sahih Al Bukhari; all canonical books of Islam and all pretty easy to read....The money shot is that the 9-11 terrorists and the suicide bombers were and are all theologically correct, and their actions fully in accord with the documented will of Mohammad and Allah. Nobody reads anymore, they prefer to fantasize. As far as Mr Benderman "Deserving respect for the choice he is making", that too is problematic. What were his original motives in joining the military? In a sense even that doesn’t matter. The military, all military organizations the world over throughout all recorded history have hed one purpose; to kill people and break things in accordance with the will of the people of the nation they derive from. Any one who joins the military not knowing this is Darwinian in his [her] stupidity.

    • i get the feeling you spend a lot of time there yourself.........

    • Then simply explain: What is a "just" war, and, why did not the Pope determine this one was NOT a "just" war? Also pay tell, If your logic is correct, there should be no such thing as a "war crime"?

    • All war is in essence a crime. Suicide is also a crime. To not pursue this war with the intention of winning it would be tantamount to suicide. In this case, unfortunately, the Pope was wrong.

    • You are truly one of the great leftist thinkers of the 21st century, and, like most outstanding leftist theoreticians you are able to focus like a laser beam on what is most significant to you: MILITARYSTUDS.COM.......................

    • Your on to something... but there is that thing of "Papal Infallibility".... And maybe just maybe the Leader of the Church is the official position of the Church, and maybe, just maybe, politicos and Southern Baptist Convention are not? So if the Vatican determines a war is unjust, perhaps Sgt. Benderman has a defense? But now what: We incorporate the Church into government as per James Dobson, but eliminate it from the Military? Does the Church run government as feared with J.F.K? So just what is the "Culture of Life"? What is the separation of Curch and State: One of convenience?

      I think the real answer lies in the difference of a "Professional Military" versus a "Volunteer Military". Then there would be no expectation of conscience. And then it will truly be God Save Us All.

    • The concept of "Papal infallibility" only applies when the Pope is speaking "Ex- Cathedra", that is , officially, or as the "voice of the church". Any other statement not made "Ex-Cathedra" is just the statement of a man, albeit a very wise, experienced and decent man. Was John Paul II’s comment about the war made in "Ex-Cathedra" mode? I honestly do not know. That the assorted christian denominations are so fractured in their policies, and so competetive and hostile in their relations to one another is a commonly known fact. That fact harnessed to the increasingly secular and church-hostile attitude of the govt. would make any attempt by Benderman to harness church policy to his defense strategy laughably absurd. The jury would
      piss their pants with hilarity as they sentence him to life in prison.

    • Christ said, "Pick up your cross and follow Me".......
      The Christian faith, properly understood and practiced, has no interest in governance per se.
      Christ, and the Christian faith is entirely concerned with the souls of men.
      Rather than give you a breakdown of what I think the Church’s mission is, or should be, get a bible, read the ten commandments, read the sermon on the mount [Gandhi recommended it highly], read the beatitudes, and then meditate what earth would be like if the governance of nations was entirely in the hands of men and women who had thoroughly internalized these precepts.

    • I really have no quarrel with the military on this. Sgt. Benderman was charged appropriately, and will, no doubt be found guilty.

      But for me, this whole Iraq war never passed the stink test. Wars are fought by people on people, and people die. Unlike the Jihaddies, I would expect the our soldiers to come home. Their deaths would be a loss not a glorious martyrdom. To me, Sgt. Benderman, a man of conscience, is a loss. Collatteral damage. You can cherry pick instances that can serve to demonize the enemy and justify this tragedy, but it remains a mistake. We have again the Kerry: "Who should be the last to die for a mistake?"

      So now, enlistments are down. We have taken to recruiting fourteen year olds, with out notifying thier parents. No one wants to kill or die for a mistake, including Sgt. Benderman. But he is an NCO. Geez, what did he think that rifle was for? But no one wants to kill or die for a mistake, even if it is only dieing on the inside.

    • Respectfully, you are speaking from ignorance. You will not begin to understand the need for this war until you understand the true nature of Islam. You will not understand Islam until you have studied the Qur’an [a small book of approx. 400 pages], The Sirat Rasul Allah [a slightly larger book of roughly 700 pgs.], and the Sahih al Bukhari [10 small volumes]. With absolutely no irony I can state that these books are very easy reads, and that it behooves you, as an educated man, to read these before you form any opinion at all about this war, the reasons for it, or the prosecution of it. Until you have informed yourself on the true nature of our enemy, any argument you might mount against this war is lost in it’s own ignorance and futility.

    • Sgt Benderman is a man who has decided to take resposiblity for his actions. True courage.

      There is no god of any persuasion. Do not use religion to hide behind.

    • to the person who says that leftists always lie and that accordingly he doesn’t believe that my father went to vietnam, my grandfather to kwwII and kore, my great grandfather to WWI, all the way back to before the revolution.... well I don’t really know what to say to you except that if you refuse to accept the truth that’s spitting in your face there’s really not much point in posting to a discussion forum, now is there? because you’re obviously not interested in any kind of a discussion, you’re just another bill o’reily wannabe jerking off behind your keyboard. facts are facts, you don’t have to like them.

      as far as desiring nothing more then the destruction of the american republic, I think you’ve got it a bit twisted. Most of the ’leftists’ I know are solidly patriotic and practically bleed red white and blue, they just have a different idea of what it means to be patriotic then you do. as for me, I’m not a leftist, I’m an anarchist. and yeah, I would be just fine with the demise of the "american republic" as you put it, as long as its destruction openned the way for something better - like an anarchist system organized around a free confederation of city’s, counties, and municipalities run *directly* democratically by the people and for the people, with a democratic economic system and shop-floor democracy in every workplace. (instead of "of the people by the corporate elite"). you might have noticed that the word "democracy" pops up a lot in that description - basically everywhere that the american republic is NOT democratic. think about that.

      as for the right-wing islamic nationalism you’re so scared of, there are reasons why anarchists like me protested so ludly when the Clinton administration gave the Taliban 42 million dollars in direct aid back in ’96. The liberals sure weren’t in the streets and all like you could do was sit there and bitch and moan about how disloyal and unamerican we were. so no, I don’t support the taliban or al queda, but your stupid ass does because it was people like you that voted for reagan (can you say "iran contra"?), Bush 1 (who - as CIA chief was responsible for helping to build Al Queda), Clinton ( who bombed iraq for his entire 8-years in office while simultaneously supporting the taliban) and Bush 2 (who thinks that the best way to fight a transnational network of decentralized terrorist cells is to build an oil pipeline through afghanistan and take over the iraqi oil fields). oh, and all of them were and are good buddies with Saudia Arabia - the country that most of the september 11th hijackers actually came from. now that right there is some brilliant shit.

      get this straight in your stupid thick head once and for all - I love my family, my neighbors, my community, and (most of) the people who live in this country, and that is why - as a thinking person - i have no choice but to be "unamerican." Americanism means genocide against native americans, slavery for african americans, sweatshops and sharecropping for poor white people, global imperialism to a scale not seen since the fall of the brittish empire, and a completely undemocratic corporate dictatorship at home. so hell yeah, I want the american republic to fall, because as long as it endures I’m going to have to keep watching my people bleed, and I’m sick of it.

      none of which has anything to do with sgt benderman, who almost undoubtably does not share most of my views but is intelligent enough to know that helping ExxonMobile secure oil contracts is not worth making his children fatherless. I support his decision because I believe in freedom and recognizing the right of an individual to have the final say in a choice that affects them, you don’t support him because you’re a fucking idiot. go figure.

      emcee lynx
      circlealpha.com

    • You have to be 18 in this country to sign a legal contract, if not, you have to have the signature of one of your parents. If a child signs to go into the military and is not 18 but lies and says he is 18, the contract is null and void. So no "child" can legally go into the military without their parents "knowing". If any parent knows the "child" did lie and sign, all he/she has to do is to expose the "child’s" age and that will nullify the contract. So it is still up to the parents and still something the parents can control, if they care about their kids that is.

    • Militarystuds.com is the website of Jim/Jeff Gurcket/Gannon a Bush White house plant and a devoted Republican. Not only did he have Militarystuds.com, but he had 2 other sites where he displayed his naked crouch, he claimed to be in the military and posted his rate at $200 per hour or 2,000 per weekend. He also worked for the GOP websites, last I heard they were still promoting the Republicans...Right?

      It was Mr. G/G’s job to ask derogatory questions about the Democrats (that is the left) and introduce Rove talking points. You really must get your facts straight before you gay bash the left about militarystuds.com. G/G is a devoted Bush supporter and a reputed Rove lover. It would probably be best not to bring it up if you don’t like the facts.

    • uh-huh, right, yup, bullshit.

    • am i to take seriously the opinions of a man who cannot spell?

    • This boy is just another pathetic monument to the failure of public education: tremendous "self esteem" and zero brains. Oh, by the way junior, i am a native american and i fail to understand when an ignorant white boy gets all exercised about things that don’t mean a rats ass to me.