British officer sentenced to 8 months in jail

A Royal Air Force officer has been sentenced to eight months in jail for refusing to obey five separate orders to go to Iraq:

Australian-born Flight-Lieutenant Malcolm Kendall-Smith, 37, was convicted by a five-member panel of officers of what the judge called "calculated and deliberate disobedience" of five orders to train, prepare and deploy to Iraq last year.

Kendall-Smith said he viewed the war as a crime and could not participate in any form.

But judge Jack Bayliss ruled British troops were in Iraq in 2005 with the permission of the United Nations, and that Kendall-Smith's view of the war's legality was no defense.

"Obedience to orders is at the heart of any disciplined force. Refusal to obey orders means that force is not a disciplined force but a rabble," he said.

"Those who wear the queen's uniform cannot pick and choose the orders they follow."

If Kendall-Smith felt that the war was so wrong, he always had the option of resigning his commission. If he felt that way, then doing any of his normal military duties could be construed as furthering the war, so his philosophical objections lack consistency. Disobeying direct orders is merely grandstanding, not following one's conscience. He was lucky to get off with such a light sentence.