Ehren Watada needs to be punished with the highest punishment that the military can dish out to him for his offense. My reason is simple. What sets our military establishment apart from other countries, as well as what makes our country so great, is that in America, military officers do not just do what they feel like doing against their civilian leaders. This precedent was set by none other than George Washington himself. Our military leaders follow what their elected officials decide, no matter what their personal politics are at the time.

Imagine if his beliefs were different. Say for example, he disagreed with President Bush's policy against Israel and led an attack on them because he felt our president's view of supporting them were illegal. Or worse, say he thought the presidential election was won illegally by George Bush (which many left-wing liberals believe), so he just decides to militarily overthrow the government.

Would he still be considered a hero?

When it comes to foreign policy, our civilian leadership has been elected to make the big decisions, not our military officers. When you sign up to join the ranks, you agree to carry out the decisions of the president and all of the civilian leaders to the utmost of your ability.

Soldiers do have a right to make personal decisions of legality in their own sphere of operations though. For example, if his commanding officer ordered him to hang every man in the city and lead all of the women and children away to become slaves, he could then disobey an unlawful order without punishment. But to believe that he understands foreign policy better than the president is just wrong and absurd.

In the years following the victory at Yorktown over the British, a majority of the officers disagreed with the federal government at the time and planned on a military coup. George Washington stopped them even though he agreed with them because it was not good for the country. The precedent that Lt. Ehren Watada sends is also not in the best interest of the country.

Were he just a coward, which I believe he is, then I'd say discharge him so as not to disgrace the uniform of our honorable servicemen. But his decision to defy his civilian leaders set a bad precedent, which deserves a more severe punishment.

Lopaka Ornellas of Honolulu wrote this commentary for The Advertiser.