Why the mistrial for Lt. Watada's case?

One viewpoint:

But in its zeal to exclude the real meaning of the case, the court tied itself up in procedural knots. Prosecutors wanted the judge to find that Watada had agreed to pretrial stipulations that he had violated his duty when he refused to show up for movement to Iraq. But Watada made clear that he believed his duty, under his oath and military law, was to refuse to participate in an illegal war. As the underlying question of the war's illegality emerged like a family secret in the courtroom, the judge agreed to the prosecutor's motion to declare a mistrial. But Time.com reported that Watada's attorney, Eric Seitz, says he will file an immediate motion to dismiss the case on grounds of double jeopardy if the Army tries to resurrect it.

Watada maintained that his refusal to participate in an illegal war in Iraq was justified, indeed required, under the Army's own Uniform Code of Military Justice. Under Judge Head's rulings, however, there simply would be no way for a soldier to resist an illegal order. Indeed, an American military person could be ordered to commit mass murder or genocide and then be denied the right even to make a case for the lawfulness of his actions. The judge's rulings fly in the face of the Supreme Court's Hamdan v. Rumsfeld decision, which stood for the principle that all US officials are bound by national and international law not to commit war crimes.

The Army maintained that the duty to refuse an illegal order, established at the Nuremberg Trials and enshrined in the Universal Code of Military Justice, applies only to orders to commit particular criminal acts like executing a prisoner. But in Watada, Resister, a January 27 video by New America Media's Curtis Choy, Watada says that responsibility "doesn't just include individual war crimes. It includes the greatest crime against the peace, which is, as they determined after Nuremberg, wars of aggression, wars that are not out of necessity but out of choice for profit or power or whatever it may be."

Watada's dissent was intended to spark a movement of civil resistance on the part of the American people. As he told the Veterans for Peace annual convention in Seattle recently, the peace movement needs a change of strategy.

That was fast!

Watada's attorney was against the calling of a mistrial, but... :

FORT LEWIS, Wash. (AP) -- A judge declared a mistrial Wednesday in the court-martial of an Army lieutenant who refused to deploy to Iraq, saying the soldier did not fully understand a document he signed admitting to elements of the charges.

Prosecutors said 1st Lt. Ehren Watada admitted in the document that he had a duty to go to Iraq with his fellow soldiers. Watada, however, said he admitted only that he did not go to Iraq with his unit, not that he had a duty to go.

Military judge Lt. Col. John Head granted prosecutors' request for a mistrial, which Watada's lawyer opposed. He set a March 12 date for a new trial and dismissed the jurors.

More in this post.

Update:

A date for a new court martial has been set for March 19 but lawyers for Watada said they hoped Wednesday's ruling would mark the end of proceedings.

"The mistrial is very likely to have the consequence of ending this case because double jeopardy may prevent the government from proceeding with a retrial," said Eric Seitz, lead attorney for Watada.

"Although the defense was prepared to proceed with Lt. Watada's testimony, and felt very optimistic about this trial, we view the order declaring a mistrial as a significantly positive event."