The 23-year-old New Yorker said he refused to support a war he believed was illegal and immoral.
Prosecutors had asked the judge to sentence Paredes to nine months of confinement. Paredes and prosecutors left the courtroom without commenting.
Paredes had requested conscientious objector status after he refused to board the ship. A Navy officer found that his refusal was based on political opposition to the Iraq war, not a moral opposition to all war, and recommended it be denied.link
It’s not easy for older folks to think of someone as a hero simply because he refuses to participate in crimes against humanity. That’s just being a decent human being.
But the bar has been lowered so far it drags the ground, and in a society, if one can call it that, based on the principle that it is better to spend a dollar to murder your neighbor’s child than a dime to care for your own, decency is the enemy of the rich man’s hold on the gold.
Pablo is a Hero, by anybody’s definition.