With respect, Steve, you have once again misconstrued my previous comment. I was making the reductio ad absurdum argument that it is very difficult to draw lines about what is "acceptable" beyond that specifically within the concept of conscientious objection. Once someone has agreed to put on the uniform as a combatant they are, with the exceptions I have noted previously, unable to pick and choose where that service might take place. Even at my level I cannot take responsibility for the decisions of those appointed over me.

One concept that I think has never been sufficiently articulated (although I have tried, in my discussion "moral compass") is this:

There is a difference between initiation of hostilities and being in a belligerancy.

Initiation occurs at a particular point in time; a belligerancy is the ongoing state of conflict. This concept is important to understand that there is really no such thing as an "illegal war" under international law. There is an "act of aggression" - which goes to initiation of the conflict. Only those people with the authority to engage forces (i.e., the national command authority) can be guilty of such an act. While it is also true that
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To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.
Robert H. Jackson, the chief American prosecutor, Nuremberg trials, not all acts that occur after the initiation of hostilities are in and of themselves war crimes or prohibited by international law. War of Aggression - Wikipedia

Once the state of "belligerancy" exists, however, there are only two statuses: combatant, or non-combatant. Combatants are "lawful targets," non-combatants are "protected persons" under the Geneva Conventions,
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Every person in enemy hands must have some status under international law: he is either a prisoner of war and, as such, covered by the Third Convention, a civilian covered by the Fourth Convention, or again, a member of the medical personnel of the armed forces who is covered by the First Convention. ' There is no ' intermediate status; nobody in enemy hands can be outside the law.
Commentary to Geneva Convention IV - Article 4, DEFINITION OF PROTECTED PERSONS.

I guess part of my problem with 1LT Watada is that he has set himelf up as judge and jury regarding international law and the actions of the National Command Authority (how egotistical), and that is not his place, nor is it the place of the Court Martial judge or panel. As I have said before, however, he can make a choice of conscience and suffer the consequences of it. His actions, however morally defensible, are not, nevertheless, legally defensible.

A well reasoned argument is like a diamond: impervious to corruption and crystal clear - and infinitely rarer.

Here, as elsewhere, people are outraged at what feels like a rigged game -- an economy that won't respond, a democracy that won't listen, and a financial sector that holds all the cards. - Robert Reich