back here with r.t. if you're just joining us these are the top stories the first lap of age of parliamentary poll sees the highest turnout average while the haze of uncertainty still harbors over the election with authorities slow to deliver their results. no way out germany's angela merkel admits europe's debt crisis is here to stay as leaders pinned their hopes on yet another a last minute deal to stave off financial meltdown. and a legal loophole in the u.k. allows thousands of foreign criminals to stay in the country convicted rapists murderers and beautiful use it to escape just punishment and divert attention. so

the headlines here in our next hour will bring our special report on the tough decisions a soldier sometimes has to make a life and death moral dilemma of shooting to kill that's coming up in soldiers of conscience are to. you know. i'm out of the things that happened in iraq. make when people ask me if i killed anybody. the more it's not as clear cut as the portrayed in the movie. there was this one time where position on this rooftop.

was like a political protest that turned violent everyone is quiet. and this young man emerges. and it's got something in his head. and i know that it's a grenade and. but i also know that he can't do anything to us because he's still fighting. and. everything that i described to you i'm looking through the rear operator of my i'm sixteen side so it's rare very very very intense moment and.

i don't remember squeezing the trigger and i remember i don't remember seeing him go down all i remember is that we shot him and the next image that i have is you know two men came from the crowd and grabbed him by the shoulders and pulled him through up bottle of blood. and then i remember that after that mission was over you know before we moved on to our next mission you know i went into a dark room by myself and i pulled up my magazine and i counted the bullets and i realized i had fired eleven bullets at him. and. and it changes you.

weren't it's really hard to sit down and make moral decisions when you're trying to stay alive somebody shoots at you you need only take cover you have your finger on the safety immediately goes to fire you know you do everything without even thinking about it and. but then i came home and to whitney. and removed from that dangerous situation removed from that pressure i start thinking about the war. looking for answers. and. something changed my life. i began to object in a more profound personal spiritual way to war. so

i made a commitment. that i was a conscious objector and that i wasn't going back. and it wasn't a decision that took place overnight you know it's a painful process because it's healing but it's could destroy. this whole this is this is fear this this freak bred this this the issue of camaraderie and you know your bodies in war and also the fear of punishment and all the skill and being tried by a court martial system the words the words court martial you know it's like so evil and so bad. all these horrible images you know come to us like you know being a coward and being a traitor and you know losing your freedom and ended up in

a jail and then suddenly you know i say you know. i'm not going to go to war i'm not going to go back to that i'm not going to go back to obey everything that i'm told. keep him out. and ignoring the fact that i have a conscience i'm going to take a stand and i'm going to say. when one applies for conscientious objector status there is a regulation that fully guides a soldier through the process. the soldier makes a formal application to his chain of command requesting conscientious objector

status. the soldier has a burden of proof the soldier has to prove that the beliefs are genuine that the beliefs are real that the beliefs crystallized after the soldier came on active duty the soldier is interviewed by the chain of command by a chaplain a person through mental health and they compile a complete application documenting their beliefs and why they think they should be a conscientious objector and independent investigating officer is important then the entire package has to go through the chain of command in his ultimate reviewed by a board. at headquarters department of the army and then ultimately a decision is made whether or not the soldiers a conscientious objector. staff

sergeant. refused to return. decision that he took the risk. why did this soldier go away won't this soldier won a will because the soldier does not think that this is a good war and when you look at the war a look at the reasons that took us to war and you don't find any of the things that we were told that we're going to war for trying to be true when you don't find that there were weapons of mass destruction and what you don't find there was a link between saddam hussein and al qaeda and you see that you're not helping the people and you see that the people don't want you there to me there is no military contract and no military duty that is going to justify being a part of that war. and it just exploded because i was the first combat veteran to come back from iraq and go public and say this is wrong.

i did not prepare a statement because what i have to say i have to say from the heart and it's a very simple mention it a message and it simply is that i'm saying no to war. i want to run and i was an instrument of violence and now i have decided to become an instrument of peace. i have the side i'm not going to be a part of the war but i'm going back to the military today i have really no idea what's going to happen but whatever happens if they try to say that i'm a criminal and they gave me many years in jail unless i know that that i made the right decision in the god has forgiven me already thank you. and i'm like oh man.

i went back to the military. and everything that i feared happened i was called a coward i was called a traitor. i was. accused of assertion i was try i was convicted i was sentenced i was put in jail and the me tell you after never felt freer in my life you know there's a higher assertion of your freedom. to follow your conscience. when

it comes to conscientious objectors one thing that occurs to me right up front is their freedom to dissent is made possible by the soldiers that they criticize that in a perfect world it would be great if we could all be peaceful and not harm each other but we don't live in a perfect world. and i wonder about the conscientious objector. what would he do if that was his or her responsibility. to defend others. it's one thing to say that i will sit and take the punishment. and if someone wants to do that based on their religious beliefs or their convictions then i respect that absolutely. but i have trouble respecting them saying i will allow someone else to get hurt when i could stop it.

people tell me you know what would have happened if hitler was not stopped. well what would have happened if there would have been enough conscience objectors in the nazi army that would have been a war that would have been no hitler. there would have been no holocaust were if you believe that there never can be enough people were conscious objectors to stop a monster like hitler then it's never going to happen first you have to dream it and then you have to live your dream and make it happen for you to tell me that you know i suppose that there are going to be that many consciences objectors you know that just tells me that you know that just gives you more energy to say it is possible you weak we can have that many conscience objects we have to believe that if we don't believe that and for we don't have that dream and we don't live up to

the dream how are we how are we going to survive as a human race if we continue to embrace war as a solution in some cases and we continue to think that there can never be enough conscience objectors to stop an army. i was at abu ghraib for about six months total of interrogation time. when i wasn't at the interrogation center when i was on my free time i spent a lot of time in the chapel praying. most interrogating

schoolboys young fathers the moms average people taken off the streets and put into my interrogation booth. yeah finally five months into my time at abu ghraib i had an interrogation with a man who was a self-proclaimed jihadist. he told me that he had a certain peace because of his faith in islam. that if it was the will of god for him to stay in prison. and if he never was released it would be ok with that and he challenged me wondering if i had that same kind of peace in my life. wondering if i had the same kind of spiritual centered this to take that kind of fate. he then threw talking about jesus that i wasn't fulfilling the call to turn the other cheek to love one's

enemies. it took a little bit offense to this comment. because it came from the mouth of a self-proclaimed geologist who told me that he would kill me if he had the chance . at something it definitely occurred within. one pose with that kind of challenge i had nothing i could say to him i absolutely agree with him. my position as a u.s. army interrogator contradicted my calling simply as a christian and it hindered my ability to do things like love my enemies. i stopped the interrogation. but lost all perspective as a soldier. i wanted to ask him about his willingness to kill me i wanted to ask him about the peace that he found in his religion and if there could possibly

be a way to get outside of the cycle of vengeance that the that he and i could share. in the regulation governing conscience objection. there's an element that they call the crystallization of conscience and every c.e.o. applicant has to say what that was for them and the interrogation with that you noticed was my crystallization of conscience. and it wasn't that a bunch of new beliefs suddenly emerged out of nowhere i realized for me to follow christ. involves taking seriously the charge for peacemaking. in the beginning of february two thousand and five i formally submitted my

application to be considered a conscientious objector. my application was proved by the thirtieth of may i was out of the army. i lived as a soldier for ten years. some of the things that happened in iraq you know things that my father told me started coming back and i like this award you were trying to tell me. and i started thinking about. changing my mind or more every want to put it but it took being over there for almost seven months and then being back here for a year and i have you know really doing a lot of deep down reflection. i guess the term of soul searching.

when i talk about it with my wife going over it over and over again thinking about it. and i spend a lot of time learning reevaluating my mild person and myself and how i warned that myself. when i guess you can go back to a letter that i had written to monaco when we were in the area of iraq that was supposed to be where the garden of the. pride of civilization is where man time began. i had to ask myself. why am i carrying around in six feet in the garden.

for you right. there's nothing honorable in killing i went to the war zone and i started seeing how i need to change and the way to do that and not pick up a rifle and kill another person that's why i'm applying for jobs in subject the or. the. sergeant bindra

was to essentially be on an airplane and fly to iraq with his unit and these offenses go to the essence of what it is to serve in the military you cannot have discipline if you have people that are disobeying orders. no sarc haven't been or been has been charged and the level of court martial that is the most serious type the maximum penalty that he faces right now is five years confinement and a dishonorable discharge. with regards to united states versus been determined at this time the charges before the court are desertion and missing movement. sark been immense c.e.o. application was denied. it was clearly a hostile hostile environment where he's one of those confidence

objector applicants minority that they are and. by golly you know will send the message that you don't do this. humanity eventually figured out that human sacrifice was wrong so they stopped doing that and we eventually figured out the slavery was wrong so we stopped doing that so why don't we use the same criteria for war and i just get away from it all the way all together.

here you have. ten year army veteran const back from iraq with an enhanced sense of humanity. has dangers for the military they don't want forty year old soldier to say hey it's before our brothers and sisters.

sergeant benderman was found guilty of one charge of missing movement by design he will be reduced to the grade of anyone confined for fifteen months in dishonorably discharged. if there's anything that i can get across to other soldiers that i am not against them. but i am against war.

no soldier should leave their conscience behind in a war it's not that morality doesn't apply in war morality is most important because the the soldier can do so much good or so much bad. by no means will my conscience objection eliminate the need for militaries tomorrow but the goal is to create a society that moves ever toward that. peace is not a utopian vision it can happen but it takes people willing to commit both their faith and their practical efforts to achieving it and you're not going to

achieve that by constantly falling back on yesterday's wrong solution. you have to have the guts to try something new. and. people who are applying for conscience objection and refusing military service are saying i have a different picture of tomorrow's humanity and i want to be involved in creating that. no one really wants to go to war but you know sometimes something's came into what it. was all about. like all different cultures if i feel. as well as there's one person try to take the power from some other person a force it isn't always be war. well maybe we are night. maybe it starts out me naive and then

you know as more people become conscious objectors as more people and brace the concept of pacifism then it's no longer naive like you may have been naive to say that we can reach the moon. maybe naive you know people might have looked at you like you were crazy or a dreamer. starts off being naive then you're a dreamer then maybe it's possible and then one day. you know. you progress your speed. sure.

you'll. thank.

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