Twitter
StumbleUpon
Facebook
Delicious
Digg
Newsvine
Google
Yahoo
TechnoratiWhy US War Resisters Deserve Refuge in Canada
Harper has allowed Canadian legal system to become an extension of American martial law
The struggles through Canadian courts and prisons by young American soldiers opposed to the war in Iraq has naturally raised the memory of another time, the arrival in our midst of thousands of young men resisting the draft and Vietnam War.
Forty years ago, American conscription created a lottery that meant a generation -- my exact contemporaries -- did not have the luxury I had of expressing political opinions without having to disobey the law. Many were able to get their requirement of service deferred. Some enlisted and then deserted, others just came to Canada as visitors and never left.
It was a different time then. Immigrants were not legally barred from applying for landed immigrant status from within Canada, and immigration officials were given much discretion in allowing young men through without asking too many questions about draft status or military service. That is not to say that decisions were taken lightly.
At the time, those coming over as draft dodgers and deserters knew they would not be able to return home without facing arrest. It would be years before a general amnesty would allow that to happen, and it applied just to the draft dodgers; deserters are still arrested if they return.
There was a sense of a deep inner conflict in each decision. Families left behind, parents bewildered, loyalties and values divided, often in ways that proved impossible to resolve.
The Pearson and Trudeau governments kept the border open, despite U.S. objections, and refused to allow Canadian border officials to become agents of American military policy. It strained the relationship -- as did public statements by Canadian officials about the war itself -- but it did not break it.
The Vietnam generation has made an extraordinary contribution to the life of the country. In every walk of life, in every profession, in every community, Canada is a better place because we decided to become a place of refuge for those seeking a different political home, even those who were defying American military law to do so.
How different life seems today. The young Americans and their families who have come to Canada because of their refusal to obey military orders in Iraq are being given no quarter or refuge by the Harper government. Robin Long is being held in a prison cell in British Columbia. Corey Glass hopes for some solace from a renewed application for refugee status after a judgment of the Federal Court.
What's changed? One argument is that the fact that the U.S., like Canada, now has a volunteer army. There is no draft, no conscription, so young women and men who sign up have no excuse, the argument goes. The war in Iraq was authorized by Congress, and that ends the argument. If you're unhappy with what the army is making you do, tough luck. You joined up, face the music.
The second argument is that after 9/11 we're all in this together. We didn't send troops to Iraq, but we are together in Afghanistan, and the depth of this alliance and common cause is such that we can't provide safe haven any more to war resisters. They're not refugees because they won't face undue harm or persecution for their views, just the consequences of breaking the law.
Yet there's something missing here. As in Vietnam, Canadian and American positions on the war in Iraq are quite different. Canada made it very clear that it did not think there was justification under international law for the invasion. There were no weapons of mass destruction, Saddam Hussein was not an ally of Osama bin Laden. Kofi Annan, the secretary general of the UN at the time, made it clear that the invasion was "illegal."
A soldier who is told to fight faces a conflict of values and loyalties. His president has told him things that he later discovers are quite untrue. His congressman and senator say they were misled, and would not have authorized the invasion had they been given accurate information. He realizes that what he's being asked to do is in no way authorized by international law. Political support for the mission is drying up. Hence the refusal to serve, or even the refusal to follow orders, or the refusal to show up for reserve duty when the call-up comes once again.
Putting things in perspective, the flow across the border -- in Vietnam times more than 50,000 strong -- is a trickle today. There is no draft, and it is a different time.
But the claim of conscience is as strong today as it was then. The people who are returned will face harassment, opprobrium, a criminal record. Their lives will be changed forever, and not for the better.
There is provision in our system to allow the minister of immigration to exercise discretion "on humanitarian and compassionate grounds" to those even denied refugee status to stay legally in Canada as permanent residents.
Canadian immigration law has changed -- people can no longer apply for landing from within the country -- but more than that our government's attitude has changed. And here lies the core of the matter. Last month Parliament expressed its view that those resisting a war Canada itself sees as unlawful should be permitted asylum and residence in the country.
But the Harper government takes a different view. Our prisons become an extension of American martial law. The same government that won't lift a finger for Omar Khadr, that won't raise its voice on behalf of those Canadians on death row in the U.S., acts more and more like a Republican farm team than a sovereign government.
The price for this is very high. Young people of conscience, judgment and talent are denied the chance to make Canada their home. We as a country are denied the chance to benefit from their joining us as members of our family. And our own sense of capacity and dignity is diminished once again by a government that is less than what Canadians need and deserve.
Bob Rae is the Liberal MP for Toronto Centre and the party's foreign affairs critic.
© Copyright Toronto Star 1996-2008
19 Comments so far
Show AllPlease pardon the double post...technical difficulties
These Guys aren't Draft Dodgers or resistors in any respectable way...they are deserters...yes...War sucks...I have seen it up close...but what sucks more is an enemy that wants to kill me because I don't believe in Allah...well I don't believe in Allah and I doubt anyone else on this forum does...so I guess we all targets of radical Islam
Canada can have them...I certainly don't want Cowards back.
These Guys were not Draft Dodgers or Objectors in any respactable way....They Volunteered...and then relity hit them...War isn't pretty...in fact it sucks...I have seen it up close....But war is a necessary Evil...especially against an enemy that wants to kill you only because you don't believe in Allah....well I don't believe in Allah and I suspect no one else on this forum does...so guess what?...all of us are targets. My Son is the 101st Airborne and he is seeing it up close in Bagdad right now....As Lee said "it is well that War is so terrible, else we should grow too fond of it"
Legally these deserters have simply placed themselves in a no win position. The UCMJ (Uniform Code of Military Justice) as well as the Geneva Accords and the Nuremberg Accords, allow for any member of the Military who believe that they are being given illegal orders have the OBLIGATION, as well as the right to refuse those orders. It also should be recognized that as "volunteers" they have the right to fuse illegal order, they may be court martialed, and dishonorably discharged, but they most likely will not suffer anything more than "house arrest or restriction to base" until the trial.....these deserters can be jailed in a brig or stockade, and not allowed bail. As deserters they open themselves to criminal charges from both the military and civilian judicial systems. They also make themselves subject to treatment that would or could put them in the position to be facing execution; although that has not occurred for desertion since WWII.
I empathize with their situation, but they need to approach this matter with more professionalism and find better advise.
Canada is bound by treaty to return them, and the Canadians have a better reputation than the USA in that area.
If someone doesn't want to serve I would hope that Canada would extend refuge and citizenship to them. It would be an admirable act of a friend.
In the early a mid 1960s I had a typical Canadian worker's job; I was in a Canadian branch of a USA owned business. There was a large lunch room where those of us working on the floor, and all the management types, older guys wearing white shirts and ties, ate our lunches. Usually we floor types ate at one time, and the shirts ate the following hour after we had gone back to work.
For a few weeks I was on a timetable where I ate at the same time as the shirts.
A couple of days I sat alone while they, at another table, agreed with each other that Canada should not allow in draft dodgers...if they would not fight for their own country, they would not fight for ours, and so on.
Then, one day, their conversation turned to what all of them did during World War II, 1939-1945 for Canada. All of them had not been in the military (There were about six in the group, all guys in their forties, or so. I had never been around a group of that many fellows in that age group in which not one had been in the military during WWII.). They had all gone through that war on civvie street. What struck me was their hilarious stories about staying out of the forces, getting extra tires for themselves, extra gasoline, extra all sorts of things to get around the rationing.
They laughed like a son of a gun!
When people today talk about not letting young men from another country come here to escape military service, I think of those shirts.
The Harper government is clearly a fascist, right-wing one It cannotd see that there was a time when the world looked up to Canada as a genuine moral force in the world for peace. conflict resolution.
Canada was renowned in the world as one of it's major peace keepers. It possessed the rare ability to help warring states peacefully resolve their differences.
But, sadly, the Canadian people have changed which is why they voted in the likes of Harper and his ilk.
WSe need more politicians like Rae to lead Canada back to an exaulted place in the eyes of the world rather than just another lackey of the neo-cons in the United States.
Canada is a British Commonwealth nation. The US has since the early 70's been subjected to a coup, and is now a crypto-Commonwealth nation. We are now under the control of London and serve the Queen. The Iraq war (now occupation) was to expand the British Empire and secure the oil. Now that they have fully recovered us, they outsource the job to US so we pay the cost and take the heat. Therefore, Canada can not accomodate Americans who are against Anglo-American imperialism. This would be disloyal to their sovereign, the Queen We are today essentially a defacto British Commonwealth nation that serves the Queen. Look how many Americans have been knighted. America is pursuing the same Free Trade policies that destroyed Britains last Empire, and when America is destroyed, the fleas will jump ship to the new superpower being built up in China, and they will likely take over the Empire building after the next great war.
Harper is Canadas Bush. He has no loyalty to Canada. If you allow the Senate to be elected rather than appointed, or to have term limits, then you can kiss your Health Care good bye and will have no hope to recover from the fascism that is waiting to overwhelm you.
He could say stuff like this and still get elected. Amazing. But then we voted for Bush in 2004, if not in 2000
"Canada is a Northern European welfare state in the worst sense of the term, and very proud of it", "if you're like all Americans, you know almost nothing except for your own country. Which makes you probably knowledgeable about one more country than most Canadians"
I would love to see Canada open it's borders to war resisters. We have to get rid of Harper. I never thought I would ever vote for the 'lesser of 2 evils' and vote for the Liberal party but next election (hopefully soon if the Liberals would get off their lame asses and call one on Harper), I and many others I know, will vote Liberal just to help get rid of the Nazi.
If you haven't seen the Energy Non-crisis, watch it: video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3340274697167011147 Lindsey Williams is annoying but I've been told by an environmental lawyer that he has his facts about the Alaska oil reserves pretty straight.
Just ask Matthis, Chiroux, he like many IVAW people are refusing to leave the US. He says it's an Illegal Invasion of a Sovereign Nation we are now foreign invaders Occupying THEIR country, as such he is NOT required to be redeployed to Iraq because it is not a legal War. We are Occupiers.
IVAW and the bunch of us, Veterans for Peace support one anothers Actions, CodePink supports us from the DC House group, anyway, they are always in the Rayburn when we have different stuff that the more the merrier so we fill the room. Matthis is a photo-journalist and was honorably discharged when, the ol' Stop-Loss one-two punch, hey, you're going back to Iraq!
The PTSD is destroying this generation of Troops from mass abuse by the MURDERER.
Certainly the STOP LOSS people are not volunteers. Canada should accept these people right away. Secondly anyone who would be in a position to receive illegal orders involving torture or support of an illegal occupation should also be accepted. Anyone who would be punished for refusing to pay taxes in support of torture and illegal occupation should also be invited in.
Canada would be very crowded.
US War Resistors shouldn't be begging Canada but instead should get their shit together and throw out both parties. A vote for a Democrat is a vote for more GOP madness !
What's changed is the hardened hearts of a tory gov't. I wrote to my MP about the issue of torture, and asked why we continued to transfer prisoners to a country - the usa - where they faced the likelyhood of being tortured. I pointed out that their president admitted that the usa tortures people, that the MP's could be held accountable for allowing Canucks to be tortured there.
The response was a tepid assurance that the gov't of Canada was concerned with how the Afghanistan Gov't was treating prisoners.
The issue of torture in the usa was ignored.
I have no hope left for the future of Canada, the willing colony of the usa.
Cedar: "US Tax Payers Deserve Refuge in Canada or Mexico or Cuba or …"
Huh? Please explain your above comment. From what I can gather, your argument is that because someone is a US tax payer, they are entitled to resettle anywhere?
I will help out anyone who wants to hide out here in this part of the world get ahold of The Big Raven and together we will turn this thing around.
It is sickening how our poorly trained so called canadian leaders just bend over and lets your fellow countrymen screw us up the arse just so a few allready overly rich greedy bastards and bitches make a few more dollars with bloodstained hands.
PEACE is for EVERYONE!
US Tax Payers Deserve Refuge in Canada or Mexico or Cuba or ...
War resisters can also be helped by making your town or city into a sanctuary city for war resisters. It takes a simple city council resolution and some oversight to make sure it gets enforced.
While I fully support US war resisters being given sanctuary in Canada, we must recognise this so-called refugee status for what it is: a political point being argued by both resisters and lawmakers. If you follow the link to the Toronto Star, where this article was originally published, one will see a number of dissenting voices for and against war resisters coming to Canada to avoid the consequences of desertion. The arguments generally focus on whether breaking a voluntary contract with the US army merits Canada's sympathies or not.
However, I believe that what Canadian judges are doing is in fact a form of activism in the face of both US and Canadian involvement in the Iraq war. But this begs the question of where Canadian war resisters have to flee to. For indeed we - Canada - are also at war (explicitly with the Taliban in Afghanistan, implicitly with Iraq insurgents through our development of arms for the US forces, not to mention our status in Haiti). Could Canadian soldiers in theory find refuge in, say, Sweden or Mongolia? Or how about back to the US? Politicians like Bob Rae might want to look at our own policies on our armed forces and what happens when the situation gets more and more dangerous for our soldiers overseas. For, as we know, more NATO soldiers are now getting killed in Afghanistan on a monthly basis than US troops in Iraq.
"But the Harper government takes a different view. Our prisons become an extension of American martial law. The same government that won't lift a finger for Omar Khadr, that won't raise its voice on behalf of those Canadians on death row in the U.S., acts more and more like a Republican farm team than a sovereign government."
That's pretty much it in a nutshell isn't it? Kudos to Bob Rae for speaking up about this important issue. As a Canadian, every one of my fellow citizens that I've spoken to about allowing American war resisters to come to Canada, fully support the idea. Stephen Harper's neo-fascist government is out of step with the wishing of many Canadians.
I hope that Canadians wake up soon and realize that Harper and his cohorts are nothing more than American style fascists in Canadian clothing.