Posted on 11/27/2004 3:16:53 AM PST by Clive
Days before George W. Bush comes to Canada, three of his countrymen have been dealt a blow in their campaign to receive refugee status and be allowed to live here. Jeremy Hinzman is one of the three claimants -- former members of the U.S. military who refuse to fight in Iraq.
The federal refugee board declared that it is irrelevant whether the Iraq war is legal or illegal. It does not, they said, have any bearing on Hinzman's right to stay in this country or be declared a valid refugee.
The board is quite right, of course. What it should also say is that these three men should stop wasting Canadian time and money and be sent back to the free and democratic United States where their punishment will be moderate and appropriate.
Appropriate because they were, indeed, members of the American military. They may go to prison for a while and then receive a dishonourable discharge from the armed forces. One would have thought that any person with principles would welcome such a fair conclusion.
I happen to be opposed to the war in Iraq, but that is not the point. The United States has a volunteer army and nobody is forced to serve. More than that, some of those applying for refugee status also volunteered for advanced units such as the airborne.
Forgive my cynicism, but surely by the time you complete basic infantry training and then advanced paratroop training you might have just the hint of an idea that your role is to fire guns at the enemy and obey orders.
It's particularly troubling because there are thousands of deserving refugee claimants, many of them black and brown and poor, who are desperate to enter Canada and who face torture and execution in their homelands.
Their welcome has never been as generous as that given to people who run away from the United States. And it is this attitude, surely, that characterizes the hostility being directed towards President Bush as he prepares to visit Canada.
It may well be that Bush's foreign policy is unfair and unwise but that has relatively little to do with it. He is despised by the chattering classes in Canada for the same reason that a bunch of deserters are so lionized. Because it's a way of screaming at the United States.
And why do they scream at the United States? Because they are jealous, smug and bitter. I'd like to sound more understanding, I really would, but the evidence does not allow me such an indulgence.
For decades various Soviet leaders visited Canada and we heard barely a whisper from labour leaders, Canadian nationalists, television personalities and newspaper columnists. Yet these men directed a foreign policy that made the clumsiest of American excesses appear generous.
When the Soviets invaded Hungary and Czechoslovakia and murdered so many of their people, when half of Europe was imprisoned, when grotesque terrorist movements were sponsored and trained, there were no mass demonstrations in Canada or calls to indict assorted Soviet bosses.
Similarly with China and its rape of Tibet and subjugation of its own people. Maoist leaders visited Canada and only members of the Chinese diaspora protested. The Canadian left and its media representatives found these various Marxist thugs to be meaningful rather than monstrous.
The hypocrisy runs deep, and so does the guilt. Canada's immigration policy, for example, was inherently racist for more than half a century. During these years the Americans opened their doors to people who because of their race or class were considered to be beneath Canadian standards.
None of this makes Canada a bad country. It does, however, make Canada a lesser country.
Like a child who constantly measures his self-worth by how nasty he can be about his big brother, even when the sibling has done nothing wrong.
American policies deserve to be criticized but only by those who have a moral right do so, based on their own consistency and integrity.
As for the American deserters, they can go home, face their punishment like men and then write best-selling books about the horror of it all. Books that will no doubt become best sellers in good old Canada.
You said it all in a word - coward.
Canada has only one test of morality. "Will it really piss off the United States if we do it?" if the answer is "Yes", they will go ahead with it. Canada has very little to cling to in the matter of 'superiority' and they hope that by putting Americans on the defensive they will hide that inconvenient little fact.
Continue to respond to their whining with a quiet, "We don't care what you think" and go on about your business. Canada will go on depending for everything meaningful on the USA and kicking them in the teeth at all opportunities. Sell them things and otherwise ignore them.
And the problem with the draft was . . . . . ?
The draftees served as honorably as those who volunteer.
The inconsistency is in the fact that the writer wants the deserters sent back to the US today but, during 'Nam, Canada welcomed them with open arms.
Is a violation of of the UCMJ such as this be one that would put a mark on one's civilian "record"?
Any conviction by court martial under the UCMJ is a Federal conviction, and would have to be acknowledged on job applications, etc. (A fact I had the pleasure of relating to one of my EM after his conviction by summary court martial, and prior to his transfer out of my platoon).
And the problem with the draft was . . . . . ?The draftees served as honorably as those who volunteer.
I have absolutely nothing against the draftees. I was drafted on 26 Oct 1965.
The inconsistency is in the fact that the writer wants the deserters sent back to the US today but, during 'Nam, Canada welcomed them with open arms.
The difference now – as the writer pointed out – is that today we have an all volunteer force. These people asked to join the US Military. Some went even further and asked to become airborne. At the time of the Viet Nam War there were non-volunteers running to Canada.
The difference is that those now seeking “asylum” are all volunteers who asked to join the US military. They had a choice. No one forced them to do it.
They made the choice and now should live with it.
With all due respect, I think you're splitting hairs. Many of those who volunteered during 'Nam, even those who volunteered to go to 'Nam, found themselves slinking across the border into Canada.
And, my veteran comrade, you'll also recall how Gerry Ford attempted to impose a penalty upon those who expressed a desire to return and Carter overturned it; thereby adding "sucker" to the title of veteran that we had earned.
The fact is that if Canada wants - or is willing to take - our detritus, why should we try to stop them? Remember, all of these would be "heroes" have been put to shame by a 21 year-old female PFC from WVa. named Lynch, a wounded cook named Shoshanna and a dead veteran named (please forgive me, I don't have her name quite right) Lori Pestikawa (something like that). I will take a dozen ladies like them on the battlefield (though I'd really rather they not be there at all) ANY DAY over the detritus that Canada is sending back.
That off my chest, I agree that there is a fractional difference in that today's force is AVF. Nonetheless, I remember another 21 year-old marine last year who went back to his base, accompanied by his mother and sister, to face AWOL charges proclaiming that he didn't realize that he would be required to break things and kill people when he joined the Marines. Hopefully, he is discovering the joy of converting large rocks into smaller rocks and dust in a brig somewhere.
Are you really as simple-minded as you appear?
It hardly seems likely, but then I re-examine your post and must wonder.
The fact is that if Canada wants - or is willing to take - our detritus, why should we try to stop them?
I am in complete agreement. Instead of us supporting them in prison, let them live elsewhere. Just don’t allow a Carter-like amnesty to happen a few years hence – that really ticked me off. I do think we would be better off without them, and the Hollywood celebrities who promised to leave.
Deserters, by definition, aren't men, they're cowards. We shouldn't expect them to act like men, and Canada is lesser for accepting them with open arms.
Good piece.
Read the article again.
Canada is opposing their application for refugee status and even the notoriously left wing refugee board has agreed with the Crown's argument in opposition to the principle issue put before it by the claimants.
How is this to be interpreted as "accepting them with open arms"?
By not immediately arresting and deporting them back to the U.S. Why harbor deserters in the first place?
He was in England.
Michael Coren emigrated to Canada just a few years ago.
Neither country summarily deports a refugee claimant without due process, which may involve hearings and appeals from hearings and extraordinary remedies such as Habeas Corpus.
I agree that, at least as far as Canada is concerned, the process is unduly favourable to the claimants, but this is not a plot to accept and harbour US military deserters.
Tell me that the US is able to quickly deport refugee claimants and does not let them wander about the US while the backlog is being worked through.
I agree that Canada's refugee claimant process has recently become extremely lax, the trend tracing back to the Trudeau government.
There have been some mild efforts since 9/11 to tighten up the process.
Until very recently, over 70 percent of refugee claimants arrive in Canada from the United States. The usual case was that a claimant in the US who was about to lose his application there would simply cross into Canada and start the process there. (Probably a reverse flow was also happening)
Canad and the US have just agreed to each treat claimants who have come through the other country as being not entitled to apply as they are coming from a safe country.
The deserters, of course, would argue that this cannot apply where the country from which they see asylum is not a third country but is in fact the United States itself. This argument cannot succeed. It can't pass the laughter test.
You make me feel like a softy. :)
Red6
Thanks for the amplification.
I was just curious because IIRC, there was talk that some of the new arrivals at
the airport in Toronto had absolutely no documentation, but were being treated
with kid gloves.
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