Deserters should face the music like men...

Agreed.

The process is unduly favourable to claimants and has become a quick and easy way to jump the queu to get landed in Canada. Not much different happens in the US except that Canada is more generous with welfare payments and health benefits while the claimant awaits determination of his or her claim.

In this respect, the US deserters are not treated any differently. Regardless of the merits of a claim, the claimant has a right to avail himself of the process. The Supreme Court of Canada has ruled that once a foreignor's foot has touched Canadian soil he has recourse to the full procedural rights and safeguards that any Canadian would have.

We must distinguish between the merits of a claim and the procedural right to advance the claim and the right to remain while so doing.

But even in the US, a claimant will be recorded and released pending his claim and many simply disappear into the cities, only to be seen again if they commit crimes.

There was one important difference in the case of the draft-dodgers of the Vietnam era- they had no choice at all in the matter. These guys, OTOH, were volunteers who knew (or should have known) that they signed a contract to kill people and break things when so ordered.

And yes, I do oppose conscription- any society that is unable to motivate enough people to defend it is a society that's hardly worth defending.

Conscription isn't just about defending the country. It is about having a stake in America. I don't agree that everyone should be forced into the military, there are other ways of serving the country. However, I do believe that every male should serve some form of service to the country. On that point, we'll just have to agree to disagree. I suspect that both our minds are pretty firmly made up on this point.

Lots of different names are attached to mandatory service, most of which are intentionally negative. In many countries, conscription consists of a miltray truck driving through different neighborhoods and picking young men of draft age up and taking them to a processing center. At the processing center, they are given a cursory medical exam, fitted for uniforms and sent to whatever military base they will be assigned to. When the conscript has an opportunity, he is allowed to call his family and tell them not to hold dinner, he won't be home for awhile.

If our draft service worked that way, we would be in compete agreement. But the American system of selective service gives draft-age men ample opportunity to show why they shouldn't have to serve, and provides a number of different exemptions.

The fact is that mandatory conscription may not be the most fun thing you will do in your life but, IMO, it also isn't the worst. And, as I noted previously, I don't believe that the military should be the only form of mandatory service, but I do believe that there should be some form of mandatory service. Once you have provided service to your country, your perspectives change about things . . . . . . sometimes.

"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."

Outright lie. "Homelands" refers, in part, to the United States, based on what is all said in the article. Blacks here in America face TORTURE under the U.S. gov't?

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Your reading comprehension needs some upgrading. What the author is saying is that while Canada is entertaining the refugees status of a few U.S. deserters, there are the black, brown and poor (i.e. Sudanese, Nigerians, etc.) who face torture and execution back home if they fail to recieve refugee status in time.

This author is saying that although he doesn't agree with Bush or the War on Terror, those three deserting U.S. soldiers trying to get refugee status deserve to be sent back to the U.S. and face the music for their desertion. He is saying that claiming they will face undue persecution back home is laughable.

But I guess if he doesn't like Bush or the War on Terror then everything he has to say is anti-US and lies, right?

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