Posted on 12/07/2004 7:01:23 AM PST by Pikamax
U.S. deserters go home! I'd rather march for gay Jamaicans
By MARGARET WENTE Tuesday, December 7, 2004 - Page A19
Jeremy Hinzman has been having a not-bad time since he fled to Canada a year ago. He's become a hero on the campus circuit. Famous musicians have sung at benefits to raise money for him. David Suzuki, Shirley Douglas, Olivia Chow and the Steelworkers union have signed petitions for him. He's so busy he has a publicist. Best of all, he's given those nostalgic old war protesters a new reason to polish their peace medallions.
Mr. Hinzman is AWOL from the U.S. military, and has claimed refugee status in Canada (his hearing started yesterday). Several other military refugees are waiting in the wings. It all reminds you of the glory days, when 50,000 or more draft dodgers streamed across the border to escape the war in Vietnam.
There's just one little wrinkle: There's no draft any more. Mr. Hinzman and the others volunteered. Mr. Hinzman, in fact, volunteered for the paratroopers, who are trained to drop out of the sky to kill people. He claims he was horrified by this revelation. You've got to wonder just what job skill he thought he'd signed up to acquire.
Because of this awkward fact, Mr. Hinzman's supporters are scrambling for other ways to plead his case. They've already tried the illegal-war defence, which, alas, was rejected by the refugee tribunal. (This is a good thing, since, by the definition they used, Canada is guilty, too.) Now they're arguing that, if he'd gone to Iraq, he would have been forced to torture prisoners and commit other war crimes. And if that one fails, there's always the Wal-Mart defence. It argues that U.S. soldiers are victims of economic persecution, and were forced to join up or else spend the rest of their lives enslaved as Wal-Mart greeters.
I am not without sympathy for Mr. Hinzman, whose recent conversion to pacifism, Buddhism and vegetarianism strikes me as sincere. If so, he should be sincere enough to return home and face the music. Contrary to what you are about to hear, he does not face death by lethal injection. A couple of years in the slammer is more like it.
Only in Canada would this man get a day in court at all, because no other country considers refugee claimants from the United States. "If you come from a country that has human rights and democracy, you shouldn't even be able to put your name in the system," says Martin Collacott, a former Canadian diplomat who is an advocate of refugee reform. But we're so nice, we'll hear out anyone -- Australians, Japanese, even a Venezuelan woman who claimed she faced persecution for being too fat.
Most of these claims fail. But they clog up the system and they cost money. Not only that, some failed claimants hang around for years. One former terrorist has been appealing for 16 years, and he's still here. Our Immigration Minister has promised to do something about this, but she's been too busy defending the labour-market rights of strip-club owners.
I have a sneaking suspicion that the people who are cheering loudest for Mr. Hinzman are really cheering for themselves. They need a way to show that the U.S. is bad, and Canada is good, and they are on the side of good. One of them even compared our compassion for the deserters to the compassion we once showed for runaway slaves.
If compassion really is in our Canadian blood, may I suggest some other groups that might be worthy of it? What about divorced women from any Arab state? They're fair game for gender persecution, and face a life of dependency and harassment. Or pregnant unwed girls? Their brothers can kill them with impunity. Or how about gay Jamaican men? I heard one make his case on the radio the other day. Several of his friends are dead -- victims of a violent, macho culture where the wrong sexual orientation can get you murdered. He's made a refugee claim, too. But he's not getting nearly as much airtime as Mr. Hinzman.
So maybe we could put on a show for this poor guy. We could launch a petition, have a concert, smoke some weed. We could pretend it's the '60s again, maybe even do a little good. The only thing is, Mr. Hinzman's not a victim of the evil U.S. war machine.
Aw, heck. In that case, forget it.
Probably the guy just wanted the benefits without the responsibilities. What a loser.
I think he has essentially admitted to that.
Canada: deport him.
What a disgrace!!!
He probably won't get death by leathal injection. I would recommend hanging.
He should be tried and part of his punishment should be to pay back the US Taxpayers for all of his training and the wages we payed him.
Bingo.
When I joined the Air Force in 1972 I knew what the job was about. I still serve 32 years later and was over in the desert for Desert Storm and Iraqi Freedom. I didn't join and then all of a sudden wake up and realize what the job was all about. You hope you never have to go to war but that is what the job is about. I feel no sympathy for Hinzman. As the writer pointed out there is no draft so he can't claim he was forced to serve. He joined willingly. If he ever crosses the border into the US I hope they catch him and throw the book at him. I have more respect for my ggggg-grandfather who served in the Continental Army and went through the horrors of Valley Forge than this guy deserves. He obviously joined for the benefits and when called upon to do the job he signed up for to get these benefits he ran the other way. He's a disgrace to the men who served and died to keep this country free.
Canada send him home so we can hang him with a short rope.
Don't deport him. Keep him. We don't want him back.
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