Hell no, don't let them go!

Today's column, in case you hadn't moseyed on over to the Star's main site, is all about the war resisters facing deportation and prison, no thanks to our friends on the minority government side of the House of Commons.

Here it is, with some notes and linky freshness.

Yes, technically Kimberly Rivera is a deserter.

True, in other times, she might have been shot.

But, when she signed on with the U.S. Army in 2006, she naively believed Iraq was all about rebuilding the country, creating democracy, keeping America safe from terrorists.

And why wouldn't she?

After all, the U.S. media were complicit in painting the false picture, never showing the death and destruction, rarely conveying the utter brutality of Baghdad and beyond, always broadcasting the White House spin about liberating Iraq.

What's more, it's now known that recruiters lied to so many of these poor country kids about what signing up would mean, and the videos didn't convey what was going on in Iraq.

For the record, I have one US vet friend (Lebanon) who vehemently disagrees with me on this score claiming, there was a war on! How stupid can you be? Maybe, but there was a huge machine of lies in operation, all the way from the White House to the TV networks to the recruiting stations.

But, as I point out,  Rivera soon found out that this was a very different kind of ''war,'' and she couldn't bear to be a part of it.

So, while on leave in 2007, she quit Colorado for Canada with her husband and two children to seek refugee status. Now she has three kids, including baby Katie who was born in Toronto.

They have been facing deportation for months. Yesterday was D-Day but, on Wednesday, Rivera got an emergency stay until the results of her judicial review are in.

Robin Long was not so lucky.

Now Prisoner L4830R35 in NAVCON Brig Miramar where he is serving 15 months – more than twice as long as another soldier who participated in the cold-blooded killing of four Iraqi men – Long has a felony conviction and is banned from Canada for 10 years, despite having a baby son here and a Canadian wife with multiple sclerosis.

But, then, Long probably is lucky he didn't get nailed for sedition. After all, he has repeatedly said that then-president George W. Bush was "a liar and a warmonger" for how he misled Americans into believing that Iraq was responsible for 9/11, that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, that Iraq was not all about the "corporate interests of oil."

But the colonel who court-martialled Long reports to officers who report to officers who reported to Bush. And she didn't much like the interviews he gave the Canadian media, which were the most damaging evidence used against him at his "trial."

Some 200 other Iraq war resisters are still in Canada, living day to day. They are, according to Immigration Minister Jason Kenney – he who banned British anti-war MP George Galloway last week from Canada – "bogus refugee claimants" who are "clogging up the system."

No question, the system is taxed. Refugee claims are up dramatically. But U.S. war resisters are easy to check out. Their fates are crystal clear.

Not only do they face certain prison sentences but they also are marked for life by a Canadian system that hands them over in cuffs and does not give them the option of turning themselves in to get lighter terms.

Is this the Canada we know and love? The one that welcomed 30,000 Vietnam War resisters? The one that, under Liberal prime minister Jean Chrétien, saw through the Bushies' bogus claims and refused to join the "Coalition of the Willing"? The one who, along with the United Nations, considered the "Shock and Awe" campaign illegal?

Clearly.

We interrupt this rant to clear up a common misconception: Many people feel these Iraq deserters are different from the Vietnam draft dodgers because they enlisted. True, they did -- as did many of the guys who came to Canada after the draft was ended in 1972. The men who volunteered after 1972 were mostly poorer and less-educated, not unlike many of the troops in Iraq, than the draft dodgers who got nailed as soon as they graduated from college. They too were deserters.

In Kenney's Canada, even the page on Citizenship and Immigration's website that celebrates those Vietnam War deserters and draft dodgers as "the largest, best-educated group" of new citizens "ever received" has been sent down the memory hole, wiped from the record.

In Kenney's Canada, where 64 per cent of Canadians say they support the resisters, and where two votes on Parliament Hill to stop the deportations have already passed, the U.S. military gets its man or, in Rivera's case, mom.

Yesterday, the NDP's Olivia Chow put forward a motion to allow those who "left military service related to a war not sanctioned by the United Nations and do not have a criminal record, to apply for permanent resident status and remain in Canada."

The vote is expected Monday night.

Let Jason Kenney and your MP know that Canadians don't salute the Pentagon: resisters.ca.

Incidentally, there is a website currently under construction with bios of many of the Vietnam era guys who came and stayed. They did a lot for Canada.

But more important to me, is what Canada can do for the world.

Why can't we be a beacon for peace?

Let them stay!

UPPITY WOMEN DATE: From Olivia Chow's Twitter update about an hour ago:

My motion to let war resisters stay just passed in Parliament again

I can't find a wire story on it yet, if one is even forthcoming.

So I can only guess that a majority of MPs have once again voted to let the resisters stay. Will the Stephen Harper Cons listen to the will of the people?

Comments

[Jody Berland]

It is starting to appear that if you want to be a good Canadian citizen you have to have the email-Jason-Kenney--and-tell-him-to-retract function on 24 hours a day. The spectacle is getting hard to bear but the longterm effects will be a lot worse.

[Sebastian Stoker]

Interesting moral dilemma: What do you do when you signed up as a soldier for one thing and find out your mandate is, in reality, the exact opposite? You think you are a freedom fighter, and find you are going to be more of a fascist force.

Bizarre how two very modern ideas - 1) that self-awareness and individual freedom supersedes absolutely everything else, even the commitment to military service, and 2) that the people meant to be on the front lines should do anything and everything they are told - are at odds here.

I am cheering on the former, not because it is a good option, but is the less frightening with regards to this situation.

[Chris Moorehead]

I was always thankful for one aspect of the Vietnam War...as a child, it got me a very good education. At the primary school level, my teachers were predominantly young, male, & American, and, in a time when teachers were not always well educated, had degrees from places like Harvard, Brown, & Cornell. As a result, I was already learning critical thinking skills in grade 1 & 2. And I owe it all to Lyndon Johnson & Richard Nixon!

[The Stygian and his Shemitish Dogs]

what are we (?) doing sending mothers to war anyway??????

[The Stygian and his Shemitish Dogs]

Missie Chrissie

"I was already learning critical thinking skills in grade 1 & 2"

I don't think so, somehow. Real critical thinking was shown by worried children in a London school around the same time (I forget the exact details, as I was only a few years older myself) who asked their parents "why are we only being taught about Vietnam?", and .. you can guess the rest ...

[jdv]

When we declare that soldiers do not have a right to conscientious objection, we set the stage for the equivalent of another Nazi Germany.

It's easy to look back at the horrors that happened at that time and say "those soldiers should have rejected their orders. They should have known what they were doing was wrong."

Yet we won't let soldiers resist what they see as immoral today?

People should be led by their own consciences rather than blindly taking orders.

[David Bradshaw]

Kimberly Rivera voluntarily joined the US military 3 years into a war! Yes, it was an illegal, immoral, unjust war founded on lies, but she bloody well knew the score when she signed up - did she think the soldiers in Iraq were dying while planting flowers??? Antonia, I love your blog, but you're off-base on this one - Canada has no obligation to protect this woman from her own stupidity.

[The Stygian and his Shemitish Dogs]

jdv,

a military run as you suggest could never have DEFEATED Nazi Germany.

[Sebastian Stoker]

Oh Styian,

For the first time we are in complete agreement.

[Connie Donoghue]

I dont understand why Canadians are in any way surprised about American opinions of Bush and of Iraq!! And I really dont understand why anyone is surprised about the Conservative government.

Nevertheless, by 2006 there was a tremendous amount of anti-war coverage at every level of the American media. Rivera couldnt do her job, for whatever reason, and because she thought there was an easy out, she tried for it. Instead of all of this late politiking against increasingly irrelevant issues (like Bush and Iraq), why cant we formally request that the American government extend amnesty to the deserters?

[johnnykap]

"she naively believed Iraq was all about rebuilding the country"

The word naive (or its derivations) is implied after any female pronoun. You need not state it explicitly, Antonia.

[miz g]

On Patriotism:

"It is quite possible that governments regard this sentiment as both useful and desirable, and of service to the unity of the State; but one must see that this sentiment is by no means elevated, but, on the contrary, very stupid and immoral. Stupid because if every country were to consider itself superior to others, it is evident that all but one would be in error; and immoral because it leads all who possess it to aim at benefiting their own country or nation at the expense of every other - an inclination exactly at variance with the fundamental moral law, which all admit, "Do not unto others as you would not wish them to do unto you.""

Leo Tolstoy, "On Civil Disobedience & Non Violence" (p.75) http://www.intelectu.com/intelectu_archive_win_06_08.html

[Sebastian Stoker]

miz g,

I am no big fan of the U.S., am no fan of President Bush, and agree with you to some extent. However, the problem in western countries, specifically the U.K., the U.S. and Canada, is that there is a growing belief (usually thought to come from the political left) that there is no such thing as a moral higher ground, that there is no such thing as moral superiority.

The slogan "not a bad person, just a person who did bad things" may seem harmless when dealing with a schoolyard scuffle, but is extremely dangerous when dealing with international politics. Without the understanding and acceptance that A Bad Person is Someone Who Consistently Does Bad Things, we put ourselves in both moral and physical danger. First, we fail to see the evil right in front of us. Second, with no moral center, we open the door to manipulators and prevaricators - internal and external - who will create a culture of misinformation and flawed logic.

[miz g]

Hi Sebastian,

I am not sure you interpreted the quote in the same fashion as I did, which is a mark of fine thought-provoking writing by Leo Tolstoy. The point I was making by posting that quote was not to comment on leftist failures to see and believe in evil, which to some extent I agree is a shortcoming. It is blind patriotism in any country which I object to.

Why? Because when one gives up their autonomy to make life or death decisions and slavishly serves a government who has most likely lied to enter into warfare, one betrays their own humanity. If one believes in God, they cannot take the order of man to kill over the word of God not to kill. If one does not believe in God, they must act as their conscience tells them. Governments will always push for war-it is up to the people to decide whether or not the war is worth fighting. Kimberly Rivera is guilty of only one thing; deciding it was no longer her wish to kill other people.

[Sebastian Stoker]

miz g,

I think we agree more than disagree. I agree with you in principle, but I have problems with the practical application (I suffer from extreme cynicism and pragmatism, traits that provide me with both the best and worst of times).

I do not believe that the left is to blame for moral relativism, or whatever anyone chooses to call it. The left may have indeed carried the virus, but most of us are infected now. And I tend to believe that the adoption of such views is more to do with laziness than anything else.

I am a cynic, pragmatist, and a misanthrope, and am wary of anything herd-related. And while I am also an atheist, I can respect religious beliefs that are holistic and seem purely altruistic (love thy neighbor, etc.). However, I accept that there are instances when people must band together, form a collective consciousness of sorts, and act. Yes, I believe that the hive mentality can easily spin out of control and be dangerous, but in some cases entering that state is the only option. We would not be having conversations like this if certain wars had not been won, and won on the backs of boys who obeyed orders, put their heads down and charged.

[The Stygian and his Shemitish Dogs]

"However, I accept that there are instances when people must band together, form a collective consciousness of sorts, and act. Yes, I believe that the hive mentality can easily spin out of control and be dangerous, but in some cases entering that state is the only option. "

Stoker you Smoker,

You should read the article on gatesofvienna "Pick a Tribe, Any Tribe".

V. sobering