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But the motion, put forward by the NDP, is non-binding on the minority Conservative government. Tory MPs voted against the motion but were outnumbered by the three opposition parties in a 137-110 vote.
The Toronto-based War Resisters Support Campaign estimates as many as 200 American soldiers escaped to Canada to avoid serving in Iraq.
The motion called on the government to “immediately implement a program to allow conscientious objectors and their immediate family members . . . to apply for permanent resident status and remain in Canada.”
The Conservatives also should “cease any removal or deportation actions,” the motion said.
Resistors to this futile and arrogant war rally around an avenue of escape long part of America’s history. Back to our nation’s founding – as a matter of historic fact.
Most are trying to escape the “Stop-Loss” BACKDOOR DRAFT – INSTITUTED BY THE DRAFT-DODGER CHENEY !!! Stop-Loss means your get to “Serve your Country” OVER AND OVER AND OVER – OR UNTIL YOU DIE !!! Something NO ONE IN UNIFORM EVER SIGNED UP FOR !!!
I would respect this move if USA have had draft army. It does not. Every single of those people have signed a contract. And, JimD, every single one should have understood that the “stop loss” is the part of the contract. It was not added later. Everyone in the uniform signed for it by signing the contract.
What these people did was estimate the risk wrongly. Which does not invalidate any contract.
Hence, what Canadian Govt. is doing (despite positive humanitarian aspect) is aiding simple crooks who wanted something for nothing and when payment time arrived, skipped away. As such they do not belong to any honorable group, not does the Canadian Govt.
[Duplicate comment deleted. – ed.]
It’s good to see that the NDP is doing some good even though they get far fewer seats than would correspond to their portion of the vote.
I come from a fairly military family, with man of my relatives having been in the Navy at one point or another, and I think it is safe to say that being in the military is a very good job until a war breaks out. Not worth the risk and moral implications if you ask me. This isn’t to say that I don’t appreciate the Canadian forces, I just don’t think they should be deployed internationally.
#2-dusan maletic,
As a point of order, the government voted against this proposal, if was voted through by opposition parties. Or did you not read the article? Also, I think that it is more than honorable to harbour soldiers who are forced to fight in a war that Canada does not support and that many of them did not think they would be fighting in when they joined the army.
Agree with #2 with a good point.
This is more about breach of contract with the Federal government and fleeing to Canada to avoid arrest.
My guess is these are mostly kids from Republican families forced to join the service in order to show and tell at the Sunday church gathering. However, when they were reassigned from San Diego to Baghdad, mom and dad sent them to stay at Aunt Josephine’s in Quebec.
#2, dusan makes a good point. What does Canada stand to gain by harboring “conscientious objectors”? It’s not like they are going to make a grundle of money with these guys. In fact, given the welfare costs Canada is going to have to incur to clothe and feed them for a while, they loose money.
I’m guessing that Canada is making a statement. But since Mother England is still active in Iraq,
what statement could that be? Who is that statement against? It’s not like they can take in English “conscientious objectors”. Why would Canada, or any other country for that matter, want them anyway?
And by the way, how can they be “conscientious objectors” when it is a volunteer army? Isn’t that a more-than-usual oxymoron? Conscientious objectors joining a volunteer army?
I just figured it out. If these guys are dumb enough to be a conscientious objector in a volunteer army, well then Canada – or anyone else for that matter, can have them.
Maybe we are paying Canada to take them off our hands.
A lot of mothers and fathers are forever grateful to Canada for giving safe-haven to their children during the Vietnam War. Maybe that can happen again.
I think the US government was secretly happy, too.
The spectacle of jailing thousands of our kids for opposing an un-supportable war would have been very ugly.
As a Canadian I could guarantee you that the majority of Canadians would support this motion, even if it is largely symbolic. And not for any altruistic reasons, but the thought of Dick Cheney’s face turning purple makes it worthwhile.
These guys will be a boost to the Canadian economy. We’re running out of candle makers in the Slocan Valley in BC.
#5-Ah_Yea,
Well, it would seem that unlike you and the Neo-Cons in office, Canada’s 3 largest opposition parties seem to think that there is a moral obligation to help refugees. There is more to morality than money.
We have been known to take in british soldiers, but not in great numbers as they have a hard time escaping to somewhere this far away and tend to go to France. I don’t know why you seem to think that Canada’s sharing a figurehead with Britain makes them dominant over us, or makes us interchangeable, or whatever you were trying to say.
Soldiers can object to a new war. If they signed up to go fight oppression and terrorism and then found out that they were really there to pillage and murder, I think they have grounds to break their contract.
I don’t blame them a bit. If I had to join the military today, you’d see a vapor trail behind my ass heading for Canada. I just bought a house in Mexico since all of them are moving here. I found out how Mexicans tell when they are hungry, their asshole stops burning.
Of course, once they’ve moved to Canada, I’d expect these soldiers to volunteer to join the Canadian Forces in Afghanistan.
I am Canadian and I have been in the Armed Forces. I understand why desertion laws are there but in the age of modern warfare I certainly wouldn’t want to be going into battle with someone who didn’t want to be there with me. This isn’t “over the top” trench warfare anymore. Everyone’s life depends on the others doing their job and doing it well.
As for the debate of over-riding extradition treaties with our friend and neighbour vs refugee status having escaped a tyrannical government…I haven’t made up my mind yet.
#2
They signed a contract to defend the US and it’s constitution, not to participate in an ILLEGAL war and commit war crimes. It’s the Bush administration that are the crooks. Good on Canada
Canada is involved with the military occupation of Iraq. Theyre playing both sides.
#7, gregallen… good points.
Boy, what a pack of morons you a-holes are. Especially you twitchy little lefties with your CAPITALIZING everything. “illegal war”, “war crimes”, “bush lied, people died”,… Yeah, whatever.
If those couple dozen (at most) cringers are spineless enough to run out on their buddies who are doing what’s asked of them, at risk of their life, then good riddance to them. The old saying of “don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out” comes to mind. I’d rather go (back) into combat with fewer men than with a coward who would run out on us at the first hint of trouble.
Oh, #8? Do you honestly believe that the Vice-President of the United States is purple-faced over some coward going over the hill? If so, all i can say is Wow. And shake my head, of course…
#2 is right on the money. These are people who VOLUNTEERED to join the military for a myriad of reasons. They are cowards who ran out on their moral and legal obligations. But on the other hand, they sound like just the kind of people Canada needs. I too say “don’t let the door hit you on the way out loser”.
#13 I love how people who have probably NEVER taken the oath of enlistment pick it apart. I’m sure you have never read an enlistment contract in detail. Soldiers don’t get to run away if they think that what they are doing is illegal. A soldier uses the proper channels to address anything he feels is illegal and in fact is not obligated to follow a blatantly illegal order. That being said, when the entire armed forces is in another country, you don’t have the luxury to decide on your own that it is illegal just because you are afraid of getting shot at. The only way these cowards could justify running with their tails between their legs is if the President was convicted of falsley leading us into war. Until that happens they don’t have a leg to stand on.
#17 “Long said he joined the army because he came from a lower-class family without adequate health care or money for a college education and was promised such provisions by recruiters.”
And if he would have completed his obligation that is exactly what he would have recieved.
Bottom line: these people wanted something from Uncle Sugar but they didn’t want to earn it. When the going got tough they wimped out and ran like schoolgirls to their mommies.
What appears almost equally interesting is that the Globe and Mail, Canada’s National Newspaper, seems not to have covered the story at all. I tried several searches, but the best I could come up with was an old story about how the Supreme Court (of Canada, natch) refused to hear an appeal based upon the Iraq war being an illegal war.
Canada did have a bloodthirsty record with regard to dereliction in WW I. Not only did we execute quite a few of our own shell-shocked soldiers for “cowardice”, but after the November 11, 1918 armistice, with all the German troops in detention, the Canadians discovered a couple of German deserters. But rather than offer them a beer and say “Thank Gott that’s over, eh, Fritz”, they turned the deserters over to the German military authorities and reissued a number of rifles so that the deserters could be executed.
“Shock troops of the Empire” aside, that was a tough one for me to swallow. Arthur Currie in effect guaranteed that the people of Belgium would not have to speak German (for two decades anyway), but he also supported those executions.
As far as this Canadian is aware, Canada is not in Iraq. We went to Afghanistan under UN sanction and we are still there, and we are in the middle of the bloodiest, nastiest fighting. I am proud of our brave soldiers. America has every reason to be proud of its own brave soldiers. If the soldiers are no longer fighting for Truth, let their bosses be punished, and let the weary soldiers go.
The automatic re-enlisting is much in the vein of Cyril Kornbluth’s 1948 SF classic, The Space Merchants.
>>The only way these cowards could justify
>>running with their tails between their legs is
>>if the President was convicted of falsley
>>leading us into war.
Well, duh! Is that even a bone of contention at this point? It may take a while for the dust to settle, Dumbya’s trial at the International Criminal Tribunal to be decided, etc., but is there a person alive with an IQ outside of single digits who thinks the Chimperor-in-Chief didn’t falsely lead us into war??
Sheesh.
I thought that was concensus a few years ago already.
Anyone with a brain knows this is a BS war.
Can’t blame anyone who would want to bail on it.
It seems all the big war backers or thier kids are no where to be seen in Iraq.
Send the Fox news team over to Iraq.
If you did that. The Fox news team would be at the border also.
#19-RGB,
Those links are about the war in Afghanistan, not Iraq.
You also forgot to mention that only 17% of those polled support sustaining the combat mission in one of the linked articles.
It would be irresponsible to pull our forces out of a country we have dismantled before helping to rebuild it.
The war is an ultra tiny deal compared to the global warming bullshit both Obama and McCain want to bury us with. We’re doomed with either one so who cares?
jbellies said: “What appears almost equally interesting is that the Globe and Mail, Canada’s National Newspaper, seems not to have covered the story at all.”
I am truly shocked that the Globe and Mail didn’t cover a story where the Tories lost the vote. Let me guess, the Post didn’t cover it either…
Garbage, let them go.
#22 – Actually I’m a big supporter of the mission in Iraq, and there’s a good chance I’ll go and lead an infantry team there in the next six months.
>> # 16 tzerkit said,
>> Boy, what a pack of morons you a-holes are. Especially you twitchy little lefties with your CAPITALIZING everything. “illegal war”, “war crimes”, “bush lied, people died”,… Yeah, whatever.
I know it’s a yawner for you, but this _IS_ an illegal war. Silly name calling doesn’t change that.
>> If those couple dozen (at most) cringers are spineless enough to run out on their buddies who are doing what’s asked of them, at risk of their life, then good riddance to them.
And good riddance to all the chickenhawk GOP conservatives who DODGED the war of their youth, and then asked OTHER KIDS to die, when they got in power.
20 jbellies: “…the Globe and Mail, Canada’s National Newspaper”
Correction: Toronto’s National Newspaper.
21 Mister Mustard
“…but is there a person alive with an IQ outside of single digits who thinks the Chimperor-in-Chief didn’t falsely lead us into war??”
You mean besides the still-existing country of Kuwait?
#23 Noel
Those links are about the war in Afghanistan, not Iraq.
So then you’re ok with sending back US deserters from the Afghanistan war.
It would be irresponsible to pull our forces out of a country we have dismantled before helping to rebuild it.
Like the US in Iraq, right? I’m for no combat in Afghanistan too but don’t be surprised if a great number of people with guns try to shoot you during all this rebuilding.
RBG
>> RBG said,
>> You mean besides the still-existing country of Kuwait?
Iraq II had nothing to do with any regional threat to Kuwait or anyone else. Saddam had been effectively contained by then.
I was living in the region, then, and nobody was afraid of Saddam anymore.
#28-RGB,
I don’t think that we should have been Afghanistan at all, but given that we are, I think it would be very hard to justify sheltering Americans running from this war.
Rebuilding is a tough problem, but we can’t just swoop in leave rubble everywhere and vanish. Perhaps a better solution would be to pull out and fund an internal rebuilding, I don’t know, but not killing civilians or destroying their poppy crops would be a good start.
29 gregallen. I don’t think wars are conducted just up until the point you are no longer afraid of your enemy. Such a deal for the enemy.
#30 Noel. “…but we can’t just swoop in leave rubble everywhere and vanish.”
The people who are trying to kill the Canadians, what do you suppose their take on that cost of “vanishing” might be?
I had no idea the Afghan people had such love and appreciation for beautiful flowers.
RBG
>>You mean besides the still-existing country
>>of Kuwait?
Oh. Did Saddam attack the still-existing country of Kuwait with WMD’s? Is that the real reason we occupied Iraq, to save Kuwait? I had no idea we were so fond of Kuwait that we’d sacrifice 4000+ Americans and drive our country into bankruptcy to save the still-existing country of Kuwait.