[Vision2020] Soldiers Against Iraq Desert To Canada

[Tom Hansen]

>From today's (January 28, 2007) "Sunday Morning" on CBS at:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/01/24/sunday/printable2395893.shtml

Although I agree with the right (and the sentiment) of private citizens and
service members who speak out against this illegal war, an illegal war whose
human toll continues mount, I am steadfast against desertion.  Service
members committed themselves the day they recited and signed their oath, a
commitment that cannot be violated:

"I, (NAME), do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the
Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic;
that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey
the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the
officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of
Military Justice. So help me God."

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Soldiers Against Iraq Desert To Canada

TORONTO, Jan. 25, 2007

(CBS) During the Vietnam war, many young men who were drafted and didn't
want to go to war fled to Canada. Today, a small group of soldiers and
Marines are doing the same thing in protest of a war they say is unjust. 

When you contemplate the danger and the violent death that are ever present
factors in Iraq, you may wonder how Americans charged with fighting the war
there can bear it. 

The reality is that some of them can't take it. Justin Colby, 23 was
inspired to join the Army to avenge the events of September 11. 

"I thought that was something I wanted to do," he told Sunday Morning
correspondent Rita Braver. "So I approached a recruiter and said, 'Sign me
up.'" 

On July 4 of this year, as his unit was about to be redeployed to Iraq,
Colby became a deserter. And in September, he joined a small, but growing
number of American servicemen who have sought refuge in Canada. Estimates
say there are between 100 and 250 of them. 

Before he decided to desert, Colby served heroically in Iraq. Starting in
late 2004, he served a year as a medic there. He received the Army
Commendation Medal for exceedingly meritorious service for his work while
under fire. He said his base was constantly barraged by mortar and rocket
attacks and he had a couple of close calls during his year there. 

"The rocket landed within 15, 20 meters of where I was standing," he said. 

But Colby was becoming disillusioned with the war in Iraq, especially
because it became increasingly clear that Iraq, and its dictator Saddam
Hussein, was not behind the attacks of 9/11. 

"When I realized these people we were killing - 'cause we killed a lot of
[them], I saw a lot of dead people - when I realized the people we were
killing had nothing to do with 9/11, that's when I was, like, 'Okay, this is
not for me! This, ya know, I was wrong.'" 

Colby and the other deserters are the second generation of Americans to flee
here, on the run from an unpopular war. In the 1960s and '70s, some 50,000
Americans - mostly draft dodgers but also some deserters - escaped to
Canada, refusing to serve in Vietnam. 

Lee Zaslofsky was one of those Army deserters. He was drafted in 1969 and
fled to Canada in 1970. Today he is the coordinator of the War Resisters
Support Campaign in Toronto - started in 2004 to help fleeing GIs. He is now
a Canadian citizen. 

"Provide them with temporary housing until they can get on their feet. If
they need some money - we can give them some money; not a lot," Zaslofsky
said. "We get them in touch with a lawyer." 

He remains confident in the choice he made more than 30 years ago and says
that he is happy to help other young men and women who faced similar
dilemmas. 

"I never had the slightest doubt about what I've done," Zaslofsky said.
"What makes me feel good is that I'm able - at my age - to have the
privilege of working with young people who have had the guts and the decency
to stand up for what they believe is right." 

One of those young people is former marine Dean Walcott, who served six
years including two tours of duty in Iraq. In between he was assigned to a
U.S. military hospital in Germany, assisting wounded marines. He said it was
there that he fell apart after seeing so many burn victims. 

"A lot of guys whose skin was melted off," he said. "A lot of guys who you
couldn't recognize literally from their face to their feet. Missing arms,
missing legs, couldn't breathe on their own, couldn't feed themselves. These
kids, literally kids - 17, 18, 19, 20. And this look in their eyes that -
Oh, I'm never gonna forget it. The look in their eyes when they finally come
to understand that they're never gonna walk again. They're never gonna hold
their wife and their children again. And having them ask me, 'Why?' Ya know
- a 'big-picture why.' And I couldn't tell them." 

After his second tour in Iraq, depressed and filled with anxiety, Walcott
got himself assigned to a non-combat unit. But to his dismay, he was
assigned to prepare reservists for deployment to Iraq. 

"So basically instead of me deploying and me being psychologically or
physically injured," he said, "now we're pulling them away from their family
for over a year - and telling them "Well, while I sit here in the office
drinking coffee and being safe, you go to Iraq!'" 

He simply walked out and headed to Canada, which he remembered hearing was a
haven for Vietnam deserters. 

But there's a catch for those who flee to Canada. In the era of the Vietnam
war, American draft dodgers and deserters could easily take up residence in
Canada, and stay as long as they liked. Now, however, Canadian law has
changed. 

"Well, legally what's changed is that there's a general policy in Canada now
that to apply here you must apply from outside the country. And that's not
really an option that American troops could do," said Jeffrey House, a
Vietnam veteran who fled to Canada. "Because they're gonna be sent to Iraq
next week or next month." 

House is now a lawyer in Toronto, trying to help deserters like Walcott.
House is trying to convince Canadian courts that American deserters of today
are, in effect, political refugees. He said he is currently representing
about 35 clients and is trying to establish permanent residence. 

"I believe the law says you need not participate in an illegal war," House
said. "And so that's the circumstance we're asserting. 'I'm an American
solider, I don't want to participate in an illegal war. That's why I
couldn't apply from the United States. That's why I'm applying from inside
Canada.' And [we believe] people will win their cases eventually." 

But so far, despite all the countless papers House has filed, Canadian
immigration boards have rejected the claim. The country's appeals court will
hear the case this spring. 

But the United States military doesn't see desertion as a significant
problem. Army Lt. Col. Bryan Hilferty said fewer than 1,500 a year desert.
The desertion rate has gone down since 9/11 and Hilferty said most desert
for personal, family-related reasons [compared to] those motivated by
opposition to the war. 

"I don't think America really wants an Army where soldiers get to vote," he
said. "'I don't want to attack that hill. I don't think this patrol is a
good idea. No, No I don't really, don't want to go on that mission.' And
that's what these soldiers, I think, are saying. I don't like this
particular mission. You cannot have an army to defend America - that fights
for truth and the American way - if you do that." 

So far, a handful of American deserters who went to Canada have voluntarily
returned to the U.S. One is in prison, another is in hiding. Several have
been discharged. There's no uniform penalty for desertion. Col. Hilferty
says the military issues an arrest warrant for deserters - but does not
actively attempt to track them down - whether in the U.S. or Canada. 

"Primarily people turn themselves in. They return to their duty stations,"
he said. "Or if a police officer stops you for running a red light.
Primarily what we do with deserters is we bring them back in the unit.
That's our first course of action." 

It's an idea that was rejected outright by Colby: 

"What I feared the most was being incorporated back into the unit," he said.
"Ya know, take my rank, take my pay and send me back to Iraq." 

In the 1970s, President Jimmy Carter announced an amnesty for Vietnam draft
dodgers and deserters, but with the war in Iraq still raging, no one is
talking about how deserters from this conflict will be dealt with in the
future. Theirs is an even heavier burden: with no draft, everyone in today's
military joined voluntarily, including Walcott, who says he sees the
contradiction between leaving the war for moral reasons and abandoning his
mission. 

"I do see the contradictions there," he said. "And I realize that as - again
- it not only being illegal, it's also going back on my word which I swore
to when I did it - and did it again. And it's also more than likely a sin." 

But, he said, the images of the dead and wounded from Iraq will not go away.


"I regret that it became necessary, but I don't see any other way that I can
help those men and women more than by doing what I'm doing now," Walcott
said, "which is talking about it, raising the issue, getting it out there
for people to debate about it."

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Seeya round town, Moscow.

Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho

"Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving
safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in
sideways, chocolate in one hand, a drink in the other, body thoroughly used
up, totally worn out and screaming 'WOO HOO. What a ride!'"