Amnesty for War Resisters
October 19, 2012 | 14 Comments
There was an episode of All in the Family in which one of Archie Bunker’s conservative friends was coming to dinner. Archie, the lovable reactionary curmudgeon, was horrified when one of Meathead’s friends was coming, too. Meathead’s friend, you see, was a deserter who had fled to Canada during the Vietnam war. Archie’s friend had lost his son in the war.
In the poignant climax, the truth is revealed to all at dinner. Rather than lash out at the deserter, Archie’s friend embraces him. We have lost enough sons, he tells us, we do not need to lose anymore.
On September 20, Kimberly Rivera, war resister and mother of four, was deported and subsequently arrested at the United States border. She had sought asylum in Canada, but after a long battle, was ordered out. Her young children were not with her when she left the country, as she did not want them to see her arrested.
Forty years ago, we had lost too many sons. Last month, these children lost their mother.
In 2009, Parliament passed a non-binding motion to grant asylum to all American war resister. A non-binding motion is as significant as it sounds, and the motion was correctly ignored by our immigration system. Such meaningless Parliamentary gestures should not set policy.
Nonetheless, such a policy is the right policy for Canada. We should formally declare that we will grant refugee status to all war resisters. It would be a policy shift that gives a nod to our past support for deserters and reflects the western liberal underpinnings we claim to hold.
For years during the 1960s and 1970s, Canada accepted American deserters and draft dodgers. In the early stages of the Vietnam war, immigration officials frowned upon such people, but by the end of the 1960s, the government changed course. In the first instance of a Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy, American asylum seekers were no longer asked about their military status. As many as 30 000 Americans were granted sanctuary during the Vietnam war.
America’s current military engagements are not dissimilar from the Vietnam war. In each case, we see a prolonged conflict with no real hope of anything resembling true victory. Each war is conducted halfway around the world, against nations that did not attack America or its allies. In each conflict, America is fighting a proxy war against a perceived existential threat. In Vietnam, they were battling communism. Today, it is the Global War On Terrorism.
The main difference, of course, is that America had instituted a draft for the Vietnam war. Conscription, abandoned decades earlier by Canada, is and authoritarian tool rightfully shunned by most democracies. The majority of the deserters and draft dodgers that made their way to Canada half a century ago had not volunteered for military service. They were to be forced into their role in the war. No such enslavement occurs currently in the United States.
Regardless, the United States is hardly blameless in this. They may not have drafted anyone, but coercion certainly existed. The United States government launched an illegitimate war by lying to the American people. In one of the few recorded displays of personal integrity being sacrificed for military ambition, we all watched Colin Powell present false “proof” that the Iraq government was hiding weapons of mass destruction. Mr. Powell and the U.S. lied not only to their people, but also to the United Nations and to Canada.
It was in the wake of this shameless propaganda that people like Ms. Rivera volunteered to “protect” their country. Buying into the vacuous existential threat posed by Iraq, Ms. Rivera enlisted, choosing to be grease for the wheels of America’s military industrial complex. Yes, she made her choice, but she was manipulated and coerced by her government.
Further, the United States accepts enlistees as young as 17. One not even need be an adult to volunteer to kill people in far off lands. The United States is capitalizing on the impetuousness, and desperation, of its youth in order to fill the ranks for its military misadventures
The war in Iraq is incredibly unpopular in Canada, as it should be. There was little stomach to enter into it in 2003, and there is even less so now. The entire entanglement is a blunder of such tremendous proportion that even the former Iraq hawk, Stephen Harper, had to incredulously deny his past support for Canadian involvement if he were to have any hope of becoming Prime Minister. As a nation, we know that the war in Iraq is wrong. We know that the war in Afghanistan should not be continuing. We know that the American government lied to its people, and now expects us to police its citizens who no longer have a taste for blood. We should say, no more.
No more will be a party to muscular policy failure of the United States. No longer will we play sidekick to a war hungry neighbour. No longer will we arrest people within our borders simply because they no longer want to kill people.
Adopting such a policy would, no doubt, pose potential harm to our relationship with the United States. Such diplomatic concerns are always worthy of consideration. However, such realpolitik considerations should not cost anymore young men and women their lives.
We have lost enough sons; we do not need to lose anymore.
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14 Responses to “Amnesty for War Resisters”
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October 19th, 2012 @ 12:00 pm
For years during the 1960s and 1970s, Canada accepted American deserters and draft dodgers.
Sorry, but that just isn’t accurate. In the late sixties after years of inconsistency at border points, Canada decided that one’s military status in another country would not be an immigration consideration and that the regular point system would be applied. No draft evader and certainly no deserter was ever granted asylum or refugee status and the policy had nothing whatsoever to do with Canadas policy on or attitudes to the war. It was an immigration issue. Draft evaders who got in had completely clean records because they hadn’t yet been charged with anything, but the situation with deserters far more ambiguous and they were in legal limbo for years. That they stayed had more to do with the fact that by that time the war was so unpopular domestically that nobody in the U.S. Government wanted to force the issue. If they had, there is little reason to believe Canada wouldn’t have cooperated because they had been charged with a serious offence. More here.
Jonathan, would you be happy if some of our allies who didn’t engage in Afghanistan gave asylum to Canadian deserters?
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Jonathan McLeod Reply:
October 22nd, 2012 at 1:18 pm
So your argument that my statement is inaccurate is to explain exactly the way that my statement was accurate?
Regarding my happiness:
1. It might depend on their reasoning.
2. Yes, I’m glad if you fewer people, especially those who don’t want to, go to war.
3. I’m not sure why my happiness would enter into policy making decisions of other nations.
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Peter Reply:
October 23rd, 2012 at 5:20 am
No, my argument is that, as no American war resister has ever been granted asylum, refugee status or “refuge” in Canada, your statement is just inaccurate.
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Jonathan McLeod Reply:
October 23rd, 2012 at 10:06 am
You say that this statement is inaccurate:
“For years during the 1960s and 1970s, Canada accepted American deserters and draft dodgers.”
But that’s exactly what we did (I’m using “deserters” to include those who were drafted but fled before they had to serve, as opposed to “draft dodgers” who fled while draft eligible but before they were actually drafted – these are the definitions I’ve heard when reading up on this – perhaps that is where our difference lies).
I’m saying that history is not too far off from what I am proposing we start doing.
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Peter Reply:
October 23rd, 2012 at 10:31 am
Jonathan, please. What we did was grant otherwise qualified Americans immigrant status under our policy for all immigrants everywhere without considering their draft status, which for almost all of them was a future not-yet-crystalized obligation under American law. That’s a far cry from giving refuge because we decided that American military engagements were immoral or futile.
You are leading with your heart, my friend. That may earn you a special place in the next world, but it’s not much of a qualification for the Foreign Ministry.
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Jonathan McLeod Reply:
October 23rd, 2012 at 10:47 am
We decided not to inquire about draft status because we knew we were giving refuge to draft dodgers and those who fled after being drafted. Sure, we chose not to inquire about their status (after a little while of just letting them in), but that was just to give us cover when anyone with a brain would know what was really going on.
And we’re not talking about Charles Ng deserting, here. We’re talking about people who would otherwise be fine additions to our nation.
October 19th, 2012 @ 12:31 pm
Respectfully, I strongly disagree. In my opinion, a move to treat all ‘war resisters’ equally is wrong-footed morally and as sound public policy.
I’ve written about this topic on several occasions on my blog: http://mowat.wordpress.com/tag/war-resister/
Much of my argument can be found there.
In brief, however, I offer the following few points.
There is an official Conscientious Objector process in the US military, which will lead to an honourable discharge: http://girightshotline.org/en/military-knowledge-base/topic/conscientious-objection-discharge
You acknowledge that current American war resisters are not conscripted, but maintain that some(all?) are entitled to an excuse that they were somehow manipulated by the government (in a broad, abstract, impersonal manner) into joining the military. That they cannot be held responsible for their individual actions and decisions in the face of public propaganda. This argument has been rightly rejected by courts here and abroad. The argument is structurally similar to the “I was just following orders” defence employed often by accused war criminals. Under international law, individual soldiers and citizens are responsible for their actions, regardless of the strength of militarism in public propaganda or the cultural zeitgeist.
There must be appropriate consequences for members of the military refusing lawful commands or disobeying civil authority. This is the basis of civil-military relations in a democracy. There are plenty of examples in recent history of democracies jeopardized by the breakdown of this discipline. The offence of desertion is serious.
The consequences faced by Ms. Riveria and other ‘resisters’ are serious too, but reasonable. Confinement sentences have ranged from 100 days to 15 months. In some cases, they are spending less time in jail as they would have spent on their next Iraq tour (that they are refusing to go on).
Similar cases of desertion within the Canadian military have not been shown the leniency which you are suggesting we provide to foreign citizens. Courts in Canada have upheld the punishments for desertion in Canadian soldiers. In is therefore contrary to established Canadian law to grant these war resisters amnesty.
Joining the military is a serious decision. We expect and demand our soldiers to be disciplined and moral in their application of violence on behalf of the state (ie, the rest of us). We must reinforce the expectations that this is a serious decision for our own citizens.
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Jonathan McLeod Reply:
October 22nd, 2012 at 1:21 pm
These are fair points, though I disagree.
However, the U.S. accepts minors. That (if nothing else) would seem to be a valid argument in favour of letting in certain resisters.
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R. Mowat Reply:
October 22nd, 2012 at 2:13 pm
To my knowledge, none of these war resisters were enrolled as minors.
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Jonathan McLeod Reply:
October 22nd, 2012 at 2:47 pm
True, but going forward, would you be amenable to accepting resisters who were enrolled as minors?
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R. Mowat Reply:
October 22nd, 2012 at 4:15 pm
It depends. The Canadian Forces enrols minors too. I myself was sworn in at the age of 17.
I don’t begrudge someone the ability to evolve in their philosophical or religious views. As I stated above, there is an existing Conscientious Objector process. I would expect a war resisters to have a very significant reason as to why they did not apply for that status.
So there *could* be situations that warrant an exception. None of the cases I’ve heard of to date warrant that, however.
Certainly, however, a blanket policy of accepting war resisters as refugees is not a proper policy.
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October 19th, 2012 @ 12:33 pm
Briefly back to the point I allude in my first sentence: there are certainly cases of refugees fleeing military service abroad that may deserve amnesty, but in nearly every imaginable scenario these will not be US servicemen and servicewomen.
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October 19th, 2012 @ 2:23 pm
but in nearly every imaginable scenario these will not be US servicemen and servicewomen.
Indeed. During to controversy over draft dodgers, the Canadian public was divided and settled on a good old Canadian compromise of safeguarding our sovereignty by ignoring the draft staus of immgrants while saying nothing critical about the Americans. The notion that American draft evaders were candidates for asylum as refugees would have been rejected by all but the doctrinaire left, and quite loudly.
Whether one sees our geographical proximity to the States as a perpetual challenge to evade the tentacles of absorption or the gift of a benevolent deity, the fact is that they are an important and powerful ally, even friend, with whose political and economic health and future we are inextricably linked. It would be sheer reckless, self-indulgent madness for any Canadian government to publically welcome and encourage their deserters on the basis that their foreign policies are illegal or immoral. The Americans would certainly see that, quite justifiably, as an unfriendly act and would respond accordingly. So Jonathan, what price would you be willing to see your fellow Canadians pay for for this highminded nostalgia for the 1850′s and the Underground Railroad?
I’m wondering whether somebody didn’t get a little carried away at his War of 1812 commemorative celebrations this summer.
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Jonathan McLeod Reply:
October 22nd, 2012 at 1:19 pm
“Whether one sees our geographical proximity to the States as a perpetual challenge to evade the tentacles of absorption or the gift of a benevolent deity…”
Well, if you see those as the only two choices…
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