Soldier’S Perspective Changed

Any male aged 16 and over found in the homes was automatically removed and interrogated. Homes were selected by U.S. spy officials who deemed them suspect, Key said, but nothing was ever found. People in his platoon wondered out loud how their actions could be justified, he said. “I started having my friends get (their) legs blown off and maimed,” he recalled. Feelings of regret now run through him ever time he remembers signing up in 2003 based on promises of learning to build bridges. When he came back from Iraq to see his family, he asked his military lawyer what his options were. Key was told he could return to the embattled country or go to jail. So he went AWOL from the army, and learned about the War Resisters Support Campaign being run in Canada to help U.S. soldiers get asylum as refugees. Key drifted from hotel to hotel in the U.S. for about 14 months before taking his wife and kids across the Niagara Falls border on March 8 to seek refugee status in Canada. “It’s a lot like home,” said Key, who is originally came from Guthrie, Okla. He said 14 other U.S. soldiers are seeking asylum in Canada, too, and there could be as many as 200 in hiding across the country. A refugee claim for Key, who lives in Toronto where the War Resisters campaign is based, is expected to be heard on Sept. 2., following his tour of several Canadian cities to tell the public his story. However, the odds of a U.S. soldier being recognized as a refugee in Canada aren’t good, according to a Thunder Bay immigration lawyer. Lydia Stam said Canada would have to worry about jeopardizing its relationship with its southern neighbour. “Certainly, on a public relations perspective, there is no way Canada would want to be determining Americans as refugees.” It could open the floodgates for refugee claims, and making a successful refugee claim isn’t easy to begin with, Stam said. “It’s not like (Key is) a prisoner of war being forced to fight,” she said. Refugees are people fleeing civil war, facing massive violations of human rights or living in a nation that is unwilling or unable to protect them. “The (refugee test) is pretty darn high,” Stam said. But she added that the soldiers could have grounds she is unaware of that could make them eligible as refugees. “I think it will be interesting how (Key) would fit the criteria.” Jeremy Hinzman, a U.S. soldier who came to Canada in January 2004 to seek asylum, has been turned down as a refugee. That decision is being appealed to the Federal Court. Refugee claims by other U.S. soldiers are also still pending. http://www.chroniclejournal.com/story.shtml?id=28558

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