Canada Denies US Soldier Refugee Status

I think we`ve gotta flood the government with letters saying that this decision is unjust! The guy fled so that he could avoid an unjust war! I`m sure if the uS was being attacked this guy would fight for his country, but his government is only treating him as a pawn!

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Dave Ruston

Agreed!

It really doesn't matter what reasons have been given for fleeing a country or situation. That is none of Canada's business. Thousnads have fled countries where they have been branded "criminals" because of political climate, who we have welcomed. We operate (we are supposed to!)on the principle of "innocent until proven guilty", and this person has broken no Canadian laws. He and his family should be welcomed with open arms, the same way drug dealers (who go immediately on welfare) evidently are in this country.

However,should anyone given landed immigrant status break a Canadian law, (s)he should be given the boot, forever.

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RickW

The message is that Canada would rather allow the war crimes against Iraq than disobey the USA.

<p> I too find that decision simply appalling and shameful. We have not learnt, worse still we refuse to learn from the Past. I have been re-reading Tzvetan Todorov’s <i>Facing the Extreme – Moral Life in the Concentration Camps</i>. True, the plight of the American conscientious objectors to the War in Iraq in no way parallels that of the Jews during World War II but surely the lessons that we must have learnt from what happened then should guide our actions today. The following passages from Todorov is about the <b>Onlookers</b>, the “passive spectator” who though bearing no “legal guilt” still must shoulder the “moral responsibility” of acts perpetrated by the “agents of evil”: <p> <blockquote> “<b>Onlookers, as a matter of principle, are not liable to prosecution under the law, but they can still be held morally responsible.</b> They do not constitute a homogeneous group, however, and it might be better en envision them as spread out across of a number of concentric circles according to their degree of distance from those who took an active role in the commission of evil.”</blockquote> <p> Todorov then makes the distinction between :<br> - the “close personal relations – the families and intimate friends – of those who are judged legally responsible” <i>(the first circle)</i><br> - the “compatriots, those who, without knowing (the perpetrators of evil) personally, belonged to the same community” <i>(the second circle)</i><br> - “the populations of the subjected countries, like Poland and France, during the Second World War” <i>(the third circle)</i><br> - “the populations of the free countries, the enemies of the dictatorships under which these crimes are committed” <i>(the fourth and final circle)</i> <p> <blockquote> “In the <i>fourth</i> and final circle are the populations of the free countries, the enemies of the dictatorships under which these crimes are committed. These populations are free not only because they do not live under the menace of totalitarianism but also because they have multiple sources of information at their disposal, which allows them access to the truth if they desire it. We know today that news of the Nazi death camps leaked out early on; it is the subject of Walter Laqueur’s <i>The Terrible Secret</i>. As for the Soviet camps, there was never any lack of information about them, even as early as the 1920s. We also know that outside intervention, when it did take place, proved rather effective. And yet intervention against the Nazi camps was nearly nonexistent, and against the Soviet gulags it came very late. The question is why. <p> The answer as it pertains to the extermination of the Jews is particularly sinister: The Allies feared that Hitler might take them at their word and send them several million Jews instead of proceeding with the exterminations. <p> In the case of the Soviet camps, the reasons are different. The governments of the West did not so much fear inundation by a tide of undesirable immigrants as they feared discomforting the Soviet government itself and - even more, perhaps – the Communist sympathizers in their own countries. The latter were a small minority, of course, but because they were heavily represented among intellectuals, they knew how to make themselves heard. <p> The intellectuals of the free country of France became willing accomplices to the Communist camps by preventing the disclosure of information about them, information that would also have been a means of combating them.”</blockquote> <p> Yesterday’s intellectuals have today been replaced by powerful soulless and heartless Corporate entities. The task to counter their influence with our government is daunting, yet we cannot allow ourselves to be discouraged into inaction for we know today how unbearable is the price that we ultimately have to pay for having been silent. <p> <blockquote>This journey through the circles of complicity with evil leads, I’m afraid, to a rather somber conclusion: even if one can find exceptions to the rule, most onlookers, whether close or distant, let events take their course. They knew what was happening and could have helped but did not. Everywhere and always there were people who showed concern for the victims, but the bulk of the population proved, incontestably, indifferent. The misfortune of others, it seems, leaves us cold if in order to alleviate it we have to sacrifice our own comfort. The reasons are always the same: I didn't know, and even if I had, I couldn't have done anything about it. We, too, know about deliberate blindness and fatalism, and here totalitarianism reveals what democracy leaves in the shadows - that at the end of the path of indifference and conformity lies the concentration camp.</blockquote> <p> Had our government taken a stand and accepted to provide haven for those refusing to participate in a war that most of the World has branded illegal already, it would have sent a strong message to its perpetrators that Canada and its people do not support such barbaric acts against humanity. It would also have offered hope and comfort to those who are resisting within the fortress itself. I for one am terribly ashamed of my vote (and especially for having talked my close relations into voting) for the Martin government at the last election and shall certainly reconsider my political allegiance come next election. <p>

it's just that he was born in America...that is all it takes in Canada to screw someone over.

Canada allows war crimes against Iraqi civilians STILL. Canada "obeying" or disobeying anyone isn't at issue. obey or disobey...lol...in fact Canada instigates, and encourages the killing of innocent Iraqis to to take place. Canada has done nothing to stop any of it, ever.

Bunch of spineless asslickers we have in govt! Back in 1969 we smuggled a lot of war resistors into the country, but in those days they could stay here.

smuggle and hide them we will still. if the government wants to play bend-over let them. Canadians will do the right thing and hide, shelter and help those that don't want to kill for oil and empire.

no, kidding...wow...what better anti-American hate propaganda weapon to have than an actual, real, live American creep who will sell out his people for us :):)...score! Yes, YES...smuggle them in as fast as you can. We are desperate in our search for anti-American propaganda tools! And the kind of loyalty they display to their own makes a good fit with our modern Canadian society as well.

As if we don't ooze hate enough, we need to import it to bolster our ranks. Cool.

Calm down.

what an idiot troll. this troll would want us to send people who don't want to kill back to america for 'punishment'. I think they get wood over such things. have fun when you meet your maker, and trying to explain your total lack of compassion.

It just goes to show how much we already are under the "American boot". And unless we wake up and fast, it is only going to get worse.

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Vera Gottlieb

Throw the bum out! We don't need people in Canada who are so stupid that they would volunteer to join the Army without realizing they may get involved in conflict.

While many so-called Canadians, usually leftists, have a great inexplicable love for the kind of government that Saddam had in Iraq, the fact is that his government did not work out too well for the people of Iraq.

Leftists are probably enamoured with Saddam's total control over the life and death of his subjects - it's the kind of power leftists usually seek. But that kind of power meant that leftists killed more people in the last century than all wars previously known, their 'secular' ideology trumps all the religious wars there ever were in sheer numbers of dead - that kind of power is indeed inspiring. But hopefully the world can move beyond the evil that leftists do in this century.