http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2008/06/03/war-deserters.html
I say let them all stay.... might as well have the one's with the brains stay here.
I say let them all stay.... might as well have the one's with the brains stay here.
MPs vote to give asylum to U.S. deserters, Tories say no
- Thread starter Praxius
- Start date
If it was a draft situation, I could make allowance for a person not wanting a fight he/she didn't feel was his/her own. These people signed on - most knowing full well that Uncle Sam was on the hunt to fill a firing line. Different situation than Trudeau's time.
Colpy
At my age it would be something for "Humor in Uniform" or "Stupid things people do...."
The issue is that the wars we seem so interested in fighting for "freedom" and "transplanting democracy" keep on failing while other strategies like limiting trade and discouraging immigration....can do the job.... It's the failure of western democracies...one in particular that fails to recognize that if you portray your quality of life and your exercise of freedom of expression.....you rapidly fall into patterns like declaring borders and making criminals out of people who flea to your nation..... When a nations borders are under attack by people you then accept into your communities ...and you then go about calling them criminals and practicing discrimination ....while happy to have them pick up the garbage and mow the grass..there's a double message going on...wouldn't you say?
At my age it would be something for "Humor in Uniform" or "Stupid things people do...."
The issue is that the wars we seem so interested in fighting for "freedom" and "transplanting democracy" keep on failing while other strategies like limiting trade and discouraging immigration....can do the job.... It's the failure of western democracies...one in particular that fails to recognize that if you portray your quality of life and your exercise of freedom of expression.....you rapidly fall into patterns like declaring borders and making criminals out of people who flea to your nation..... When a nations borders are under attack by people you then accept into your communities ...and you then go about calling them criminals and practicing discrimination ....while happy to have them pick up the garbage and mow the grass..there's a double message going on...wouldn't you say?
The problem though is that they joined up under the premise of a lie. Who wouldn't volunteer to protect their country? But then to find out it was a fabrication for war profiteers, delusions of grandeur and despicable act of imperialism, well I don't blame any of them for their situation and if they don't want to commit war crimes they should be allowed here.
Canada should give them an option other than "just following orders." These soldiers are showing balls standing up for what they believe. I think Canada could use more citizens like that.
NowNow Now!
Any moment a right-winger will pounce and accuse you of liberal pinko pro-communist, most likely gender confused subtance abusing atheists with Al Qeada agenda.....
What passes for "democracy" is the right to send young people to die in wars that will be fought to increase the wealth and power of the wealthy and the powerful....
It's just a whole lot easier for conservatives to sling names and epithets around.... makes the picture so much clearer when its monochromatic....
Any moment a right-winger will pounce and accuse you of liberal pinko pro-communist, most likely gender confused subtance abusing atheists with Al Qeada agenda.....
What passes for "democracy" is the right to send young people to die in wars that will be fought to increase the wealth and power of the wealthy and the powerful....
It's just a whole lot easier for conservatives to sling names and epithets around.... makes the picture so much clearer when its monochromatic....
If they had balls they would simply refuse to serve, making their case and their arguments very public within the United States, plead "no contest" to the inevitable charges.........and serve their time in a US prison as a prisoner of conscience.
They most assuredly lack balls.....that is why they are here.
Hmmmm.... either be sent off to go kill women and children and also have a chance of getting killed yourself in something you don't believe in, and is illegal..... or be sent to jail for a good chunk of your life because you won't do the above..... wonderful options.
How about the arseholes in power who want the war so bad join up themselves and lead by example? If they're too old, get some of their children to go off and die.... now that'd be patiotism..... oh wait... that's not what the war's about anyways.
Sorry, I'd rather have my brains remain in my skull and be alive then to show off to people that I have balls to blindly follow what I'm told to do, even though what I'm doing contradicts everything you're supposed to uphold.
..... and now here's where we start going back into the rhetoric of technicals to justify killing innocent women, children and the unarmed all in the name of "Freedom" blah blah, you're wasting your time.
I completely disagree. If they did as you suggest they would be throwing their lives away. I have no idea how long they would spend in prison for refusing to kill children but I expect it would be decades. The USA is a police state (they incarcerate more of their citizens than any other country on earth) and no place for political statements. If anything these noble ex-patriots are political asylum seekers.
Okay....Praxius and Scott Free.....if the "police state" (what a laugh!) to the south of us is such a monstrous, imperialistic, genocidal entity......why do you suppose these fine, upstanding young people VOLUNTEERED to serve in the military?
I mean before they turned their backs on their comrades, and their oath, and fled, tails tucked firmly between their legs, to Canada?
BTW, here is a US Army soldier tried and convicted for Desertion......refusal to serve in Iraq...........his sentence? Tortured and shot at dawn? Thirty years hard labour?
Nope
Eight MONTHS in prison and a dishonourable discharge.
EIGHT MONTHS.
Some police state.
I tell you, if US war resisters had balls, they would stay in the USA and make their point, instead of running to Canada, where the thrust of their protest is entirely lost on those it is aimed at.....OMG! Eight MONTHS. Geez!
Absolutely no balls.
Send 'em home.
We don't want them.
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2007/mar2007/agua-m09.shtml
Oh, you'll LOVE the source.......(shakes head)
Oh yeah.....the prosecution had asked for VERY strict punishment........two years.
For Desertion.
Give it a rest Lads, you are WAY out in left field on this one.
As usual
I mean before they turned their backs on their comrades, and their oath, and fled, tails tucked firmly between their legs, to Canada?
BTW, here is a US Army soldier tried and convicted for Desertion......refusal to serve in Iraq...........his sentence? Tortured and shot at dawn? Thirty years hard labour?
Nope
Eight MONTHS in prison and a dishonourable discharge.
EIGHT MONTHS.
Some police state.
I tell you, if US war resisters had balls, they would stay in the USA and make their point, instead of running to Canada, where the thrust of their protest is entirely lost on those it is aimed at.....OMG! Eight MONTHS. Geez!
Absolutely no balls.
Send 'em home.
We don't want them.
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2007/mar2007/agua-m09.shtml
Oh, you'll LOVE the source.......(shakes head)
Oh yeah.....the prosecution had asked for VERY strict punishment........two years.
For Desertion.
Give it a rest Lads, you are WAY out in left field on this one.
As usual
Well... I'm not sure you're being quite fair here Colpy. Signing up wanting to defend your country, or to bring peace and democracy and security to certain low rent eastern countries, or doing it for some other high-minded motive, is one thing, but then deciding that you've probably been lied to about it all is quite another thing, it puts a very different light on it. It's all very well to tell people they should stay home and take their lumps and fight to change things they disagree with, but as a citizen of a country whose population is probably based on a higher percentage of draft dodgers and conscientious objectors than any other nation on the planet (with the possible exception of the United States, actually), including my own ancestors, United Empire Loyalists, I simply cannot find it in my heart to tell these people I think they should go home.
I met quite a few American draft dodgers during the Vietnam war in the 1960s, and what they seemed to me to be was sensitive and deeply wounded refugees from a nation they loved but whose policies they could no longer tolerate. I welcomed them then, and I'll welcome their equivalent now. You don't want to fight and possibly get crippled or killed for a cause you don't believe in? You're welcome at my house.
Now you're getting it.... finally :lol:
Because they were lied to by the government they trusted.
Because they went into service to protect their families, country and way of life and to defend their flag.... the are willing to sacrafice their lifes for these causes, however these wars they are sent for are not meeting any of those goals, Iraq has no capabilities, nor ever did, of anyway of attacking the US directly, and they have never done anything to the US people, yet the US acting apon agression and their own personal agenda at the hands of the Iraqi people.
They did the same thing when they invaded Canada and figured there wasn't many of us, it'd be an easy war and Canadians would welcome them with flowers and open arms, and we wanted to be Americans..... that fell flat on their face.
They did the same thing with Vietnam, with the same mentality, and look what happened there....
Now they're doing the exact same thing in Iraq.... invaded their country, figured they'd welcome them with open arms and flowers and wanted to have the American way of life..... and that's falling flat on its face too....
Exactly when will the US learn from their past mistakes? Apparently never. However that doesn't mean the people who used to believe in the US, can't figure out this pattern for themselves and know that it's wrong. They're the ones who have to answer to the actions the government makes them do, not the people in office making the decisions.... it doesn't matter to them wtf happens to their troops.... they're just numbers after all.... usually the poor scum of society they want to rid themselves from anyways.
Who in their right mind would want to defend that sort of life?
Sorry, I'd rather end up not impressing you with the size of my testicles, then to spend the rest of my life with PTSD from being ordered to murder innocent women and children and have those faces coming through my mind in the middle of the night and waking up screaming in a pool of sweat..... just to make you think I have some big balls.
My and their own health is more important then to impress the likes of you. and if you think murdering the innocent and those who can't defend themselves, all along with a chuckle from your commanding officer is required for defending your oh so great country, then who here really has the problem?
You don't want them.... speak for yourself... welcome to a democracy, where your voice doesn't speak for everyone.... deal with it.
And as usual, you're still in Uncle Sam's pocket thinking everything they do is justifiable and people have no rights to refuse what they're doing, even when it's illegal.
*clap clap*
Bravo, good job.
And besides that, do you really want one of these guys who has no heart in the battle covering your back in the middle of a firefight?
Even if I believed in a war, and I was fighting in it, if another person didn't believe in it for their own reasons, I'd ask for them to stay home and put someone who does believe in the war in their place to cover our backs better. Forcing them to fight in something they don't have the heart in will only increase your chances and everybody else's chances surrounding him (Including himself) of getting wounded or killed.
If you can't get enough people to join up to fight a war you started without having to force them to do what you want, then that's a pretty clear sign your country doesn't want the war and to haul your men and women out of there.
I'd actually have to disagree that these are noble people.
They took an oath to do whatever they could to protect their country.
If their country is hellbent on a destructive course filled with evil, the correct course of action is certainly not to join in (and fight the war), no contest on that. But its also certainly not to run away and abandon the nation you swore to protect to its fate.
You swore you'd jump into a stream of bullets to protect your nation, and now you are fleeing rather than standing up to the government you think is evil?
That makes you a coward and a thief who stole taxpayer money. If you believe the war is unjust and harming America? congratulations, your a US soldier who volunteered and accepted pay to defend the American people, so stand up for them and face the danger of short term imprisonment.
They took an oath to do whatever they could to protect their country.
If their country is hellbent on a destructive course filled with evil, the correct course of action is certainly not to join in (and fight the war), no contest on that. But its also certainly not to run away and abandon the nation you swore to protect to its fate.
You swore you'd jump into a stream of bullets to protect your nation, and now you are fleeing rather than standing up to the government you think is evil?
That makes you a coward and a thief who stole taxpayer money. If you believe the war is unjust and harming America? congratulations, your a US soldier who volunteered and accepted pay to defend the American people, so stand up for them and face the danger of short term imprisonment.
Zzarchov
We (you and me) disagree about many things. On this count however, while not prepared to embrace your sentiment, I can respect the proposition behind it.
I'm not sure....Karrie and I have argued this .... who is more "responsible", a culture that freely gives itself over to personal gratification in the climate of a willingness to change principles when the situation demands.... to abandon principle when there's money to be made and "markets" to expand..... Who choose to embrace the sweatshop and the dichotomous reality of prosperity that exists within this culture as well as throughout the world.... A culture that defines itself by its greed..... Joining the military service of a corrupt society would appear to be an act of corruption in and of itself.....
We (you and me) disagree about many things. On this count however, while not prepared to embrace your sentiment, I can respect the proposition behind it.
I'm not sure....Karrie and I have argued this .... who is more "responsible", a culture that freely gives itself over to personal gratification in the climate of a willingness to change principles when the situation demands.... to abandon principle when there's money to be made and "markets" to expand..... Who choose to embrace the sweatshop and the dichotomous reality of prosperity that exists within this culture as well as throughout the world.... A culture that defines itself by its greed..... Joining the military service of a corrupt society would appear to be an act of corruption in and of itself.....
Colpy
Remind us again of the govenment of the U.S. changing it's requirements to accomodate convicted criminals in joining the game.....
All this "noble" sentiment about honor and duty and responsibility and justice...and any three time loser can do the job.....according to the United States military!
It doesn't take any honor of any kind to dehumanize prisoners and hang them up for a photo-shoot ....whether that's the practice of "terrorists or the United States military.
Remind us again of the govenment of the U.S. changing it's requirements to accomodate convicted criminals in joining the game.....
All this "noble" sentiment about honor and duty and responsibility and justice...and any three time loser can do the job.....according to the United States military!
It doesn't take any honor of any kind to dehumanize prisoners and hang them up for a photo-shoot ....whether that's the practice of "terrorists or the United States military.