Hinzman attends meetings of the War Resisters Support Campaign in Canada, but the ex-GIs do not cling together obsessively like expatriates in a foreign country. “It’s not like we are the army north of the border,” Hinzman laughs. In addition to those who have asked for political asylum, other deserters who fled to Canada are trying to make up their minds. House says over 100 have contacted him, and he knows of more on Canada’s West Coast and in Quebec.
House describes Ottawa’s dilemma: “The Canadian government doesn’t want to send a signal to the U.S. Army: ‘Come here!’ Individual officials come up to us and whisper sympathy. But that’s not the official line, which is that the war is not obnoxious or illegal enough for you to stay here.”
In a recent poll, 74% of Canadians saw George W. Bush as a threat to world peace. About the same number said the Iraq War was not justified, so there’s lots of support for the GIs, restraining any attempts by Canada’s new right-tilting government to send them back. It helps, says House, that the war resisters “are very presentable, intelligent, thoughtful and articulate; they have been through things.”
House is confident of eventual success, even if the issue has to go all the way to the Canadian Supreme Court. He cites the ironic precedent of a decade ago in which the Court ruled in favor of Mohamed Al-Maisri, a Yemeni deserter from Saddam Hussein’s army at the time of the first Gulf War. In other words, it’s not illegal to desert from an army that stages unprovoked attacks.
Hinzman’s case has now been followed by around three dozen more, and none of his counterparts feel any pressure to leave. Applicants for refugee status get work permits, access to the school system and—something mentioned enthusiastically by all I spoke to—Canada’s free healthcare.
Kyle Snyder headed to British Columbia when he returned from Iraq on leave. Snyder was already disaffected with the military due to family problems, but adds, “I saw a lot of things that were changing my mind about this war. I made a conscious choice that I couldn’t live with myself if I stayed in Iraq. I felt it was evil, the things that were happening. We were not doing anything positive for the Iraqi people.”
Then, after 18 months in Canada, Snyder heard that another resister, Darrell Anderson, had negotiated a deal that would have him quickly discharged if he went south and gave himself up. Snyder retained Anderson’s attorney, Jim Fennerty, who’d worked out the same offer with Major Brian Patterson at Fort Knox in Kentucky. “I gave up my job in Canada, gave up my healthcare and my refugee status,” Snyder states. “In fact, I gave up the life I had started over the last 18 months on a chance of a discharge that they would just let me out.”
However, when Snyder reported to Fort Knox, instead of the less-than-honorable discharge he was promised, Snyder says, “The whole attitude changed. It was ‘We are going to fuck you, we will send you back to your unit, and you will probably be redeployed back to Iraq.’”
Soldiers from Fort Knox dropped him off at the Greyhound station for a trip to Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri. Snyder recalls thinking, “I’m, like, fuck this. I’m not getting on that bus.”
Instead, when I eventually spoke to him, he was in New Orleans. “I’m going to help Iraq Veterans Against the War reconstruct, like we should have done when Katrina hit,” he declared. “It’s still a disaster area here; I don’t see why there aren’t troops here. It takes me running away from the military to do a job the military should have been doing in the first place.”
And after only a few weeks, he missed Canada. “We were loved up there. I miss it. I do.”
Suppose they gave a war, and nobody came….
Manhattan-based Ian Williams is the author of Deserter: Bush’s War on Military Families, Veterans, and His Past and Rum: A Social and Sociable History of the Real Spirit of 1776. The U.N. correspondent for The Nation magazine and many other publications around the world, Williams covered both Gulf wars. He has appeared on The O’Reilly Factor, Scarborough Country, Hardball, Lou Dobbs Tonight and Your World w/ Neil Cavuto. “I’m the liberal lion they throw to the Christian Right,” Williams quips.
House describes Ottawa’s dilemma: “The Canadian government doesn’t want to send a signal to the U.S. Army: ‘Come here!’ Individual officials come up to us and whisper sympathy. But that’s not the official line, which is that the war is not obnoxious or illegal enough for you to stay here.”
In a recent poll, 74% of Canadians saw George W. Bush as a threat to world peace. About the same number said the Iraq War was not justified, so there’s lots of support for the GIs, restraining any attempts by Canada’s new right-tilting government to send them back. It helps, says House, that the war resisters “are very presentable, intelligent, thoughtful and articulate; they have been through things.”
House is confident of eventual success, even if the issue has to go all the way to the Canadian Supreme Court. He cites the ironic precedent of a decade ago in which the Court ruled in favor of Mohamed Al-Maisri, a Yemeni deserter from Saddam Hussein’s army at the time of the first Gulf War. In other words, it’s not illegal to desert from an army that stages unprovoked attacks.
Hinzman’s case has now been followed by around three dozen more, and none of his counterparts feel any pressure to leave. Applicants for refugee status get work permits, access to the school system and—something mentioned enthusiastically by all I spoke to—Canada’s free healthcare.
Kyle Snyder headed to British Columbia when he returned from Iraq on leave. Snyder was already disaffected with the military due to family problems, but adds, “I saw a lot of things that were changing my mind about this war. I made a conscious choice that I couldn’t live with myself if I stayed in Iraq. I felt it was evil, the things that were happening. We were not doing anything positive for the Iraqi people.”
Then, after 18 months in Canada, Snyder heard that another resister, Darrell Anderson, had negotiated a deal that would have him quickly discharged if he went south and gave himself up. Snyder retained Anderson’s attorney, Jim Fennerty, who’d worked out the same offer with Major Brian Patterson at Fort Knox in Kentucky. “I gave up my job in Canada, gave up my healthcare and my refugee status,” Snyder states. “In fact, I gave up the life I had started over the last 18 months on a chance of a discharge that they would just let me out.”
However, when Snyder reported to Fort Knox, instead of the less-than-honorable discharge he was promised, Snyder says, “The whole attitude changed. It was ‘We are going to fuck you, we will send you back to your unit, and you will probably be redeployed back to Iraq.’”
Soldiers from Fort Knox dropped him off at the Greyhound station for a trip to Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri. Snyder recalls thinking, “I’m, like, fuck this. I’m not getting on that bus.”
Instead, when I eventually spoke to him, he was in New Orleans. “I’m going to help Iraq Veterans Against the War reconstruct, like we should have done when Katrina hit,” he declared. “It’s still a disaster area here; I don’t see why there aren’t troops here. It takes me running away from the military to do a job the military should have been doing in the first place.”
And after only a few weeks, he missed Canada. “We were loved up there. I miss it. I do.”
Suppose they gave a war, and nobody came….
Manhattan-based Ian Williams is the author of Deserter: Bush’s War on Military Families, Veterans, and His Past and Rum: A Social and Sociable History of the Real Spirit of 1776. The U.N. correspondent for The Nation magazine and many other publications around the world, Williams covered both Gulf wars. He has appeared on The O’Reilly Factor, Scarborough Country, Hardball, Lou Dobbs Tonight and Your World w/ Neil Cavuto. “I’m the liberal lion they throw to the Christian Right,” Williams quips.
Originally published at www.larryflynt.com
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