Apparently, there may be an exodus of US military deserters coming across to Canada in the near future. Unwilling to fight a war, they are hoping for asylum in Canada. A word to a wise, though: if you’re ever in the position to do any kind of business with one of these deserters, don’t!
Hundreds of American soldiers are preparing to come to Canada if this country again opens its doors to war resisters.
Toronto lawyer Jeffry House, who is representing Jeremy Hinzman’s landmark refugee case, said 200 have contacted him alone, mostly since George W. Bush was re-elected in November, looking for a way out.
I can see how these immgration applications are going to go.
“I am a US soldier. I signed up for the military a few years ago. It was explained to me several times in a variety of ways that I would have to obey my commanding officers including the Commander in Chief, the President. I swore an oath to serve my country and to obey my superiors. I signed a contract with the US military to do a certain job in exchange for a certain pay, help with school and so forth. I accepted their pay. I accepted their help with school. Now I don’t want to fulfill my end of the bargain, and I want Canada to help me renege on the deal without penalty.”
It sounds like these soldiers have a real problem understanding contractual obligations, which is why I’d advise people not to bother doing business with them. Give one of them a job and they’ll take the paycheque and never show up. Sue them and they’ll apply for asylum someplace.
If this is the way it works, I have a debt to and a contract with my credit card company that I’d dearly love to get out of! Do you think I can get political asylum somewhere to do it?
Cornelia wrote:
Hello
I think there is no reason for the readers to worry about getting disadvantages by doing business with the deserters. When somebody is hired to do a job, he or she gets the salary for example for the work of January not before the beginning of February, but for sure not in advance. So how can one get paid for an amount of work he or she hasn’t done yet? And anyway, I feel the comparisons the author makes are kind of inadequate and strange. Going (again) to Iraq is certainly something different and worse and more dangerous and also indeed very difficult in terms of human rights due to the way the war is waged over there from a job in civilian life where one can easily get out and look for a new job. Of course, one could say the deserters have signed up and they should have decided otherwise before but one could also say that the whole trouble is partly or mostly due to the severe mistakes made by the Bush-Administration and other institutions. Things like Abu-Ghraib have proved very damaging to the war on terror, I feel. I mean America has done such a great and historically meritious job with the liberation of Germany and Kosova but the women of Afghanistan still have not been liberated despite the overthrow of the Taliban.
What the author has said about asking for asylum somewhere else in order not to have to pay the debts, that’s also not very accurate under the terms of refugee law, in my opinion, unless one lives in a country which is not yet free and therefore he or she risks getting into bondage, exploitation and kind of modern slavery for not being able to pay for his or her debts, as it may still be the case in some places.
Posted on 23-Aug-06 at 6:49 am | Permalink