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.