Here’s one that both angers me and makes me embarrassed to be a Canadian:
globeandmail.com: Canada deports U.S. army deserter
U.S. army deserter Robin Long was quietly deported from Canada Tuesday morning, while protesters unaware of his whereabouts picketed the Canada-U.S. border crossing south of Vancouver.
The first and most important question here is why are we letting a minority government get away with this kind of shit when:
In a recent Angus Reid poll, almost two-thirds of Canadians said they want U.S. Iraq war resisters to be allowed to stay in Canada. The deportation of Robin Long also flies in the face of the Parliamentary motion adopted June 3 by a majority of MPs, which calls for US war resisters to be allowed to stay in Canada and for deportation proceedings to cease immediately. (source)
We understand the Mr. Harper and his coterie want to do everything they can to get in good with the gang on it’s way out down south, but expediting deportations in the face of the public will, and Parliamentary motions, in order to hand people over to the US military justice system is reprehensible.
Why was Long here?
Mr. Long, who fled to Ontario in 2005, had signed up to join the U.S. Army in July, 2003. He believed at that time that his country was justified in going to war in Iraq, his lawyer Shepherd Moss said at the court hearing to halt the deportation. Mr. Long intended to train as a tank commander. “He wanted to go to defend his country,” Mr. Moss said.
His perspective changed while in training at the army base at Fort Knox. After hearing that weapons of mass destruction had not been found in Iraq, Mr. Long thought the U.S. had no reason for being at war. Also, he was troubled by evidence of abuse of Iraqi detainees that came out in May of 2004, Mr. Moss said.
Mr. Long concluded the abuse was systemic and condoned by the U.S. administration, Mr. Moss said. After some soul-searching, Mr. Long decided he would not go to Iraq and would not participate or be complicit in what he believed were war crimes, the lawyer said. (source)
Guess what? I think they were war crimes too. And you know, we didn’t go to Iraq–I know Mr. Harper et. al. would have had our troops in their in a second if they had been in power at the time, but there’s a reason we didn’t go, and a reason the majority of Canadians supported that decision even under strong pressure from the US.
And, of course, I was always proud of our official policy, which I guess has ended, of being a haven for conscientious objectors.
I am saddened and somewhat disgusted by the whole thing, and moreso by the certain cynical knowledge that no one will call Mr. Harper and his government to account for this. The so called opposition parties need to get over their fear of an election, and start acting like an opposition.
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