[North-NV-Greens] Fwd: CBS News: 5, 500 Servicemen Refuse to Ship Out, Desert

Sat Dec 11 19:36:25 PST 2004

>I'm a Viet Nam Era vet. My how this story takes me back!   Pax, Paul Etx
>
>Deserters: We Won't Go To Iraq
>
>CBSNews.com
>Dec. 8, 2004
>
>The Pentagon says more than 5,500 servicemen have
>deserted since the war started in Iraq.
>
>60 Minutes Wednesday found several of these deserters
>who left the Army or Marine Corps rather than go to
>Iraq. Like a generation of deserters before them, they
>fled to Canada.
>
>What do these men, who have violated orders and oaths,
>have to say for themselves? They told Correspondent
>Scott Pelley that conscience, not cowardice, made them
>American deserters.
>
>"I was a warrior. You know? I always have been. I've
>always felt that way -- that if there are people who
>can't defend themselves, it's my responsibility to do
>that," says Pfc. Dan Felushko, 24.
>
>It was Felushko's responsibility to ship out with the
>Marines to Kuwait in Jan. 2003 to prepare for the
>invasion of Iraq. Instead, he slipped out of Camp
>Pendleton, Calif., and deployed himself to Canada.
>
>"I didn't want, you know, 'Died deluded in Iraq' over
>my gravestone," says Felushko. "If I'd gone,
>personally, because of the things that I believed, it
>would have felt wrong. Because I saw it as wrong, if I
>died there or killed somebody there, that would have
>been more wrong."
>
>He told Pelley it wasn't fighting that bothered him. In
>fact, he says he started basic training just weeks
>after al Qaeda attacked New York and Washington ñ- and
>he was prepared to get even for Sept. 11 in
>Afghanistan.
>
>But Felushko says he didn't see a connection between
>the attack on America and Saddam Hussein.
>
>"(What) it basically comes down to, is it my right to
>choose between what I think is right and what I think
>is wrong?" asks Felushko. "And nobody should make me
>sign away my ability to choose between right and
>wrong."
>
>But Felushko had signed a contract to be with the U.S.
>Marine Corps. "It's a devil's contract if you look at
>it that way," he says.
>
>How does he feel about being in Toronto while other
>Marines are dying in Fallujah, Najaf and Ramadi?
>
>"It makes me struggle with doubt, you know, about my
>decision," says Felushko.
>
>What does he say to the families of the American troops
>who have died in Iraq?
>
>"I honor their dead. Maybe they think that my presence
>dishonors their dead. But they made a choice the same
>as I made a choice," says Felushko. "My big problem is
>that, if they made that choice for anything other than
>they believed in it, then that's wrong. Right? And the
>government has to be held responsible for those deaths,
>because they didn't give them an option."
>
>Felushko's father is Canadian, so he has dual
>citizenship, and he can legally stay in Canada. But
>it's not that easy for other American deserters.
>
>Canadian law has changed since the Vietnam era. Back
>then, an estimated 55,000 Americans deserted to Canada
>or dodged the draft. And in those days, Canada simply
>welcomed them.
>
>But today's American deserters, such as Brandon Hughey,
>will need to convince a Canadian immigration board that
>they are refugees.
>
>Hughey volunteered for the Army to get money for
>college. He graduated from high school in San Angelo,
>Texas, just two months after the president declared war
>in Iraq.
>
>What did he think about the case for going to war? "I
>felt it was necessary if they did have these weapons,
>and they could end up in our cities and threaten our
>safety," says Hughey. "I was supportive. At first, I
>didn't think to question it."
>
>He says at first, he was willing to die "to make
>America safe." And while Hughey was in basic training,
>he didn't get much news. But when he left basic
>training, he started following the latest information
>from Iraq.
>
>"I found out, basically, that they found no weapons of
>mass destruction. They were beginning to come out and
>say it's not likely that we will find any -- and the
>claim that they made about ties to al Qaeda was coming
>up short, to say the least," says Hughey. "It made me
>angry, because I felt our lives were being thrown away
>as soldiers, basically."
>
>When Hughey got orders for Iraq, he searched the
>Internet and found Vietnam era war resisters willing to
>show him the way north. In fact, they were willing to
>drive him there, and a Canadian television news camera
>went along.
>
>Hughey had an invitation to stay with a Quaker couple
>that helped Americans avoid the draft during Vietnam.
>>From Fort Hood, Texas, to St. Catherine's in Ontario,
>Canada, Hughey crossed the border, duty free.
>
>Pelley read letters about Hughey's desertion that were
>sent to the editor of a San Antonio newspaper.
>
>"It makes me sad to know that there's that much hate in
>the country," says Hughey. "Before I joined the Army, I
>would have thought the same way. Anyone who said no to
>a war, I would have thought them a traitor and a
>coward. So, in that essence, I'm thankful for this
>experience, because it has opened my eyes and it has
>taught me not to take things on the surface."
>
>However, he adds: "I have to say that my image of my
>country always being the good guy, and always fighting
>for just causes, has been shattered."
>
>Hughey, and other deserters, will be represented before
>the Canadian Immigration and Refugee Board by Toronto
>lawyer Jeffry House.
>
>His clients will have to prove that, if they are
>returned to the United States, they wouldn't just be
>prosecuted for what they did - they would be also be
>persecuted. How will House make that claim?
>
>"People should have a right to say, 'I'm not fighting
>in that war. That's an illegal war. There's illegal
>stuff going on the ground. I'm not going,'" says House.
>"And anyone who says soldiers should go to jail if they
>don't fight in an illegal war is persecuting them."
>
>And it's something House has experience with. In 1969,
>he graduated from the University of Wisconsin, got
>drafted, and spent the rest of his life in Canada.
>
>House's legal strategy will focus on his contention
>that President Bush is not complying with international
>law. But how will he defend volunteers who signed a
>contract?
>
>"The United States is supposed to comply with treaty
>obligations like the U.N. charter, but they don't,"
>says House. "When the president isn't complying with
>the Geneva Accords or with the U.N. charter, are we
>saying, 'Only the soldier who signed up when he was 17
>-- that guy has to strictly comply with contract? The
>president, he doesn't have to?' I don't think so. I
>don't think that is fair."
>
>The first deserter to face the Canadian refugee board
>is likely to be Spc. Jeremy Hinzman of Rapid City, S.D.
>He joined the military in Jan. 2001, and was a
>paratrooper in the 82nd Airborne.
>
>He wanted a career in the military, but over time, he
>decided he couldn't take a life. "I was walking to chow
>hall with my unit, and we were yelling, 'Train to kill,
>kill we will,' over and over again," recalls Hinzman.
>"I kind of snuck a peek around me and saw all my
>colleagues getting red in the face and hoarse yelling
>-- and at that point a light went off in my head and I
>said, 'You know, I made the wrong career decision.'"
>
>But Hinzman said he didn't want to get out of the Army:
>"I had signed a contract for four years. I was totally
>willing to fulfill it. Just not in combat arms jobs."
>
>While at Fort Bragg, Hinzman says he filled out the
>forms for conscientious objector status, which would
>let him stay in the Army in a non-combat job.
>
>While he waited for a decision, he went to Afghanistan
>and worked in a kitchen. But later, the Army told him
>he didn't qualify as a conscientious objector, and he
>was ordered to fight in Iraq.
>
>Hinzman decided to take his family to Canada, where
>he's been living off savings accumulated while he was
>in the military.
>
>Wasn't he supposed to follow orders? "I was told in
>basic training that, if I'm given an illegal or immoral
>order, it is my duty to disobey it," says Hinzman. "And
>I feel that invading and occupying Iraq is an illegal
>and immoral thing to do."
>
>"But you can't have an Army of free-thinkers," says
>Pelley. "You wouldn't have an Army."
>
>"No, you wouldn't. I think there are times when
>militaries or countries act in a collectively wrong
>way," says Hinzman. "I mean, the obvious example was
>during World War II. Sure, Saddam Hussein was a really
>bad guy. I mean, he ranks up there with the bad ones.
>But was he a threat to the United States?
>
>Still, isn't it worth fighting to free the people of
>Iraq? "Whether a country lives under freedom or tyranny
>or whatever else, that's the collective responsibility
>of the people of that country," says Hinzman.
>
>Hinzman and the other American deserters have become
>celebrities of sorts in the Canadian anti-war movement.
>
>Only a few of the reported 5,500 deserters are in
>Canada, but House says he's getting more calls from
>nervous soldiers all the time.
>
>Wouldn't the right and honorable thing for deserters to
>do be to go back to the United States, and turn
>themselves in to the Army?
>
>"Why would that be honorable?" asks House. "(Deserters
>signed a contract) to defend the Constitution of the
>United States, not take part in offensive, pre-emptive
>wars. I don't think you should be punished for doing
>the right thing. What benefit is there to being a
>martyr? I don't see any."
>
>Hinzman began his hearing before the Canadian
>Immigration and Refugee board last Monday. But there's
>no telling when he'll find out if he'll be allowed to
>stay in Canada -- or be sent back to the United States
>to face the consequences.
>
>The maximum penalty for deserting in wartime is death.
>But it's more typical for a soldier to draw a sentence
>of five years or less for deserting in wartime.
>
>http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/12/06/60II/main659336.shtml
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-- 
Paul Etxeberri

"Forests precede civilizations and deserts follow"   ---Chateaubriand