May 08, 2006
Cindy Sheehan: Our Number One Deserter
Since no one in the U.S. wants to listen to her anymore, Cindy Sheehan has taken her sideshow on the road to Canada, where she is urging our northern neighbors to take in deserters from the U.S. armed forces.
OTTAWA -- Canadian soldiers have no business being in Afghanistan and their presence there merely enables the United States to carry on its "illegal and immoral" war in Iraq, prominent U.S. anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan said yesterday.
"I believe my country shouldn't be in Afghanistan anyway," Ms. Sheehan said at a news conference on Parliament Hill. "It's never about spreading freedom or democracy or making the world safe, it's about lining the war profiteers' pockets."
While lambasting President George W. Bush and the U.S. government for the Iraq war, Ms. Sheehan also fired broadsides at the UN-backed international mission in Afghanistan.
"My country supported Osama bin Laden in the fight against Russia," she said. "And now they go in and tear down that country. It's back in the hands of the drug lords, it's producing more opium than ever, and it's not safe. There's not any rebuilding going on, because it's being occupied by occupying forces."
Canada's deployment of 2,300 soldiers to Afghanistan simply "frees up more soldiers to be in Iraq," Ms. Sheehan said.
Ms. Sheehan and Canadian activists from the Council of Canadians and the War Resisters Support Campaign also called on Prime Minister Stephen Harper to "open the border" to U.S. military deserters.
"I believe our war resisters are legitimate refugees," Ms. Sheehan said.
Ms. Sheehan, whose son, Specialist Casey Sheehan, was killed in Iraq in April, 2004, gained prominence last year when she camped for days outside Mr. Bush's Crawford, Tex., ranch, demanding answers for the war.
Yesterday, she added her fame to the so-far unsuccessful efforts of Canadian peace activists to persuade the federal government to grant refugee claims by U.S. military deserters who don't want to serve in Iraq.
Last month, the Federal Court of Canada ruled against two U.S. Army deserters who had appealed for refugee status in Canada on the grounds that they might be jailed if they return to the United States.
The court ruled that prosecution in U.S. courts does not amount to persecution. Immigration and Refugee Board decisions had earlier rejected requests for political asylum from Jeremy Hinzman and Brandon Hughey.
Speaking alongside Ms. Sheehan at yesterday's media briefing, War Resisters organizer Michelle Robidoux said about 20 more soldiers have since fled to Canada. "We estimate there may be several hundred more who are living clandestinely in Canada," she said. "This is an echo of what happened during the Vietnam War."
The activists conceded that current war resisters are different from those in the Vietnam era because they volunteered to serve, rather than being drafted.
However, Ms. Sheehan said, the soldiers are within their rights to desert because many are "lied to" by U.S. military recruiters who tell them they won't have to fight in Iraq. "My son was an honourable, honest person lied to by his recruiter," she said.
Those who sign up for today's Army or any other branch of the military sign a contract to serve for a specific amount of time. If a war should crop up in that time, soldiers are contractually bound to go to the war zone if assigned. Period.
If you join up thinking it's an easy way to get money for college or skills that can transfer directly to the job market once you're out, then you shouldn't sign up at all. If war doesn't crop up, you get lucky. If it does, then the military has every right to expect you to go where they send you. There's no such thing as a free lunch.
Cindy Sheehan is the world's biggest hypocrite, as her son re-enlisted, knowing he could be sent to Iraq. We'll never know what he'd think of his mother's demands for deserters to be allowed into Canada...but based on his actions prior to his death, I don't think he'd be thrilled.
Maybe Cindy will fall in love with Canada and stay there herself. After all, isn't she a deserter in spirit?
Show Comments »
She's become so shrill that even her own family has disowned her. Her husband divorced her because he so vehemntly disagreed with her and thinks she has dishonored their son. Her remaining kids want nothing to do with her.
I think that illustrates just how far into the fringes she has gone.
Posted by: DCE at May 9, 2006 07:03 PMTo be a deserter in spirit you have to want to sign up first.
Posted by: paul at May 9, 2006 09:42 PMYeah I'm Canadian and getting royally fed up with lefty anti-Bush Yanks like Sheehan, Micheal Moore, Al Gore and Robin Williams showing up here and giving us advice on who to vote for in our elections, where to deploy our troops, etc, etc....If you wanna go on a whiny tirade in the OWN country, fine -- but don't come up here and preach --- MYOB and go home please!
Posted by: K-Nine at May 10, 2006 10:18 AM
