Crooked in Canada

When an American enlists in the army, the expectation of that person is that he or she will be expected to go to war when their number is called, and that they will be expected to aim their guns and shoot at the enemy. That’s pretty basic knowledge (common sense really), and should that person decide after they have enlisted, completed their basic training, and completed their first tour of duty that they don’t want to return to the battlefields of Iraq or Afghanistan, then so be it, but they shouldn’t be allowed to run and hide in Canada. Their problems shouldn’t be Canada’s problem, and the enlisted U.S. soldier shouldn’t be allowed to make it Canada’s problem. Does anybody have any idea how much that problem costs Canadian taxpayers, it isn’t chump change?

Don’t get me wrong, if a U.S. soldier doesn’t want to go to war anymore for any reason, then he or she be allowed to opt out, or at the very least make their case in the U.S. instead of running to Canada and expecting the Canadian government and courts to stand up for their right not to go to war. U.S. soldiers refusing to follow through with the commitment they made to the U.S. army when they enlisted isn’t and should never be Canada’s problem, it’s not their fight.

That said, that’s not the way Federal Court Justice Robert Barnes sees it, in fact if the decision on whether a U.S. soldier should be given asylum in Canada because he or she know longer wishes to honour their commitment to the U.S. army was solely his, he would give all U.S. army deserters a pass and let them remain Canada. His actions this week imply or indicate as much.

In what I would consider an absolutely ridiculous and irresponsible ruling by a federal judge in Canada (and there have been a few such rulings in the past little while right across the country) Justice Robert Barnes is giving another chance to U.S. army deserter Joshua Key to gain refugee status in Canada so that he can avoid having to fulfill the commitment he made to the army when he first enlisted, and after already serving an eight month tour of duty in Iraq.

Justice Barnes has ordered Canada’s refugee board to take another look the American deserter’s failed bid for asylum, citing that the Immigration and Refugee made mistakes in turning down Key’s claim for asylum. Obviously Barnes has his own interpretation of what the rules are when it comes to refugee status claims and how those rules are supposed to be applied, but interfering in matters of Canadian immigration because he just happens to disagree about a particular ruling by the refugee board is insane and totally beyond his scope of responsibilities as a federal judge. It was an incompetent ruling.

Justice Barnes is taking the word of a U.S. soldier who says that while he was in Iraq American soldiers committed savage acts against civilians and routinely killed innocent people. That’s the same argument anti-war activists in the U.S and around the world are using when they protest against the war in Iraq. Key is playing Canadians when he makes that claim because if he truly believed that, surely he would have turned to anti-war organisations and the U.S. media to make that declaration, but he didn’t.

He had other options other than fleeing to Canada with his wife and four children to avoid having to return to the battlefield, but he took the easy way out and ran to Canada to avoid the pressure he would have been put under in the U.S. if he went to the media and anti-war movement with his concerns.

His claim for refugee status is bogus in my opinion. He’s a coward, not a refugee, as most Canadians (including Justice Barnes) would normally define a refugee.

Bottom-line; Joshua Key isn’t hard done by. He wasn’t facing persecution in the U.S., he certainly wasn’t living in a war-torn country, and he wasn’t starving to death. The only problem he was having in the U.S. was the fact that he no longer wanted to serve in the U.S. army. Traditional refugees to Canada should all be so hard done by. If they were, there would be a helluva lot less of them in Canada.

That said, Justice Barnes ruling basically means that any U.S. army deserter can now claim they are refugees from the U.S. (that sounds funny doesn’t it?), and I think his ruling should be appealed. I also think that if Justice Barnes is an anti-war activist, he should just come out and say it rather than using his lofty seat in the Canadian justice system to make a difference for the anti-war movement in both the Canada and the U.S.

Quotes from Justice Barnes ruling, and what I think in parenthesis:

“Officially condoned military misconduct falling well short of a war crime may support a claim to refugee protection”

(Huh, condoned military misconduct, does he have any proof that the U.S. government or military actually condones the actions Keys claims he saw American soldiers do in Iraq? There’s no concrete proof that both the U.S. government and military condones such actions, only hearsay, and that usually comes from those who either have a bone to pick with the U.S. administration or the U.S. military.)

“Military action that systematically degrades, abuses or humiliates either combatants or non-combatants could provide such support”

(Okay, so where’s the proof of that, there is plenty of evidence that supports that claim if the deserter was an enemy combatant, or a known civilian supporter of the al-Qaeda and the insurgents, but to the best of my knowledge when Keys enlisted he knew what his expectations were, and he was expected to fulfill those commitments.  Sure he would have been punished for failing to obey orders, but in his case suggesting that he was degraded, abused or humiliated by U.S. military action is absurd when you consider that when he enlisted in the U.S. army he would have been aware just how brutal war could be, and the effect war could have on an enlisted soldier, he would have been made aware of that in basic training, perhaps even before, but still he moved forward with his career in the military.)

And last but certainly not least, here’s a quote from Keys that makes me laugh:

“You’re treated unfairly just for not wanting to go kill innocent people.”

I’m sorry, he isn’t being treated unfairly for not wanting to kill innocent people, and the officers he served under would never condone the killing of innocent people if it could be helped. Nobody was forcing him to kill innocent people. He knows that. This isn’t about him not wanting to kill innocent people; it’s about him deserting the army. If this was about being forced against his will to kill innocent people, he should have taken is story of woe to Fox News or some other U.S. news network. He’s full of shit with that statement.

Headline: Board told to revisit war dodger’s failed asylum bid