Ultimately if they truly objected to the orders given they should’ve stayed in the US and been tried appropriately. The Canadian decision simply removes “fleeing across the border and claiming persecution” as a method of avoiding jail time for members of the US military.
However far you’ve gone down the wrong road, turn back.
I don’t care if those soldiers had signed a blood oath under a new moon standing on their mother’s graves. That still doesn’t give them the moral right to take up arms in situations where innocent people are likely to get hurt. Whatever oath they swore is between them and the government to whom they swore it: they may not involve a third party (such as an Iraqi civilian) in this private agreement of theirs.
If the war in Iraq is justifiable, then of course they should maintain their oath. But if it is not morally justifiable, then the immorality of breaking their oath is vastly eclipsed by the immorality of keeping it.
I understand that most soldiers see the situation very differently from me; I can respect that difference of opinion. I still believe that anyone who continues to obey orders in an unjustified war–even legal orders–is behaving in a very immoral fashion.
Daniel
But the question was "Are American Service personnel who refuse orders eligible for refugee status?”. The answer is no.
In other late-breaking news, the Judicial Committee of the House of Lords, sitting as the U.K.'s highest court, accepted the precedent set by the Supreme Court of Canada to settle some 65-year-old disputes. Following the precedent that the legality of a war is irrelevant to whether someone is entitled to refugee status, the Lords ordered the Home Office to immediately extradite King Haakon VII of Norway, Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands, Gen. Charles deGaulle of France, and several other war criminals to the Third Reich. The present government of Germany said they want nothing to do with the case; the Home Office stated that all the identified persons are at least twenty years dead. The Law Lords responded that they were only following precedent, and cannot be held responsible for the justice or lack of same in ruling in accordance with legal precedent.
(If you’re going to Godwinize, Godwinize good.)
Every single one of 'em should desert. This war is patently illegal, based upon rationales which were known lies, and has killed thousands of innocent civilians so far. Can the entire army fit into a stockade?
Here’s the link to the press release announcing the decisions: Supreme Court of Canada - Judgments in Leave Applications. The two decisions are listed under “Dismissed with Costs”. Justices Bastarache, Abella and Charron made the decision to dismiss.
Since these are leave decisions (our equivalent to a denial of cert.), it does not count as a precedent from the SCC. The decision of the Federal Court of Appeal stands and is precedent for any similar cases that come up through the Federal Court / Refugee Board, but it is not necessarily the final word. It is conceivable that in the future the SCC might decide to hear a similar case. If so, it would not be bound by today’s decision to deny leave.
I’m confused by the analogy: were their majesties and the general serving in any of the military forces of the Third Reich?
What U.S. law does the war violate?
I think everyone needs to wake up to that fact. There are wars of aggression, wars of conquest, wars of defense, there’s even “multi-state police actions”, and the only thing determining the legality of any of them are the laws of the respective countries involved in said war (which can and do include treaty agreements–none of which were violated by our invasion of Iraq.)
But Daniel, this is just silly.
If a soldier really thinks the war is immoral, they go to their commanding officer and tell him they’re quitting. I’m not going to Iraq, the war is illegal, and following orders to go to Iraq would be immorl, and I’m not doing it.
That’s the way to handle the situation.
The improper way to handle the situation is to run away to Canada and beg the Canadian government to protect you from the consequences of your decision.
A soldier who refuses to deploy to Iraq isn’t going to be shot. He’s not even going to face prison time. He’s gonna be kicked out of the Army with at most a dishonorable discharge. And then he’ll have to pay back student loans the army paid for, stuff like that.
And note that running away to Canada doesn’t help the soldiers one bit with their beef with the Army, unless they plan to spend the rest of their lives in Canada. And get this, they weren’t drafted, they weren’t ordered to torture Iraqi civilians, they weren’t ordered to do anything immoral. They were ordered to get on a plane and go to Iraq.
And note that “I was only following orders” IS a valid defense, if the orders are legal orders. The order to get on a plane and go to Iraq is a legal order, even if the political leaders who started the war committed a war crime by starting the war, the soldiers who fight the war don’t commit a war crime by fighting the war. Ordinary German soldiers were not sentenced to death for invading France and Poland or bombing London, ordinary Japanese soldiers were not sentenced for invading China or the Phillipines or bombing Pearl Harbor.
Yes, ordinary soldiers could be charged with war crimes for torturing prisoners or killing civilians. Or for robbery, rape, forgery, extortion, murder, and so on. But they can’t be charged with war crimes for going to Iraq and fighting in the war.
During the Vietnam era, Canada would not extradite American citizens charged with evading the draft, because evading the draft was not a crime in Canada. But desertion is a crime in Canada, and Canada can and should send American criminals back to America.
And Polycarp, suppose you provide a cite that these deserters are facing war crimes charges in the US? They aren’t being charged as war criminals, they are being charged for going AWOL. What’s going to happen to them when they get sent back to the US? They face court martial. And what do you expect will be the sentence handed down by the court martial? The death penalty? Twenty years hard labor?
Funny you should say that.
Has there ever been a war, just or unjust, where innocent people were not killed? I am against this one as much as anyone, but if we are only to fight when we do not endanger innocent civilians, we may as well disband the Armed Forces.
Army Desertion Rate Up 80 Pct. Since '03
**
Guess more and more of your soldiers are finally coming around and seeing this war for what it is and not for what they’ve been told it is: an illegal an immoral exercise put in motion to further the USA’s (or, more directly Bush and the Neocons) geopolitical power.
For Martin Hyde – or anyone else that cares about The Truth over The Kool-Aid:
Lemur86 Following orders is not a legal defence.
“Befehl ist Befehl” was the excuse used by the Nazi war criminals on trial at Nuremberg, it was rejected out of hand
You’re making a huge leap in logic, there. Even if this war was uniformly considered the most noble undertaking in the history of mankind, some veterans will have had enough of it after a few years and some newbies will desert after they find they can’t handle military life, Iraq war notwithstanding. Aside from referencing the two that got bounced out of Canada, there’s nothing in the article supporting your conclusion that many or even some of the deserters do so because of politics.
That, Martin, is why I willfully and intentionally Godwinized. You may be able to make a case that Iraq, Gitmo, Patriot Act, et novem metra tota are facets of a moral war under international law. But to reduce it to what the statutes and treaties of the respective countries say, with no reference to international law, U.S. Constitutional guarantees, the “unwritten constitution” of what America has historically stood for, and similar elements excluded by your delimitation, is to reduce America’s justification to the one Hitler used. Godwinizing is frowned on in board debates simply because it is a classic exaggeration measure. But IMO that should not exclude comparisons to Nazi practice when they are accurate. To adjudge a war alleged to be one of aggression, the use of torture, espionage on a nation’s own citizens, etc., to be moral simply because its own laws authorize it, is to transform it into the Nuremburg justification pleas. I’ll listen to arguments why Iraq, waterboarding, etc., are in fact moral if someone wants to offer them – and probably try to pick them apart. But to reduce it to an amoral “it’s acceptable because our laws authorize it” is to play the same card Goering and his colleagues did – and it’s not a violation of Godwin’s Law to point out that it is.
Article VI of the U.S. Constitution (emphasis mine):
If we (the United States) signed the UN Charter (a treaty), then we are bound by its terms. The UN Charter, Chapter VI, Article 51 says ‘Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations…’
Iraq did not attack the United States. Thus the United States is in violation of the UN Charter, and under our own Constitution in violation of U.S. law.
You’re correct, that particular article says as much. Then again, why not ask the soldiers themselves why they are deserting as opposed to attributing excuses or making-up reasons? For instance, here’s what one of them had to say:
And yes, I realize a sample of one does not a rule make. But I disagree with your assessment of my making a “huge leap in logic.” I very much doubt this particular soldier is alone in his opinion…
Shades of 'Nam.
For better or worse, this isn’t the way international law works. There are two kinds of treaties: self-executing and non-self-executing. The former becomes US law upon ratification, as you describe above. The latter is considered too vague to immediately become US law–it must be put into effect by Congressional action. The UN Charter is a non-self-executing treaty. It’s not a mystery why. The charter is quite vague at points.
Additionally, even if it became US law automatically on ratification, it would arguably conflict with other provisions of the Constitution. In such cases, the Constitution wins.
On the subject of a rule of construction allowing treaties which conflict with the Constitution, the Supreme Court has said:
Reid v. Covert, 354 U.S. 1, 17 (U.S. 1957).
I think there is little doubt that the Iraq War violated international law. And there are even arguments that some our actions there violate treaties that are in force in US law, but the UN charter is not one of them.
Well, feel free to compile some statistics on the issue. The article says:
It also says (or at least reports that the Army says, without challenge) that 75% of the deserters are in their first term of enlistment (assuming a term is two years, though I admit this is a bit unclear since a “term” could also refer to a six-year hitch, which matches up with someone who enlisted just after Sept. 11, 2001 and is now seeking to leave the military), which implies they joined well after the Iraq war started which I assume means they didn’t have a big philosophical problem with it. Further, “some” (figures not given) are “allowed to simply return to their units”. I presume someone who deserted on philosophical grounds wouldn’t return under any circumstance.
Anyway, of the remaining 25%, we have a handful of well-publicized cases but not a lot of firm numbers on the motivation of most of them. Until you have such data, your statement remains unsupported.