Canadian Supremes: AWOL U.S. soldiers are not refugees

Great Debates
81

[QUOTE=Frank]
I have noticed, since I’ve arrived, in the articles and columns in the Citizen, an occasional comparison and equivalancy of Canada’s activity in Afganistan to the US’s activity in Iraq. I don’t get it, myself.
[/QUOTE]

Well, there is a lot of opposition to our involvement in Afghanistan, probably in part because so many of our soldiers are being killed (yet again two others in the last few days). Of course, in terms of morality it isn’t at all in the same class as the war in Iraq, but we can say that the war in Afghanistan is getting less and less popular.

82

[QUOTE=severus]
Well, there is a lot of opposition to our involvement in Afghanistan, probably in part because so many of our soldiers are being killed (yet again two others in the last few days). Of course, in terms of morality it isn’t at all in the same class as the war in Iraq, but we can say that the war in Afghanistan is getting less and less popular.
[/QUOTE]

This may go over poorly, but so far as I can tell, the Canadian death toll so far has been 73.

Now, I’ve known lots of members of the Canadian military over the years, and they didn’t seem to be cowards. Indeed, anyone who would willingly fly those Sea Kings has more guts than I do. So if this kind of death toll can cause this kind of handwringing, perhaps it is a reflection of the spine of the groups doing the opposing.

Different wars, I know, but Canadians lost this many guys in unreported WWII skirmishes, and the country never batted an eye.

83

[QUOTE=Mr. Moto]
This may go over poorly, but so far as I can tell, the Canadian death toll so far has been 73.
[/quote]

Seventy-three isn’t much, but in a country that takes pride in its supposed tradition of peacekeeping, where the citizenry doesn’t really like taking part in wars, especially in faraway countries we can’t even place on a map, it seems a lot. Also, our death toll has increased since 2006, and every soldier death makes front page news.

There are also questions whether our presence in Afghanistan is doing any good. Remember, the Afghan civil war has raged since the end of the 70s, and the Soviet Union broke its teeth there. President Karzai has said that it will not be possible to “defeat” the Taliban, we’ll have to accept that they are a group with a large level of support in the very traditionalist Afghan citizenry. I’ve also heard left-wing groups protesting the fact that our allies in Afghanistan are often just as ruthless and anti-modern than the Taliban. I know, our goal there isn’t to ensure that women gain the right to remove their burkhas and go to school, it is to fight terrorism, but sometimes you wonder if you’re helping.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not against our involvement in Afghanistan, although I do ask myself questions whether what we’re doing is helping anything. This said, do notice that in a democratic country, it is possible to debate our involvement in foreign conflicts without calling the other side warmongers, cowards or spineless.

I’m not sure about that. While World War II was without a doubt a just war, there was a lot of opposition to our presence there, especially after King’s Liberal government had to break its promise not to introduce conscription. Note that the US population, as far as I know, was also rather isolationistic before Pearl Harbor.

84

[QUOTE=severus]
Seventy-three isn’t much, but in a country that takes pride in its supposed tradition of peacekeeping, where the citizenry doesn’t really like taking part in wars, especially in faraway countries we can’t even place on a map, it seems a lot. Also, our death toll has increased since 2006, and every soldier death makes front page news.
[/QUOTE]

Noted, and I certainly do not want to minimize the Canadian effort there.

[QUOTE=severus]
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not against our involvement in Afghanistan, although I do ask myself questions whether what we’re doing is helping anything. This said, do notice that in a democratic country, it is possible to debate our involvement in foreign conflicts without calling the other side warmongers, cowards or spineless.
[/QUOTE]

Understood fully, and since I don’t think Canadians are spineless (their conduct in WWII sure wasn’t such) should they pull out of the Afghanistan effort, I would have to conclude that the government and society have weighed those war dead against the advantages of helping an ally that was attacked, and decided further effort wasn’t worth it.

I don’t think that would come to pass, frankly, and I hope it doesn’t.

85

[QUOTE=Mr. Moto]
I would have to conclude that the government and society have weighed those war dead against the advantages of helping an ally that was attacked, and decided further effort wasn’t worth it.

I don’t think that would come to pass, frankly, and I hope it doesn’t.
[/QUOTE]

Actually I think it would be a case of weighing the war dead against the prospects of actually achieving anything positive in Afghanistan. It’s not a question of wanting to help. It’s a question of whether it’s actually helping.

For the record I support the mission in Afghanistan as well, but I would like to see some evidence of political progress at some point.

86

[QUOTE=Left Hand of Dorkness]
Lemur seems to be making this equation:

Here he conflates immoral and illegal. He then adds,

Again, he confuses “immoral” with “illegal.” Those of us who consider this war to be immoral certainly believe that a soldier ordered to participate in it has been ordered to do something immoral.

What we should properly call him, though, is not a Great Debates subject.

Daniel
[/QUOTE]

Firstly, if you want to call me names, Daniel, you go right ahead. Either do so, or don’t. But pretending not to call me names while calling me names is lame, and I expected better from you. So, open up a Pit thread, or apologize, or continue to be a weasel about it. Your call.

The legality of the war in Iraq doesn’t make a difference. The morality of the war in Iraq doesn’t make a difference.

The soldiers weren’t ordered to do anything either illegal or immoral. Getting on a plane and going to Iraq is not immoral or illegal, regardless of whether the war itself is immoral or illegal.

Whether the war is illegal or immoral or both or neither, the individual soldiers who joined the army have a legal and moral obligation to behave both legally and morally.

If deploying to Iraq is an immoral action in and of itself, then the soldiers have a moral obligation to refuse to obey that order. If they faced 20 years in prison or a firing squad for refusing to obey the order, then running away to Canada would be a moral choice. But they don’t face either of those things. They don’t live in a totalitarian dictatorship, they live in a liberal democracy. If they believe deploying to Iraq would be immoral, then they should simply publicly refuse to obey that order, take whatever punishment they get (as long as it is proportionate), and then after they’ve been discharged they can publicize the decision they made and why.

Civil disobedience isn’t always the only moral choice. If you face extremely harsh disproportionate consequences for disobeying an immoral law, you aren’t obligated to publicly disobey the law, and you aren’t obligated to follow the law either.

But what consequences does a soldier who refuses to deploy to Iraq face? Are those consequences radically disproportionate to the offense? In this case, they are not. So in this case, either the soldier should obey the order or refuse to obey the order. Deserting is not a moral option.

As for the confusion, apparently because some people see what they want to see, is that obeying a legal order is not a war crime. German soldiers weren’t charged with war crimes for invading France or Poland, even though Nazi bigwigs were charged with war crimes for ordering the invasion of France or Poland. Even if Bush or Cheney and crew could be charged with war crimes for ordering the illegal invasion of Iraq, the soldiers who carried out those orders did not commit a war crime. Of course, individual soldiers can and should be prosecuted for such things as murdering civilians, torturing prisoners, and so forth.

And that’s the point. Raping and murdering and torturing is a crime, whether you were ordered to rape and murder and torture or not. Fighting in a war that may or may not be illegal or may or may not be immoral is not a crime. Killing someone, raping someone, torturing someone, these are immoral regardless of whether there is a war or not. Getting on a plane and flying to a particular country is not immoral, regardless of whether there is a war or not.

A soldier has a duty to obey lawful orders, because he agreed to obey those orders. But whether a person is wearing a uniform or not, or swore an oath or not, they are still a person who has the same moral obligations as every other person. Putting on a uniform doesn’t magically sanctify your actions, and neither does taking off a uniform. You are a human being first and always, and a citizen second, and a soldier third. Being labeled “soldier” doesn’t take away your humanity, or your duty to act morally. Being labeled “soldier” doesn’t take away your citizenship, or your duty to act legally.

And so. Would it be immoral for me to fly to Iraq? No it would not. Would it be immoral for me to rape and torture people while I was in Iraq? Yes it would. Whether I’m wearing a uniform or not is irrelvant. And so the order to deploy to Iraq is not an illegal order, nor is it an immoral order, because going to Iraq is not in and of itself illegal or immoral. Now, what you are asked to do while you are in Iraq may be illegal or immoral or both or neither, and you have an obligation as a human being to refuse to obey immoral orders and an obligation as a citizen to refuse to obey illegal orders. But going to Iraq while wearing a US army uniform is neither illegal or immoral.

87

[QUOTE=severus]
I’m not sure about that. While World War II was without a doubt a just war, there was a lot of opposition to our presence there, especially after King’s Liberal government had to break its promise not to introduce conscription.
[/QUOTE]

Opposition to consciption was not the same as opposition to involvement. There was never any significant public support in English Canada for pulling out of WWII as the war progressed; in French Canada, there was always a reasonably large isolationist support base. However, those didn’t change in response to conscription; what happened was that people opposed conscription.

I mean, I support the war in Afghanistan, but if they started a draft tomorrow I’d start packing for the trip to Ottawa to demonstrate against conscription on Parliament Hill. But I’d still support the war.

As to the issue of Afghanistan, I think the concern many Canadians have is twofold;

  1. The perception that progress is not being made, and

  2. The perception that Canada is being asked to do a disproportionate amount of the fighting while the rest of NATO sits on their asses and the USA fucks around in Iraq.

I admit that both issues bother me. It’s now been six years - we have been fighting in Afghanistan as long as we fought the Nazis - and if progress is being made, the government is doing an appalling job communicating that progress to me, the citizen. And that applies to both the current Conservative government and the previous Liberal one; I don’t recall that at any point in the last six years they have gone to much effort to provide, in an easy-to-find format, a comprehensive explanation of what, precisely, is being done, and what the successes and failures are.

The second issue, I think, is just galling. 73 soldiers is certainly not a lot as compared to the 40,000 we lost in WWII, but this isn’t WWII, it’s Afghanistan, and we’re fighting rabble, not professional armies. Maybe 73 lives is worth it; shit, if it got rid of a significant chunk of Islamist terrorism, maybe far more would be worth it. What does piss me off is that it’s suypposed to be a NATO operation, a war fought to defend a NATO ally, and most of the member nations of NATO are doing jack shit. While Canadians are out there leading the attack, and the US and British and Dutch are doing their part too, where are the Germans? The Spaniards? The Italians? The Norwegians?

88

[QUOTE=RickJay]
…The Spaniards?..
[/QUOTE]

Good post and quite reasonable. But make no mistake, we’re there and have actually sufferered slightly higher casualties due to our direct involvement than your own forces:

Coalition casualties in Afghanistan

Spanish deaths= 62 + 23 = 83 > 73 Canadians. Yes, indeed, it was an accident that killed the 62 – but it wouldn’t have happened without our involvement. IOW, those soldiers are counted as victims of said involvement as surely they wouldn’t have died in they hadn’t had to come back from there in the first place.

Still and all, don’t mean to make this a pissing contest. Like I said, I agree with the overall substance and (pessimistic) tenor of your post.

*Aznar’s cost-cutting measures while playing second poodle to Blair, much to blame for the tragedy.

89

Pardon me: 62 + 23 = 85

90

That’s bullshit. You can’t go and hold your soldiers out of combat situations and then claim that you’re pulling your weight because an accident in Turkey happened to kill some of your men

I mean, look at this:

You’ve had four deaths in combat since 2002. Four! Canada’s had four soldier die in combat since August. Meanwhile, the rest of NATO is cowering behind the front lines.

91

[QUOTE=Rysto]
That’s bullshit. You can’t go and hold your soldiers out of combat situations and then claim that you’re pulling your weight because an accident in Turkey happened to kill some of your men
.
[/QUOTE]

Believe what you will. If we weren’t involved in Afghanistan none of those deaths would have happened. Period.

But surely, Canadian soldiers, have all the guts we lack :rolleyes: . No need to look at it from a historical perspective either since you’re really into a pissing contest.

Then again, bullshit covers your post quite well.

92

[QUOTE=Lemur866]
Firstly, if you want to call me names, Daniel, you go right ahead. Either do so, or don’t. But pretending not to call me names while calling me names is lame, and I expected better from you. So, open up a Pit thread, or apologize, or continue to be a weasel about it. Your call.
[/quote]

I will not apologize for calling you a fool, but I certainly apologize for expressing my thought poorly. I revised it once, trying to be clearer, but I didn’t succeed, apparently: I intended to say that it’s inappropriate to imply that someone is a fool in Great Debates, but I apparently came across doing just the opposite. I do not think you’re a fool, and I was trying, unsuccessfully, to make that clear.

How on earth does the morality of the war not make a difference to the morality of participating in the war? Why get on the plane, if you’re not planning on participating in the war?

I agree with all of that. However, as I said before, the immorality of running away, IMO, is eclipsed by the potential immorality of participation.

Yes, but it’s less immoral than obeying the order.

Daniel

93

But they don’t face the choice between obey a putatively illegal/immoral order, and desertion. They can refuse to obey the order and demand a court martial.

Running away to Canada doesn’t do squat for them. It’s not like Canada is some mystic sanctuary. Were they expecting to spend the rest of their lives in Canada? Because even if Canada declared them “refugees”, they’d still never be able to return to the US. It’s not like they get their record cleared here in the US just because Canada refuses to ship them back to the US, is it?

So what exactly do they expect to accomplish by running away to Canada? The most they can hope for is that they won’t have to go to Iraq. Except if they don’t want to go to Iraq they can do the exact same thing here in the US: tell the army to go screw, they’re not getting on the plane. And what happens next? They get kicked out of the Army with a black mark inscribed on their permanent record. How is that worse than permanent exile to Canada? If they really want to go to Canada, they can do so after they get kicked out of the army, with the added advantage that they can come and go as they please.

They don’t face a choice between running away and participating in the war. They face a choice between refusing to participate in the war and taking their lumps for their decision now, or taking their lumps later.

94

[QUOTE=Lemur866]
But they don’t face the choice between obey a putatively illegal/immoral order, and desertion. They can refuse to obey the order and demand a court martial.
[/quote]
And get judged by the same people who want them to commit those unethical/illegal acts.

[QUOTE=Lemur866]
Running away to Canada doesn’t do squat for them. It’s not like Canada is some mystic sanctuary. Were they expecting to spend the rest of their lives in Canada?
[/QUOTE]
Um, why not ? It’s not like Canada is some sort of hellhole. They have electricity and running water and everything !

95

[QUOTE=Lemur866]
Were they expecting to spend the rest of their lives in Canada? … How is that worse than permanent exile to Canada?
[/QUOTE]

Y’know, this is kinda sorta starting to get borderline offensive.

96

[QUOTE=Der Trihs]
And get judged by the same people who want them to commit those unethical/illegal acts.

Um, why not ? It’s not like Canada is some sort of hellhole. They have electricity and running water and everything !
[/QUOTE]

And with all due respect, that’s the reason there’s a goddamned lineup to get in. We take in hundreds of thousand of immigrants every year, most of whom have to go through an arduous application process. Many of those are immigrants we actually NEED; people with skills required by our economy. Many are family members of current residents who have been trying to reunite with their families for Christ knows how long. Why should a couple of jerks who wanted to join the Army and reap all the benefits until they were asked to go to war (surprise!) get to step in front of a welder from Romania who’s jumped through hoops to get here? Did it actually comne as a suprise to them that they’d be sent away to fight? When was the last time the United States went twenty years without getting involved in a war of questionable morality and legality? Their historical ignorance is not my problem as a Canadian. Maybe the deserters should get in the fucking line. It doesn’t start at the front. We have an Immigration web site and everything.

Of course, I’m all for more immigration. And by more, I mean a LOT more; I’d jack the quotas up so high, they’d have to hire ten thousand immigrants just to process the applications of all the other immigrants. And I’m all for taking in real refugees. These guys aren’t real refugees - comparing thier plight to an actual refugee is a sad, Amero-centric joke - and they’re not legal immigrants. They’re provided Canada with no reason why we should let them in. Why should we be stuck with them?

97

[QUOTE=RickJay]
Opposition to consciption was not the same as opposition to involvement. There was never any significant public support in English Canada for pulling out of WWII as the war progressed; in French Canada, there was always a reasonably large isolationist support base. However, those didn’t change in response to conscription; what happened was that people opposed conscription.

I mean, I support the war in Afghanistan, but if they started a draft tomorrow I’d start packing for the trip to Ottawa to demonstrate against conscription on Parliament Hill. But I’d still support the war.

As to the issue of Afghanistan, I think the concern many Canadians have is twofold;

  1. The perception that progress is not being made, and

  2. The perception that Canada is being asked to do a disproportionate amount of the fighting while the rest of NATO sits on their asses and the USA fucks around in Iraq.

I admit that both issues bother me. It’s now been six years - we have been fighting in Afghanistan as long as we fought the Nazis - and if progress is being made, the government is doing an appalling job communicating that progress to me, the citizen. And that applies to both the current Conservative government and the previous Liberal one; I don’t recall that at any point in the last six years they have gone to much effort to provide, in an easy-to-find format, a comprehensive explanation of what, precisely, is being done, and what the successes and failures are.

The second issue, I think, is just galling. 73 soldiers is certainly not a lot as compared to the 40,000 we lost in WWII, but this isn’t WWII, it’s Afghanistan, and we’re fighting rabble, not professional armies. Maybe 73 lives is worth it; shit, if it got rid of a significant chunk of Islamist terrorism, maybe far more would be worth it. What does piss me off is that it’s suypposed to be a NATO operation, a war fought to defend a NATO ally, and most of the member nations of NATO are doing jack shit. While Canadians are out there leading the attack, and the US and British and Dutch are doing their part too, where are the Germans? The Spaniards? The Italians? The Norwegians?
[/QUOTE]

I agree with much of your post, but this strikes me oddly:

Afganistan is historically a great destroyer of occupying armies - from the Brits in the colonial days to, more recently, the Russians - who with all their might were unable to hold the country. For creating problems for occupying forces it has a perfect combination of rugged terrain, a traditionally warlike population, and porous borders.

73 deaths, while I am not minimizing the tragedy of them, strikes me from a purely military and historical perspective as being very few for keeping order in such a place - to my mind, it indicates that most of the population is not against our troops.

98

[QUOTE=Lemur866]
But they don’t face the choice between obey a putatively illegal/immoral order, and desertion. They can refuse to obey the order and demand a court martial.
[/quote]

Which, again, is why I said:

Let me try this again. In terms of morality:

Refusing the order and demanding a court martial>running away>obeying the order.

Is that clearer?

Yes, there are three choices. Yes, it’s better to refuse the order and demand a court martial than to run away. No, it’s not better to obey the order than to run away.

Neither of your either/or setups are the choice they face. They have many, many options, among which are running away, taking their lumps, obeying the order, fragging their commander, contacting an enemy soldier and turning insidious traitor, taking orders to murderous illogical extremes, etc. I am considering three specific options, and rating them as I see their morality.

Daniel

99

[QUOTE=Bryan Ekers]
Y’know, this is kinda sorta starting to get borderline offensive.
[/QUOTE]

Nothing wrong with Canada, except if you can never go home again, even to visit your Mom in the hospital.

As I said, if these guys want to live in Canada, they can surely do so after they’ve taken care of their little disagreement with the Army. It’s not that Canada is the problem, it’s permanent exile that’s the problem.

And Der Trihs, sure they face court martial by the same power structure that ordered them to go to Iraq in the first place. And so? If it’s so scary, why don’t you produce a cite for disproportionate punishment of soldiers who refuse to go?

They don’t face a firing squad, they don’t face 20 years in Leavenworth breaking rocks. They face dishonorable discharge. And they very likely could have avoided even that if they hadn’t run away from their responsibilities. They should make the Army kick them out, then they can go on Pacifica radio and tell their story and try to change public opinion. Instead, they acted like children and ran away.

And as I said earlier, if they really did face 20 years in Leavenworth, running away would be reasonable. But they don’t, so it isn’t.

100

Getting back to the OP, I agree that the war was not illegal - it may have been stupid but it was legal. And the defendants did volunteer to serve in the armed forces. So I don’t see them having any legitimate claim to having a right to desert.

But I disagree with much of what Bricker has said. First, the idea that the Supreme Court of Canada “rejected the claims” or “disagreed with this conclusion”. The court refused to hear the case; it did not issue any ruling on the case such as these comments imply. The Court may have decided not to hear the appeal for reasons that had nothing to do with the merits of the case itself. If I shoot a man in New York and a Pennsylvania court says it won’t try my case, that doesn’t mean I can claim they exonerated me.

Second, I disagree with the claim that “the legality of the war is irrelevant for the purposes of refugee status”. This is begging the question. While I don’t feel that the United States acted illegally, I’m not going to say that the possibility couldn’t exist. And it pretty much was the issue the court was called upon to decide. The Canadian court was being asked to rule on whether or not the American government was following its own laws. Saying that question should only be addressed by the American court system is ridiculous - if the American government is acting illegally then the American courts system cannot be an unbiased arbitrator of that fact. A legitimate court would legally rule its actions were legal but an illegitimate court would illegally also rule its actions were legal. I’m sure Bricker wouldn’t allow an Iranian or North Korean court the same benefit of a doubt in ruling on the legitimacy of its own government’s actions.