Some people will just never accept that the 1960s are over, said The Wall Street Journal in an editorial. In the latest spasm of hippie nostalgia, as many as 500 young Americans have fled north into Canada, just as thousands did during Vietnam, to avoid being sent to fight in Iraq or Afghanistan. Like their Vietnam-era predecessors, these modern-day draft dodgers are appealing for asylum on the grounds that their conscience won’t let them fight—but there’s a problem with that argument: The U.S. no longer has a draft for them to be dodging. These deserters all volunteered for the military “knowing full well they could be sent overseas and into combat,” and only decided later that they’d made a mistake. Fortunately, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper is denying the deserters asylum, and has pledged to arrest them and send them home to face justice.
Jailing me wouldn’t be justice, said Corey Glass, one of the deserters, in The Toronto Sun. When I joined the Indiana National Guard in 2002, I was told that the only way I’d see combat was “if there were troops occupying the United States.” Three years later, I was sent not to New Orleans to help Americans hurt by Hurricane Katrina but to Iraq, to fight a war that had been “started on the basis of lies” and in defiance of international law. I deserted not out of cowardice or disloyalty, but because “innocent people were being killed unjustly.” I felt duty-bound not to be part of it. Most Canadians support you, said Henry Aubin in the Montreal Gazette, and the House of Commons has even passed a resolution urging Harper “to refrain from ousting war resisters,” who shouldn’t be forced to fight in a war that was launched on the basis of their government’s lies.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
UK-India trade deal: how the social security arrangements will workThe Explainer A National Insurance exemption in the UK-India trade deal is causing concern but should British workers worry?
-
Man arrested after 'suspicious' fires at properties linked to Keir StarmerSpeed Read Prime minister thanks emergency services after fire at his former family home in north London
-
Elon Musk's SpaceX has created a new city in Texasunder the radar Starbase is home to SpaceX's rocket launch site
