Iraq War Resister, Kim Rivera, gets a temporary stay to her deportation order
War resisters update: First they came for ...
March 24, 2009 | by Krystalline Kraus http://www.rabble.ca/news/war-resisters-update-first-they-came ...........................Robin Long was the first Iraq war resister to be deported from Canada in July, 2008. He sought refuge in B.C., refusing to fight in what he still considers an illegal and immoral war.Now they're coming for Kim Rivera and her family, the Conservative government dispatching the CBSA like Harper's personal henchmen to snatch another war resister living peacefully in Canada, emboldened by Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, Jason Kenney's current opinion he's expressed to the media, stating that war resisters are "bogus refugee claimants."
Kim Rivera was an Army Private from Texas where she grew up proud of the American way of life. It was her experiences in the Iraq theatre that began a radical change in consciousness, leading her to purposefully miss her unit's plane trip back to the Middle East. She is the first female Iraq war resister to seek refugee status in Canada in February 18, along with her husband and family. Having exhausted all appeals through the Federal Courts to halt her Immigrant and Refugee Board (IRB) ordered deportation, she must now leave Canada willingly by Thursday March 26, 2009, or be forcibly removed from the country.
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UPDATE ON Kim's situation: http://www.citynews.ca/news/news_33213.aspx
Great Article in the Toronto Star by the wonderful Antonia!
War resisters deserve support
http://www.thestar.com/living/article/608911
"Is this the Canada we know and love? The one that welcomed 30,000 Vietnam War resisters? The one that, under Liberal prime minister Jean Chrétien, saw through the Bushies' bogus claims and refused to join the "Coalition of the Willing"? The one who, along with the United Nations, considered the "Shock and Awe" campaign illegal?
Clearly.
In Kenney's Canada, even the page on Citizenship and Immigration's website that celebrates those Vietnam War deserters and draft dodgers as "the largest, best-educated group" of new citizens "ever received" has been sent down the memory hole, wiped from the record.
In Kenney's Canada, where 64 per cent of Canadians say they support the resisters, and where two votes on Parliament Hill to stop the deportations have already passed, the U.S. military gets its man or, in Rivera's case, mom.
Yesterday, the NDP's Olivia Chow put forward a motion to allow those who "left military service related to a war not sanctioned by the United Nations and do not have a criminal record, to apply for permanent resident status and remain in Canada."
The vote is expected Monday night.
Let Jason Kenney and your MP know that Canadians don't salute the Pentagon: resisters.ca."
War Resister Motion passes -- again -- in Parliament: 129 to 125. A very slim margin as there are more Conservatives members this time around.
War resisters do not deserve our support nor taxpayer money unless they were drafted (against their will) and forced to serve in violent combat.
These men and women (modern Americans, not Vietnam Vets) knowingly joined the US Military for their own benefit (Education, $). Why would you expect NOT to have to be put into combat in this situation? When you join a military, you do not get to pick and choose your battles. This is part of the contract. Canada should not turn into a haven for those who get skittish at living up to their end of the bargain. Don't want to fight? Don't join the military.
War resisters do not deserve our support nor taxpayer money unless they were drafted (against their will) and forced to serve in violent combat.
These men and women (modern Americans, not Vietnam Vets) knowingly joined the US Military for their own benefit (Education, $). Why would you expect NOT to have to be put into combat in this situation? When you join a military, you do not get to pick and choose your battles. This is part of the contract. Canada should not turn into a haven for those who get skittish at living up to their end of the bargain. Don't want to fight? Don't join the military.
On a general level, fraud and illegality can vitiate contractual obligations. On the former, the pretence for invading Iraq, WMD, was clearly fraudulent. On the latter, the manner in which some of the war was conducted clearly violated the laws of armed conflict.
In one of the recent cases, on a successful judicial review application, Justice Barnes held that the actions the soldier was required to do clearly violated the Geneva Conventions, and that this could not be seriously challenged.
With few exception, the war resisters that I have interacted with do not expect to be kept out of combat. In fact, this is what limits their claims to conscientious objection in the traditional sense. That being said, what people do object to is being forced to participate in an illegal war, and in a war that is often conducted illegally.
Your argument that a contract binds anyone to commit violations of the law is laughable.
Because there is no draft currently, the people who are in the military, especially in Canada, are in it because they are convinced that this is the right choice.
These are people who are least likely to turn against war. So when Canadian or American soldiers go to Iraq or Afghanistan, see for themselves what is going on over there and if that is sufficient to radically change their views, then I say they should quit the military and speak out against the evil that is going on in these countries.
What are you afraid of, that things are that bad in Afghanistan, that enough soldiers will quit and speak out against it, that the Canadian military will fall apart?
If things are that bad, and this happens, then I say, "Good. It damn well should happen."
I feel that freedom of expression and freedom of conscience, as guarenteed by our Constitution, and (supposedly) what we are fighting to promote in Afghanistan and protect here at home, should extend to Canada's soldiers.
Update on Kim Rivera:
http://www.armytimes.com/news/2009/07/ap_deserter_canada_070809/