← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · Stigmata
Thread ID: 18354 | Posts: 2 | Started: 2005-05-23
2005-05-23 10:20 | User Profile
US deserters flee to Canada to avoid service in Iraq By Charles Laurence in New York (Filed: 09/01/2005)
[QUOTE]
American Army soldiers are deserting and fleeing to Canada rather than fight in Iraq, rekindling memories of the thousands of draft-dodgers who flooded north to avoid service in Vietnam.
An estimated 5,500 men and women have deserted since the invasion of Iraq, reflecting Washington's growing problems with troop morale.
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Hinzman said last week: "This is a criminal war and any act of violence in an unjustified conflict is an atrocity. I signed a contract for four years, and I was totally willing to fulfil it. Just not in combat arms jobs."
Hinzman, who served as a cook in Afghanistan, was due to join a fighting unit in Iraq after being refused status as a conscientious objector.
He realised that he had made the "wrong career choice" as he marched with his platoon of recruits all chanting, "Train to kill, kill we will".
He said: "At that point a light went off in my head. I was told in basic training that if I'm given an illegal or immoral order, it is my duty to disobey it. I feel that invading and occupying Iraq is an illegal and immoral thing to do.''
Pte Brandon Hughey, 19, who deserted from the 1st Cavalry Division at Fort Hood, Texas, said that he had volunteered because the army offered to pay his college fees. He began training soon after the invasion of Iraq but became disillusioned when no weapons of mass destruction were found.
"I had been willing to die to make America safe," he said. "I found out, basically, that they found no weapons of mass destruction and the claim that they made about ties to al-Qaeda was coming up short. It made me angry. I felt our lives as soldiers were being thrown away."
When he was ordered to deploy to Iraq, Hughey searched the internet for an "underground railroad" operation, through which deserting troops are helped to escape to Canada.
He was put in touch with a Quaker pacifist couple who had helped Vietnam draft-dodgers and was driven from Texas to Ontario.
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The deaths of 18 American soldiers in a suicide bomb attack in Mosul, northern Iraq, last month, was a further blow to morale. Soon after, the number of American soldiers killed since President Bush declared that large-scale combat operations were at an end passed the 1,000 mark.
[/QUOTE][url="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/01/09/wus09.xml&sSheet=/portal/2005/01/09/ixportal.html"]http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/01/09/wus09.xml&sSheet=/portal/2005/01/09/ixportal.html[/url]
2005-05-24 01:33 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Stigmata]US deserters flee to Canada to avoid service in Iraq New "Underground Railroad": 5500 US Troops Desert Traitor Bush's Crusade [/QUOTE] [color=navy]Bush better put in a call to his good buddy Jehova and request a whole lot of reinforcments fast..[/color]