[Mb-civic] Deserters: We Won't Go to Iraq

[Michael Butler]

Also see below:     
Analysis: Discontent Plaguing Military    €

     Go to Original

    Deserters: We Won't Go to Iraq
    CBSNews.com

     Wednesday 08 December 2004
 The Pentagon says more than 5,500 servicemen have deserted since the war
started in Iraq.

    60 Minutes Wednesday found several of these deserters who left the Army
or Marine Corps rather than go to Iraq. Like a generation of deserters
before them, they fled to Canada.

     What do these men, who have violated orders and oaths, have to say for
themselves? They told Correspondent Scott Pelley that conscience, not
cowardice, made them American deserters.

     "I was a warrior. You know? I always have been. I¹ve always felt that
way - that if there are people who can¹t defend themselves, it¹s my
responsibility to do that," says Pfc. Dan Felushko, 24.

     It was Felushko's responsibility to ship out with the Marines to Kuwait
in Jan. 2003 to prepare for the invasion of Iraq. Instead, he slipped out of
Camp Pendleton, Calif., and deployed himself to Canada.

     "I didn¹t want, you know, 'Died deluded in Iraq' over my gravestone,"
says Felushko. "If I'd gone, personally, because of the things that I
believed, it would have felt wrong. Because I saw it as wrong, if I died
there or killed somebody there, that would have been more wrong."

     He told Pelley it wasn't fighting that bothered him. In fact, he says
he started basic training just weeks after al Qaeda attacked New York and
Washington - and he was prepared to get even for Sept. 11 in Afghanistan.

     But Felushko says he didn't see a connection between the attack on
America and Saddam Hussein.

     "(What) it basically comes down to, is it my right to choose between
what I think is right and what I think is wrong?" asks Felushko. "And nobody
should make me sign away my ability to choose between right and wrong."

     But Felushko had signed a contract to be with the U.S. Marine Corps.
"It's a devil's contract if you look at it that way," he says.

     How does he feel about being in Toronto while other Marines are dying
in Fallujah, Najaf and Ramadi?

     "It makes me struggle with doubt, you know, about my decision," says
Felushko.

     What does he say to the families of the American troops who have died
in Iraq?

     "I honor their dead. Maybe they think that my presence dishonors their
dead. But they made a choice the same as I made a choice," says Felushko.
"My big problem is that, if they made that choice for anything other than
they believed in it, then that's wrong. Right? And the government has to be
held responsible for those deaths, because they didn¹t give them an option."

     Felushko¹s father is Canadian, so he has dual citizenship, and he can
legally stay in Canada. But it¹s not that easy for other American deserters.

     Canadian law has changed since the Vietnam era. Back then, an estimated
55,000 Americans deserted to Canada or dodged the draft. And in those days,
Canada simply welcomed them.

     But today¹s American deserters, such as Brandon Hughey, will need to
convince a Canadian immigration board that they are refugees.

     Hughey volunteered for the Army to get money for college. He graduated
from high school in San Angelo, Texas, just two months after the president
declared war in Iraq.

     What did he think about the case for going to war? "I felt it was
necessary if they did have these weapons, and they could end up in our
cities and threaten our safety," says Hughey. "I was supportive. At first, I
didn't think to question it."

     He says at first, he was willing to die "to make America safe." And
while Hughey was in basic training, he didn't get much news. But when he
left basic training, he started following the latest information from Iraq.

     "I found out, basically, that they found no weapons of mass
destruction. They were beginning to come out and say it's not likely that we
will find any - and the claim that they made about ties to al Qaeda was
coming up short, to say the least," says Hughey. "It made me angry, because
I felt our lives were being thrown away as soldiers, basically."

     When Hughey got orders for Iraq, he searched the Internet and found
Vietnam era war resisters willing to show him the way north. In fact, they
were willing to drive him there, and a Canadian television news camera went
along.

     Hughey had an invitation to stay with a Quaker couple that helped
Americans avoid the draft during Vietnam. From Fort Hood, Texas, to St.
Catherine's in Ontario, Canada, Hughey crossed the border, duty free.

     Pelley read letters about Hughey's desertion that were sent to the
editor of a San Antonio newspaper.

     "It makes me sad to know that there's that much hate in the country,"
says Hughey. "Before I joined the Army, I would have thought the same way.
Anyone who said no to a war, I would have thought them a traitor and a
coward. So, in that essence, I'm thankful for this experience, because it
has opened my eyes and it has taught me not to take things on the surface."

     However, he adds: "I have to say that my image of my country always
being the good guy, and always fighting for just causes, has been
shattered."

     Hughey, and other deserters, will be represented before the Canadian
Immigration and Refugee Board by Toronto lawyer Jeffry House.

     His clients will have to prove that, if they are returned to the United
States, they wouldn't just be prosecuted for what they did -­ they would be
also be persecuted. How will House make that claim?

     "People should have a right to say, 'I'm not fighting in that war.
That's an illegal war. There's illegal stuff going on the ground. I'm not
going,'" says House. "And anyone who says soldiers should go to jail if they
don't fight in an illegal war is persecuting them."

     And it¹s something House has experience with. In 1969, he graduated
from the University of Wisconsin, got drafted, and spent the rest of his
life in Canada.

     House's legal strategy will focus on his contention that President Bush
is not complying with international law. But how will he defend volunteers
who signed a contract?

     "The United States is supposed to comply with treaty obligations like
the U.N. charter, but they don¹t," says House. "When the president isn¹t
complying with the Geneva Accords or with the U.N. charter, are we saying,
'Only the soldier who signed up when he was 17 - that guy has to strictly
comply with contract? The president, he doesn¹t have to?' I don¹t think so.
I don¹t think that is fair."

     The first deserter to face the Canadian refugee board is likely to be
Spc. Jeremy Hinzman of Rapid City, S.D. He joined the military in Jan. 2001,
and was a paratrooper in the 82nd Airborne.

     He wanted a career in the military, but over time, he decided he
couldn¹t take a life. "I was walking to chow hall with my unit, and we were
yelling, 'Train to kill, kill we will,' over and over again," recalls
Hinzman. "I kind of snuck a peek around me and saw all my colleagues getting
red in the face and hoarse yelling - and at that point a light went off in
my head and I said, 'You know, I made the wrong career decision.'"

     But Hinzman said he didn¹t want to get out of the Army: "I had signed a
contract for four years. I was totally willing to fulfill it. Just not in
combat arms jobs."

     While at Fort Bragg, Hinzman says he filled out the forms for
conscientious objector status, which would let him stay in the Army in a
non-combat job.

     While he waited for a decision, he went to Afghanistan and worked in a
kitchen. But later, the Army told him he didn¹t qualify as a conscientious
objector, and he was ordered to fight in Iraq.

     Hinzman decided to take his family to Canada, where he¹s been living
off savings accumulated while he was in the military.

     Wasn't he supposed to follow orders? "I was told in basic training
that, if I'm given an illegal or immoral order, it is my duty to disobey
it," says Hinzman. "And I feel that invading and occupying Iraq is an
illegal and immoral thing to do."

     "But you can't have an Army of free-thinkers," says Pelley. "You
wouldn't have an Army."

     "No, you wouldn't. I think there are times when militaries or countries
act in a collectively wrong way," says Hinzman. "I mean, the obvious example
was during World War II. Sure, Saddam Hussein was a really bad guy. I mean,
he ranks up there with the bad ones. But was he a threat to the United
States?

     Still, isn't it worth fighting to free the people of Iraq? "Whether a
country lives under freedom or tyranny or whatever else, that's the
collective responsibility of the people of that country," says Hinzman.

     Hinzman and the other American deserters have become celebrities of
sorts in the Canadian anti-war movement.

     Only a few of the reported 5,500 deserters are in Canada, but House
says he's getting more calls from nervous soldiers all the time.

     Wouldn't the right and honorable thing for deserters to do be to go
back to the United States, and turn themselves in to the Army?

     "Why would that be honorable?" asks House. "(Deserters signed a
contract) to defend the Constitution of the United States, not take part in
offensive, pre-emptive wars. I don't think you should be punished for doing
the right thing. What benefit is there to being a martyr? I don¹t see any."

     Hinzman began his hearing before the Canadian Immigration and Refugee
board last Monday. But there's no telling when he'll find out if he'll be
allowed to stay in Canada - or be sent back to the United States to face the
consequences.

     The maximum penalty for deserting in wartime is death. But it's more
typical for a soldier to draw a sentence of five years or less for deserting
in wartime.

   


    Go to Original 

    Analysis: Discontent Plaguing Military
    By Tom Raum 
    The Associated Press

     Friday 10 December 2004

     Washington - Soldiers always gripe. But confronting the defense
secretary, filing a lawsuit over extended tours and refusing to go on a
mission because it's too dangerous elevate complaining to a new level.

     It also could mean a deeper problem for the Pentagon: a lessening of
faith in the Iraq mission and in a volunteer army that soldiers can't leave.

     The hubbub over an exchange between Defense Secretary Donald H.
Rumsfeld and soldiers in Kuwait has given fresh ammunition to critics of the
Bush administration's Iraq policy.

     It also highlighted growing morale and motivation problems in the
21-month-old war that even some administration supporters say must be
addressed to get off a slippery slope that could eventually lead to
breakdowns reminiscent of the Vietnam War.

     For thousands of years, soldiers have grumbled about everything from
their commanders to their equipment to shelter and food. But challenging a
defense secretary to his face is rare. So is suing the military to keep from
being sent back to a combat zone.

     "We are seeing some unprecedented things. The real fear is that these
could be tips of a larger iceberg," said P.J. Crowley, a retired colonel who
served as a Pentagon spokesman in both Republican and Democratic
administrations and was a White House national security aide in the Clinton
administration.

     "The real issue is not any one of these things individually. It's what
the broader impact will be on our re-enlistment rates and our retention,"
Crowley said.

     Several Iraq-bound soldiers confronted Rumsfeld on Wednesday at a base
in Kuwait about a lack of armor for their Humvees and other vehicles, about
second-hand equipment and about a policy keeping many in Iraq far beyond
enlistment contracts. Their pointed questions were cheered by others in the
group.

     The episode - the questions and Rumsfeld's testy responses were
captured by television cameras and widely reported - did not raise new
issues. Complaints about inadequate protection against insurgents' roadside
bombs and forced duty extensions have been sounded for months. But not so
vividly.

     President Bush and Rumsfeld offered assurances that the issues of armor
and equipment were being dealt with, and that the plainspoken expression of
concerns by soldiers was welcome.

     "I'd want to ask the defense secretary the same question," Bush said,
if the president were a soldier in overseas combat. "They deserve the best,"
he added.

     The display of brazenness in Kuwait came just two days after eight U.S.
soldiers in Kuwait and Iraq filed a lawsuit challenging the military's "stop
loss" policy, which allows the extension of active-duty deployments during
times of war or national emergencies.

     In October, up to 19 Army reservists from a unit based in South
Carolina refused orders to drive unarmored trucks on a fuel supply mission
along attack-prone roads near Baghdad, contending it was too dangerous. The
Pentagon is still investigating the incident.

     "Tensions obviously are rising," said Anthony Cordesman, a military
analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a former
adviser to Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.

     "The fact is that you do need now to consider how to change the force
structure: the role of the reserves, the role of the actives. Troops are
being deployed in continuing combat under what are often high risk
conditions for far longer periods than anyone had previously considered or
planned for."

     When the war began in March 2003, the troops were predominantly active
duty military. Today, National Guard and Army Reserve units make up about 40
percent of the force.

     The growing restiveness of U.S. troops in the Middle East echoes a drop
in optimism at home that a stable, democratic government can be established
in Iraq. A new poll for The Associated Press by Ipsos-Public Affairs shows
that 47 percent of Americans now think it's likely Iraq can establish such a
government, down from 55 percent in April.

     White House spokesman Scott McClellan on Friday said that Bush "is
committed to making sure our troops have the best equipment and all the
resources they need to do their jobs. And that's exactly what he expects to
happen."

     Tom Raum has covered national and international affairs for The
Associated Press since 1973.

 

  -------

   Jump to TO Features for Sunday December 12, 2004   


 © Copyright 2004 by TruthOut.org