Deserters Living on Borrowed Time

It is one of the thorny files inherited by the Obama administration: The fate of around 200 U.S. deserters of the Iraq war who sought refuge in Canada. If the majority live in hiding, about 40 of them chose to come out in the open and file for refugee status. The fate of these men, whom I had met during my visit to Toronto, is now in the hands of the Canadian Parliament, which was yesterday debating over a potential bill that would allow these men to remain in Canada.

(TORONTO) It isn’t a complete victory, but a ray of hope and definitely a respite. This summer, the Federal Court of Appeals of Toronto ruled, against all hopes, in favor of Jeremy Hinzman, the first U.S. deserter of the Iraq war to have applied for refugee status in Canada. While his claim for permanent residence based on humanitarian grounds was rejected by immigration services, Canada’s Department of Justice declared that decision “significantly flawed.”

For the time being, the threat of deportation back to the United States is growing faint. From now on, salvation for Jeremy Hinzman and the other U.S. deserters could come from the House of Commons, which yesterday started a second review of the proposed C-440 bill, led by liberal deputy Gerard Kennedy. If adopted, the text would allow granting permanent resident status to a foreigner who “left the armed forces of his or her former country of habitual residence or refused obligatory military service in that country because of a moral, political or religious objection to avoid participating in an armed conflict not sanctioned by the United Nations.” This text was clearly written with Iraq in mind, a conflict which Canada — like France — refuses to be a part of.

An Army private from the 82nd Airborne Division, where he enrolled in order to finance his studies, Jeremy Hinzman sought refuge in Canada in January 2004, with his wife and children, after his petition to be considered a conscientious objector was denied. He refused to serve in Iraq, a war he considers “illegal and essentially criminal.” On May 25, 2010, in front of the Toronto Federal Court of Appeals, his lawyer, Alyssa Manning, had to convince the judges that if he were to be deported, the young man would be subject to “undue hardship.”

The penalty faced by a U.S. deserter is well-known: Deportation, a court martial order, a prison term of up to five years and a felony charge preventing any future access to decent employment, credit, the right to vote or apply for a visa — and the impossibility for these men to ever return to Canada where they have started building a new life.

Michelle Robidoux, spokesperson for the War Resisters Support Campaign, recalled the case of Robin Long, another deserter deported to the U.S. in July of 2008 and sentenced to 18 months in prison. “His prison experience was traumatic; deserters are particularly mistreated, and everything is set up to break them emotionally. Generally speaking, those who were verbally opposed to the war are even more severely punished,” she explained to me. Jeremy Hinzman, in support of his petition, said that he had already received in the mail numerous death threats from U.S. compatriots.

I wanted to know what exactly leads these men to make a decision with such dire consequences. During an event in support of Jeremy Hinzman, I met Phil McDowell. He was a sergeant in the U.S. Army. The young man explained to me that he chose to enroll in the Army right after 9/11 while he was still a student. It was with the same confidence and the same certainty of doing the right thing that he decided to desert when he did. “I read many things about 9/11, the war in Iraq, Islam … I realized that everything was false, that we were not there to find weapons of mass destruction.”

From March 2004 to March 2005, Phil served his tour in Iraq. When he returned home, he thought he was done with this war he deemed illegal. Nonetheless, after a month and a half, he was called back for a second tour, in the name of a policy called “Stop Loss.” Phil was then in Fort Hood, Texas. On the weekend preceding his company’s deployment date, he picked up his wife in Austin, drove to Rhode Island to say good-bye to his parents and picked up warm clothes for Canada.

Phil regrets neither his decision to desert nor that of living in the open, despite the risks involved. “I didn’t want to live as an illegal. I wanted to settle down and try and make a life here.” Any deserter who files a claim for refugee status is granted the right to work while his claim is being reviewed, which, if you include the appeals process, can take years. Phil and his spouse are leading a close-to-normal life in Toronto; he has a job with a solar panel company, and she is a coach.

Chuck Wiley is also aware of the risks involved. “I thought I could always make my voice heard,” he says today. He still wants to believe that bill C-440 can be passed, or that a new government will change the order of things. Today, he only expresses himself parsimoniously when speaking to the media, and no longer speaks to the U.S. media. He explains that “my words are systematically taken out of context.” One must say that in terms of objectivity, Fox News went as far as calling for a boycott of Canadian products as long as Ottawa doesn’t deport U.S. deserters. Prison “is always in the back of your mind. We don’t always sleep at night,” he explains, but what worries him the most is the felony charge in his police record. “Makes it hard to find a decent job.”

After 17 years in the Navy, Chuck wasn’t exactly a rookie. But when in 2006, his ship, the USS Enterprise, was deployed for Operation Iraqi Freedom, this big guy from Kentucky was for the first time in his life confronted with the reality of field operations: “I had the flight plans of the planes that took off in front of me. The pilots would go and raze to the ground buildings that were supposedly empty, based on three-weeks-old intelligence. In that country at war, you have thousands of displaced persons that find refuge wherever they can. These buildings weren’t military targets. No one was there to ensure that they were empty at the time they were bombarded.”

Chuck asked too many questions and was soon in open conflict with his hierarchy. He asked to be transferred to a ship outside of Iraq. His request was granted. Nonetheless, shortly before being deployed again, he learned that his ship was setting out for the Gulf. His request to be considered a conscientious objector was denied because he was not opposed to every war. He was then told that he must choose between deployment and prison. “The other option is Toronto,” a phone adviser from the GI hotline told him.

This choice has already cost him: His father no longer speaks to him, and Chuck leaves behind a son from a previous marriage, still living in the U.S. Also a distant memory is his career as an engineer and the prospect of a comfortable pension. Today Chuck works as a security officer at a school in Toronto. If he had the choice, there is only one thing Chuck would do differently: “Twenty years ago,” he says, “I should have gone to college.”

Gone is the time when clemency was granted to those who deserted the Vietnam War. A draft dodger at the time — and today a lawyer representing a number of Iraq war resisters — Jeffrey House likes to remind us that at the time, “all you needed was to head to the border where you filled out some paperwork, and you were given the status of immigrant and a work permit. Some would say they were refusing to go to Vietnam; others wouldn’t say anything.” At the time, some 55,000 GIs sought refuge in Canada. Close to half of them never returned.

A great majority of Canadians today are opposed to the deportation of U.S. deserters. Sid Lacombe, coordinator of the Canadian Alliance for Peace, explains that the opposition parties, who hold a majority in Parliament, adopted in June 2008, a motion that would have allowed conscientious objectors to reside in Canada permanently. “But Stephen Harper’s conservative government chose to ignore it.”

Ottawa seems to have made up its mind not to upset its powerful American neighbor. “It’s a matter of ideology,” says Michelle Roubidoux. “Harper was in favor of a Canadian presence in Iraq. Today, he would like to see these soldiers punished.” As for Barack Obama, it seems unlikely that he will clash with his military hierarchy on this sensitive topic. Today, therefore, all eyes are on the Canadian Parliament.

Translator’s Note: Quotes by people interviewed by the author could not be verified.