We Won't Go Back

___________________________________

By Maggie Gilmour, Toronto Life

To avoid serving in Iraq, 300 American soldiers have left their homes and families and fled to Canada, 75 of them to Toronto. Many assumed they’d get a visa, settle down and live a normal life. But the federal government has rejected their refugee claims and ordered them deported. Some go into hiding; others wait for appeals and judicial reviews of their cases. In the meantime, they’ve put down roots, taking temp jobs and raising children, nostalgic for a time when Canada was a haven for conscientious objectors.

See Full Story

http://www.torontolife.com/features/we-wont-go-back/

Canada Reconsiders Iraq War Veteran's Plea For Political Asylum

Like other U.S. war resisters seeking sanctuary in Canada, Joshua Key was wrongfully denied refugee status. But in his case, a Federal Court agreed with him and ordered the Immigration and Refugee Board to give him a new hearing. The hearing took place this Wednesday in Toronto.

With Canadian author Lawrence Hill, Joshua wrote a best-selling book, The Deserters Tale, in which he details the systematic abuse of Iraqi civilians by the U.S. military.

http://www.groveatlantic.com/grove/bin/wc.dll?groveproc~genauth~5230

Follow this link to a detailed report on Joshua Key's new refugee hearing, written by Laura Kaminker, "L-Girl," in her award-winning blog, "We Move To Canada."

http://wmtc.blogspot.com/2009/06/joshua-key-irb-hearing-part-one.html

You Can Help to Free Lt. Ehren Watada

End the U.S. Army’s Prosecution of Lt. Ehren Watada

The Justice Department Can Say No to Army’s Legal Appeal

In June 2006, U.S. Army 1st Lt. Ehren Watada refused orders to Iraq on the grounds that the war was illegal and immoral. His court martial in February 2007 ended in an Army-contrived mistrial. In October 2007, the Army attempt to have a second court martial was stopped by a Federal judge who ruled that a second court martial would be double jeopardy. But the Army has not allowed Lt. Watada to leave military service. Instead, they have notified the U.S. Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit of their plans to appeal the double jeopardy ruling. The Army has also threatened to revive old charges stemming from Lt. Watada’s speech in Seattle to the 2006 convention of Veterans For Peace.

Justice Department to Decide If Army Will Appeal Double Jeopardy Ruling

The U.S. Solicitor General’s office in the Department of Justice will soon decide whether the Army can go ahead with its plans to appeal Federal Court rulings in Lt. Watada’s favor.

A campaign of public pressure is being called by Lt. Watada’s supporters in the peace movement. The ad hoc campaign is being spearheaded by two Vietnam War resisters, Mike Wong and Gerry Condon, who are active members of Veterans for Peace in San Francisco and Seattle. The Call to Action is being issued in the name of Asian Americans for Peace and Justice, formerly the Watada Support Committee, in the San Francisco Bay Area, and Project Safe Haven, a war resister support group.

We are sending out this email alert to all our contacts and organizations - including Veterans for Peace, Iraq Veterans Against the War, Military Families Speak Out, United For Peace and Justice, ANSWER, Code Pink, American Friends Service Committee and others. We ask you all to phone, write, and email Solicitor General Elena Kagan and Deputy Attorney General Neal Katyal immediately.

1. Ask the Solicitor General: Tell the Army to drop the appeal and any other charges against Lt. Watada, and to release him from the Army with an honorable discharge.

If we all act quickly, we can flood the Solicitor General’s office with hundreds of phone calls, letters and emails, which could tip the balance in Ehren Watada’s favor.

Solicitor General Elena Kagan, 202-514-2201
Deputy Solicitor General Neal Katyal, 202-514-2206

Send letters to: U.S. Department of Justice, 950 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20530.

E-mails to

AskDOJ@usdoj.gov will reach the Solicitor General and Attorney General Eric Holder.

A sample letter is included below. Feel free to edit as you wish, or to write your own.

It is possible that both the Solicitor General and her Deputy may be open to our plea. Please be respectful and polite in all your communications with these Obama appointees.

2. Please forward this alert to all activists, friends, and organizations you know that would be supportive. If you are involved in an organization, please ask that it forward this alert to its entire membership..

3. We will approach the friendliest of our allies in Congress and ask them to make inquiries to the Justice Department. If you or your organization has contact with any members of Congress, please email Gerry Condon at

projectsafehaven@hotmail.com so we can coordinate our Congressional outreach.

4. Various groups may also wish to mount demonstrations, press conferences, lobby, or use other means of peaceful political pressure. You may also call for an end to the persecution of all war resisters.

Mike Wong, Vice President, SF Bay Area Veterans For Peace; Asian Americans for Peace and Justice

Gerry Condon, Greater Seattle Veterans For Peace; Project Safe Haven

Sample letter:

Date

Solicitor General Elena Kagan

Deputy Solicitor General Neal Katyal

U.S. Department of Justice

950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW,

Washington, DC 20530-0001

Dear Solicitor General Kagan and Deputy Solicitor General Katyal,

I am writing to urge you to direct the U.S. Army to drop its appeal and any other charges in the case of 1st Lt. Ehren Watada, and to release him from the Army with an Honorable Discharge. Lt. Watada was the first Army officer to publicly refuse to deploy to Iraq, because he believes the U.S. war in Iraq is illegal and immoral, and that orders to participate in it are therefore also illegal and immoral.

(See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ehren_Watada).

Lt. Watada’s Army court martial in February 2007 ended in a mistrial that was illegally construed by the Army judge, Lt. Col. John Head. When the Army then attempted a second court martial in October 2007, U.S. District Court Judge Benjamin Settle halted the proceedings on double jeopardy grounds. Judge Settle had just been appointed to his position by George W. Bush and was a former Army JAG lawyer. I urge you to uphold U.S. and international law by directing the Army to end its prolonged prosecution of Lt. Ehren Watada. Thank you very much.

Sincerely yours,
Mike Wong

For more background on Lt. Ehren Watada, go to info:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ehren_Watada.

For updates on the Campaign to Free Ehren Watada, go to www.SoldierSayNo.blogspot.com

or you can:

Email Mike Wong at mlwong@jps.net

Email Gerry Condon at projectsafehaven@hotmail.com

or call Gerry at 206-499-1220.

The Contract

by Robin Long
from inside the Miramar Brig

March 12, 2009

IN 2004, when military resister Jeremy Hinzman applied for refugee status in Canada, the Conservative government stepped in to his Refugee hearing and stated evidence challenging the legality of the War in Iraq can’t be used in his case. However, the U.N Handbook for Refugee’s and the Nuremburg Principles states: a soldier of an Army that is involved in an illegal war of aggression has a higher international duty to refuse service. Said soldier also has the right to seek refugee protection in any country that is signatory to the Geneva Convention. By refusing to allow him- and by precedent ALL other claimants the right to use that argument, they closed the door on that legal avenue for refugee protection.


THE US invasion of Iraq was clearly an illegal war of aggression. The US was not under attack, or the immanent threat of attack from the nation of Iraq, nor was the war approved by the UN Security Council. By taking the stance it did, the Canadian Government implicitly condoned the invasion & continuing occupation of Iraq. Is that what Canadians want? A majority of Americans want it to end and have come to realize it a mistake, at best. Canadians have long known it to be wrong. Why is the minority Conservative government still holding on to the idea, and still deporting war resisters? Why are they separating families and aiding in the imprisonment of morally strong men and women?


IN JUNE 2007, Canada’s Parliament voted on a non- binding resolution to allow war resisters and their families permanent resident status. That vote passed, and in agreement with that vote, a poll of Canadian opinion showed overwhelming support for the resolution. In defiance of parliaments intent and the will of the people, the Conservative minority government, led by Prime Minister Steven Harper and Immigration Minister Diane Finley ignored the bill. The Government stated: All refugee claimants are given a fair chance to plead their case before the Refugee Board, and special treatment to these Iraq resisters were unfair to other claimants. Further, they stated that we are not legitimate claimants because we are from the US, and that the US has a fair and transparent justice system, and that we wouldn’t be singled out for being political.


ON JULY 14th, 2008, in my final attempt to stay in Canada, where my son and community is, Federal Judge Ann Mactavish stated that I didn’t prove I would be treated harshly by the US military for being a politically outspoken opponent to the War in Iraq and Bush Administration policy. She predicted my punishment would be minimal, 30 days in the brig, perhaps. She then cleared the way for my deportation/extradition. She noted only10% of these cases go to Court Martial.


A MONTH later, I was tried in a Court Martial presided over by a judge, a Colonel in the US Army, who has President Bush in her chain-of-command. (She was later appointed by Bush to oversee trials at Guantanamo Bay, no doubt because of her political credentials.


THE ONLY aggravating evidence the Prosecution presented was a 6 minute video of me stating, among other things, that I believed my President lied to me. A political statement. The fact that this was found admissible in court for the charge of Desertion is beyond me. There were no character witnesses brought against me. The ONLY factors the Prosecution wanted shown in determining my sentence was the fact I was political and exercising my freedom of speech in criticizing my Commander-in-Chief.

IT SEEMS like a conflict of interest to have a judge determine my fate when she has to ultimately answer to the President, while I was claiming that same President was a domestic enemy, who used any reason, and manufactured reasons, to invade and wreak havoc in Iraq.

THE JUDGE came back with 30 months- that’s two and a half years for not showing up for work that I believed to be morally objectionable, criminal, and its by far the harshest sentence given to a resister/deserter of the Iraq War.


I was saved from that by a plea bargain that got me 15 months. I STILL get a Dishonorable Discharge (DD). A DD will keep me from many fields of employment, from any Government position to the civilian world. It will make getting home loans all the harder. This is a FELONY CONVICTION- which will make it very hard, perhaps impossible to return to Canada to be with my young family. It is the worst grade of discharge there is.


PEOPLE THAT committed far worse crimes have been getting off with lighter sentences than me. 1st Infantry Division soldier Spec. Belmor Ramos was sentenced to only 7 months after being convicted of conspiracy to commit murder- 4 Iraqi men. I refused to participate in killings, he stood guard while others executed four unidentified Iraqi men, afterwards dumping their bodies in a Baghdad canal on ’07. During his court martial Ramos admitted his guilt, stating: “I wanted them dead. I had no legal justification to do this.”

WHERE IS THE JUSTICE? The system is neither fair nor impartial. Can it really be transparent when you don’t know who is influencing the judge from up the chain of command? Do you see how the military justice system works? – Condone killings with light sentences, but God forbid someone should call President Bush a liar and a war monger. A persons words and political opinion must be far more damaging to the good order of the military if they are anti war and critical of the President, than a soldiers criminal actions in an occupied foreign nation…..


PEOPLE HAVE used the argument that I signed a contract, quite often. I’d like to quote from a letter one o the Founders of our United States wrote to General Washington concerning his thoughts on contracts in April, 1793: “When performance, for instance, becomes impossible, non performance is not immoral. So if performance becomes destructive to the Party, the law of self-preservation overrules the laws of obligations to others. For the reality of these principals I appeal to the true fountains of evidence: the head and heart of every rational honest man.”- Thomas Jefferson. For me to continue in my military contract would have been destructive to me as a person with my views, morals and ideals. Let alone the Iraqi’s, who have died in the hundreds of thousands ….


THE CONTRACT I signed was to support and defend the Constitution of the United States, from all enemies, foreign and domestic, and to obey the LAWFUL orders of the President and those officers over me. I did not sign to be a strong arm for corporate interests or oil. The so called Liberation of Iraq has turned into nothing more than a constant and protracted struggle by the people of Iraq, against forces, seen and unseen, that are trying to impose their will on them in a public war for private power and profit. True freedom is the ultimate expression and condition of a people to control their OWN destiny, not the manufactured variety being offered here. True democracy is not found at the point of a gun. It rises up from within the mass of the people.

IT WASN’T about WMD’s, or we would have found some. It wasn’t about “regime change” or we would have been in Darfur, or Indonesia, or a dozen other countries. It wasn’t about 9/11 because they were from Saudi Arabia. It dosn’t say anywhere in my contract that I would be going to foreign soil, half way around the world, to invade a country that was of no threat to the United States.

TO RISK MY LIFE, not in defending the people or Constitution of the United States but creating more enemies for them by being in an occupying force. Iraq, however unhappy under our former ally/client Hussein, was never a real threat. The destabilized nation of Iraq has become a breeding ground and awesome recruiting tool for Al Queda. It has cost the American people an enormous price. Im not talking just te trillion dollar financial burden, but the human cost of the war. The deaths of so many of our brave youth, the missing limbs, the PTSD, the suicides. The invasion has made far more enemies for the United States and made the world a far more dangerous place.


THE ORDER to go to Iraq was not a lawful one. It violates our Constitution. Article IV states that ANY treaty the US is signatory to shall be the supreme law of the land. Last time I checked, the US is signatory to the Geneva Conventions. There are certain laws in that treaty for declaring war, last time I checked, “regime change” wasn’t one of them. A country must be under attack or immanent treat of attack. Neither was true in the case of Iraq. President Bush had no right to interpret the Constitution as he saw fit, on the grounds it was a new world after 9/11, and the 107th Congress had no right to pass HJ Res. 114, which “allowed” the President to invade Iraq. The Constitution was being ignored by the whole lot of them and they were derelict in their duty to uphold it.

THE STAND that the Conservative government of Canada has taken has separated a family, an act totally un-Canadian. I have a young son, a Canadian citizen, and a Canadian partner with MS, left to raise our son while I’m locked in a brig for refusing to participate in a war Canada , in 2003, under a different Government, wouldn’t send troops to. Back then, they saw the holes in Bush’s “intelligence”. By deporting me, and not giving me a chance to leave willingly, I have been barred from entering Canada for at least 10 years. My flesh and blood is there!


THE CONSERVATIVES are destroying Canada’s tradition of being a refuge from militarism and an asylum from injustices that goes back to the times of slavery. Are they truly representing the people? Who are they working for, really?


THE DAYS of Bush have ended. This new Obama administration has a different view and a different policy. Its now time for Mr Harper to change his view. He should listen to Parliament and the solid majority of his citizens!


PLEASE SUPPORT the movement to allow War Resisters to stay in Canada and pardon the ones in the US. I ask anyone who reads this: please!

HELP ME return to Canada to be with my partner and son. I want only to live in peace and be in his life.


STOP THE WAR.

Peace, love, light,
Robin Long
Incarcerated Prisoner of the US Military
PO BOX 452136, San Diego, CA, 92145

Army Charges Cliff Cornell with Desertion

AWOL GI Was Denied Sanctuary in Canada

The U.S. Army has charged war resister Clifford Cornell with desertion. Specialist Cornell, 28, surrendered himself to authorities at Fort Stewart, Georgia on February 17, after being denied refugee status in Canada. The Arkansas native left Fort Stewart four years ago, when his artillery unit was ordered to Iraq. According to family and friends, Cornell did not want to kill civilians, and said that Army trainers told him he must shoot any Iraqi who came near his vehicle.

Cornell’s attorney and supporters believe the Army’s charges are excessive. “Cliff Cornell is a conscientious objector who voluntarily turned himself in to Army authorities,” said attorney James Branum.. “The Army is engaging in overkill in order to make an example of my client.”

Fort Stewart spokesman Kevin Larson disputed Spc. Cornell's claims that he would have been expected to kill civilians. ''Indiscriminately shooting people is not what the Army does,” Larson told the New York Times. “That's not how we train and not how we fight.” The Army is leaning toward trying Cornell in a General Court Martial, which could sentence him to years in prison.

“This is outrageous,” said Jeff Paterson of Courage To Resist, a war resister support group that has established a legal defense fund for Cornell. “The U.S. war against the Iraqi people remains illegal today, just as when George Bush and Dick Cheney started it,” said Paterson. “President Obama should bring all our troops home now. And he should grant amnesty to Cliff Cornell and hundreds of GI’s who refused to take part in an occupation that has killed untold tens of thousands of men, women and children.”

U.S. war resisters in Canada were distressed to hear of the serious charges against Cornell, as were many Canadians who have been pressing their government to provide sanctuary to the war resisters. “Cliff Cornell is a very gentle man who made many friends in Canada,” said Michelle Robidoux of the War Resisters Support Campaign in Toronto. “Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government is absolutely wrong to claim that war resisters do not face persecution in the United States.”

A large majority of Canadians, 64% according to several polls, want to provide a safe haven for soldiers who refused to fight in the Iraq War, just as Canada itself refused to do. Most Members of Parliament also support the resisters. In June of last year, the House of Commons passed a motion calling on their government to provide sanctuary to “conscientious objectors who refuse to fight in wars not sanctioned by the United Nations.” But the minority Conservative government ignored the non-binding motion and began to deport war resisters.

War resister Robin Long was the first to be deported last July, and is now serving a 15-month prison sentence in the Miramar Naval Consolidated Brig near San Diego. Cliff Cornell was being threatened with deportation when he left Canada. Several other AWOL soldiers and their families are appealing their deportation orders in Canada’s Federal Courts.

“Cliff Cornell should not be the one who is going to jail,” said Gerry Condon of Veterans For Peace. “He had the guts to follow his conscience, and unlike President Bush, he obeyed international law.”

An estimated 250 U.S. war resisters are now living in Canada, and AWOL GI’s continue to arrive there. “You can still apply for refugee status and expect to remain legally in Canada for at least one year,” said Condon. “It may not be easy, but it beats going to war or going to jail.”

CONTACT:

James Branum, GI Right Lawyer, 866-933-2769, www.girightslawyer.com

Jeff Paterson, Courage To Resist, 415-279-9697, www.couragetoresist.org

Michelle Robidoux, War Resisters Support Campaign, 416-856-5008, www.resisters.ca

Gerry Condon, Veterans For Peace, 206-499-1220, www.SoldierSayNo.blogspot.com

A "People's Amnesty" for War Resisters

by Gerry Condon

Last week the Customs and Border Police in Blaine arrested a young American who was returning home from Canada. Cliff Cornell, 28, was arrested because he is AWOL from the U.S. Army. He fled to Canada four years ago after realizing he had been lied to when he joined the military. The Army recruiter lied to him when he said he would never be deployed overseas. And President Bush lied to him when he said Iraq was connected to the terror of 9-11. The next thing Cornell knew, he had orders to deploy to Iraq and “shoot to kill anyone who gets near your vehicle.”

In 2002, Cliff Cornell raised his right hand and swore to uphold the U.S. Constitution. He swore to defend the U.S. from all enemies, foreign and domestic. He didn’t swear to invade other peoples’ countries on behalf of Exxon Mobil or Halliburton. “He signed a contract,” some people declaim emphatically. But it was President Bush who broke that contract when he lied to the American people about why he was sending their sons and daughters into harm’s way. And it is Cliff Cornell who is being punished.

After spending the night in the Whatcom County Jail, Cornell was released on his own recognizance on Thursday . He then hopped on a Greyhound bus for a sleepless, three-day ride across the U.S. On Tuesday, he surrendered himself to Army authorities at Fort Stewart, Georgia. Cornell hopes the Army will just discharge him “for the good of the service,” as they do to many returning AWOLs. But Cliff Cornell has been a vocal opponent of the Iraq War. The Army will likely court-martial and imprison him, as it did Robin Long, another Iraq War resister who was deported from Canada in July. Long was convicted of desertion and is serving a 15-month prison sentence.

The American people became disenchanted with the U.S. war in Iraq a long time ago. Almost everyone knows the war was based on lies. Candidate Obama called it a “dumb war” and promised to end it promptly. But the dictates of empire may see U.S. troops fighting and dying in Iraq for years to come. President Obama will attempt to manage a gradual draw-down of U.S. troops in Iraq, while simultaneously escalating the U.S. war in Afghanistan. Obama inherited these twin wars from George Bush, but they could easily drag down his own presidency.

President Obama should immediately withdraw all U.S. troops, mercenaries and contractors from both Iraq and Afghanistan. Both wars are unjust and un-winnable. Both wars target civilians with weapons of mass destruction. The U.S. military is torturing prisoners and violating human rights in both wars. And the vast majority of the people in both countries want U.S. troops to leave.

Uncle Sam has also failed on a massive scale to care for his own soldiers who have been physically and psychologically wounded, and are now caught up in an epidemic of suicide, murder and spousal abuse. President Obama must act to ensure adequate medical care and benefits for all veterans.

President Obama should also do the right thing by those troops who refused to be part of this madness. With the stroke of a pen, he can grant amnesty to Cliff Cornell and thousands of young men and women who are fugitives from injustice. Presidents Ford and Carter granted measures of pardon and leniency to Vietnam draft resisters and deserters. President Obama can do the same.

And the American people should not be lulled into passivity by the changing of the guard at the White House. We must continue to demand that our leaders end these horrible wars immediately. Not one more day of war will undo the damage we have already done.

There will be no amnesty until the troops come home. In the meantime, we must provide sanctuary for war resisters in our own communities. The people of Bellingham, Washington, near the U.S.-Canada border, are providing a perfect example. Their proposed Sanctuary City ordinance would not only welcome war resisters to Bellingham, it would bar the use of city resources for the apprehension of GIs who refuse to fight. See http://www.sanctuary-city.org/. Similar efforts are taking place in several cities around the country, including Portland, Oregon. Ithaca, New York has already declared itself a Sanctuary City for soldiers who are speaking out against war.

Veterans For Peace is one of several organizations that are helping war resisters find housing, jobs, and treatment for PTSD. Many of these young GI’s are suffering from the wounds of war; they do not need to return to the scene of the crime. We owe them our understanding and our help.

President Obama may not be ready to act, but We The People can show compassion for our young soldiers of conscience. George Bush may never have to answer for his treason or the massacre of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians. But Cliff Cornell should not be the one who is imprisoned.
__________________________________________

You can contribute to Cliff Cornell's legal defense fund at http://www.couragetoresist.org/.

Gerry Condon lived in Sweden and Canada for six years after refusing Army orders to deploy to the U.S. war against the people of Vietnam. He now lives in Seattle and serves as director of Project Safe Haven, a war resister advocacy group.

President Obama: Grant Amnesty to All War Resisters

War Resister Group Calls on Obama to Grant Amnesty
http://www.fsrn.org/headlines

Free Speech Radio News
Headlines for Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Headlines
· Length: 5:20 minutes (4.89 MB)
· Format: MP3 Mono 44kHz 128Kbps (CBR)

* Israel Out of Gaza, Investigates Use of White Phosphorous
* UK Unemployment Rate Hits 12 Year High
* Mexican Tycoon Bails out NY Times
* Supreme Court Declines to Review Online Porn Law
* War Resister Group Calls on Obama to Grant Amnesty

On Barack Obama's first day in office, a war resisters support group based in Seattle is calling on the president to grant amnesty to US soldiers who refuse to fight in Iraq.

Mark Taylor-Canfield has more from Seattle.

Hundreds of US soldiers have relocated to Canada, Europe or LatinAmerica after choosing not to serve in the US war and occupation in Iraq. Many of the soldiers have gone into Canada by crossing the border between Washington State and British Columbia, which also served as a point of entry for conscientious objectors escaping toCanada during the US war in Vietnam.

Now Project Safe Haven is calling on President Barack Obama to grant immediate amnesty to all US war resisters who have refused to serve in Iraq.

The group is also calling for the immediate withdrawal of all US troops from Iraq and an end to the war in Afghanistan. Other demands include reparations for the people of Iraq and Afghanistan and full benefits and healthcare for US military veterans.

According to Project Safe Haven organizer Gerry Condon, the petition was circulated among national anti-war and veterans groups and was delivered to the President-elect's transition team.

This is Mark Taylor-Canfield for Free Speech Radio News in Seattle.

Click here for audio, http://www.fsrn.org/headlines

Coalition Government Would Not Deport U.S. War Resisters

MPs Say Canada Should be a Refuge from Militarism

January 21, 2009

The Canadian Press

TORONTO — Liberal and New Democrat MPs pledged Wednesday that U.S. war resisters would not be deported under a coalition government.

Five Americans could face deportation by the end of the month unless there's a last-minute court reprieve or an unexpected policy change by the federal government.

Liberal Mario Silva and New Democrat Olivia Chow said their parties would protect war resisters if Stephen Harper's government were to fall after next week's budget.

Silva invoked the words of former prime minister Pierre Trudeau, who during the Vietnam War said "Canada should be a refuge from militarism."

"To all those brave men and women who have in fact objected to (the Iraq) war we say, bravo. We say welcome, you should be here in Canada," Silva said at a news conference in Toronto, which was attended by several war resisters and their young families.

The House of Commons passed a motion last June 3 calling for a stop to deportations of war resisters and Silva urged the government to respect that vote.

One war resister, Robin Long, has been deported since the vote and was separated from his Canadian partner and infant son. He was sentenced to 15 months in prison in the U.S.
New Democrat Olivia Chow said Canada must stop deporting war resisters and breaking up families.

"We are a nation of compassion and of peace," she said. "We really should not deport war resisters into American jails."

This week, Christopher Teske, 27, lost his last court bid to stay in the country and faces deportation within days.

Teske, who has been living in British Columbia for two years, said in a statement that he's proud of his decision not to take part in the war in Iraq and wishes he could stay in Canada permanently.

Writer Mary Jo Leddy, a member of the Order of Canada, said the trials in Nuremberg after the Second World War established that soldiers are responsible for their actions, and should be allowed to opt out of conflict if they don't believe in the mission.

"The argument that one must follow orders in all circumstances is no longer justified," she said.
"Following orders is no longer the ultimate test of patriotism."