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Perhaps the most important court ruling of the Iraq war was set in motion last week, and it had nothing to do with torture, wire tapping, Abu Ghraib or Guantanamo Bay. It wasn’t even argued before the Supreme Court or in a military tribunal, but rather, in the jurisdiction of our good friends to the north: Canada.
For those not familiar, U.S. Army deserter Jeremy Hinzman appeared in Canadian Federal court in Toronto, pleading not to be sent back to the States so as not to face the consequences of fleeing the armed forces.
The Associated Press reports there may be hundreds of deserters in Canada, and at least 10 are using the Hinzman case as a litmus test for appeals of their own.
Hinzman enlisted in 2001 and spent time in Afghanistan, but applied for non-combat duty and conscientious objector status after discovering the Quaker religion. The Army denied his request and when his unit was deployed to Iraq in Jan 2004, he took his wife and young son and headed for the hills – or in this case, the great white North.
The Canadian government ruled that he could not argue his beliefs on the illegality of the war and that punishment for desertion did not qualify as persecution. Hinzman has vowed to exhaust every avenue of appeal and the next judge he’s assigned to, a legendary liberal jurist named Ann McTavish, has already suggested it was wrong not to argue the merits of the war.
This entire process is a travesty in so many ways, it’s hard to know where to begin. First, who in the blue hell is Ann McTavish to decide what is and isn’t a legal war? It’s one thing to have healthy debate in political circles about President Bush’s decisions on Iraq, but to have them decided in a courtroom in Toronto is utterly absurd. Thanks, but no thanks, Ms. McTavish; I think we’ll let the men and women we elect to Congress and the executive branch make those calls rather than some agenda-driven foreign judge.
Onto this Hinzman clown – he’s a deserter, not a draft dodger. He signed on the dotted line to serve his country, perhaps the noblest act an American can take. Then he spit in the face of all his fellow soldiers and citizens and high-tailed it out of here when the going got rough.
He says he wanted an education, not to kill people, and that the Army’s clever ad campaigns cover up the true gruesome nature of the job. This coward expects us to be naive enough to think he didn’t know what he was getting into when he joined? He’s never seen “Full Metal Jacket” or “Saving Private Ryan?”
The truth of the matter is, Hinzman joined before Sept. 11 looking to get a free ride – a healthy salary, job training and money for college, without actually having to face danger or combat. The towers fall, the world changes, and suddenly he discovers he’s a Quaker? Sorry, Hinzman, we weren’t born yesterday.
This case is pivotal because it’s a test case. All future rulings on American military deserters decided in Canada will be based on this one. Not only will this save or send back scores of deserters hiding up there, but it could also create an avenue for hundreds, if not thousands more soldiers to flee combat duty, further crippling the efforts overseas.
Hinzman can appeal all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada, and if that fails, he can ask the Canadian government to let him stay on humanitarian grounds, and it could take years. This guy belongs in prison, and should be thankful that the penalty for desertion isn’t hanging from the nearest tree as it once was. Canada needs to expedite the process and deny him at every turn, yesterday if possible.
Then, when he inevitably goes on the run after losing, they need to deploy the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to hunt him to the ends of the Earth, and drag him back to the United States to face his fate.
Matt Williams loves the Mountie drama “Due South” and is rooting for Team Canada in Olympic Ice Hockey.
