Haven sought for U.S. deserters

[struggle4progress]

May 4, 2006. 04:36 PM
CANADIAN PRESS


OTTAWA — Cindy Sheehan, who has become a leading voice in the American antiwar movement since the death of her son in Iraq, is urging Canada to offer sanctuary to deserters fleeing the U.S. military.

But the Tory government is having none of it.

Sheehan, who most famously camped outside the Texas ranch of President George W. Bush to protest the war, is also accusing Canada’s new Conservative government of trying to mask the brutality of war by banning media coverage of the return of soldiers’ bodies from Afghanistan.

“I believe it’s a propaganda tactic to keep the cost of the war away from the public,” she said Thursday during a visit to Parliament Hill ...

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1146741320385&call_pageid=968332188774&col=968350116467

[Spazito]

1. I agree with Cindy and I hope the cases that are currently under

appeal are successful but I am not hopeful, sadly. The Liberal government was no more supportive of safe haven for those who have escaped from serving in an illegal and immoral invasion of Iraq than the faux Con government is.

[CHIMO]

2. U.S. antiwar mom urges Canada to offer deserters haven

Ottawa — Canadian soldiers have no business being in Afghanistan and their presence there merely enables the United States to carry on its "illegal and immoral" war in Iraq, prominent U.S. anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan said Thursday.

"I believe my country shouldn't be in Afghanistan anyway," Ms. Sheehan said at a news conference on Parliament Hill. "It's never about spreading freedom or democracy or making the world safe, it's about lining the war profiteers' pockets."

"My country supported Osama Bin Laden in the fight against Russia," she said. "And now they go in and tear down that country. It's back in the hands of the drug lords, it's producing more opium than ever, and it's not safe. There's not any rebuilding going on, because it's being occupied by occupying forces."

Immigration Minister Monte Solberg said Canada has a very generous system for refugees, but if people don't fit the definition of refugee, then they are out.

If Sheehan has a bone to pick with the Bush administration "she should take that to Washington," he said.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20060504.wpeacemom0504/BNStory/National/home



Wear red to support troops, soldier's mom says


The mother of a Canadian solider serving in Kandahar is urging people across the country to wear red on Fridays until every member of the armed forces is home.

Audrey Slaney, whose son Pte. Matthew Holden knew two of the four soliders killed last month, says Red Fridays will boost the morale of troops in what is becoming an increasingly dangerous war zone.

"People should be letting the troops know what they feel," Slaney, a grocery store worker who lives in Oshawa, said Thursday.

In the eastern Ontario community of Quinte West, a 24-year veteran is encouraging "every red-blooded" Canadian to take up the cause. And across the country in Dartmouth, N.S., a 28-year-old woman whose boyfriend is in the military says she wore red pants to work one Friday and "it caught on like wildfire."

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1146779410928&call_pageid=968332188492&col=968793972154&t=TS_Home

Of course it is just a coincidence that the two articles appear on the same day. We know the troops want to be there as we have heard from them that that is what they are paid for.