Subject: 5,500 deserters refuse to serve; military morale dropping Date: Sat, 11 Dec 2004 13:32:50 -0600 Message-ID: <B14120EE5C432443B21102F7925DAD02014201D0@COKE.uwec.edu> From: "Grossman, Zoltan C." <GROSSMZC@uwec.edu>
DESERTERS : WE WON?T GO TO IRAQ
CBSNews.com
Wednesday 8 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. I?ve always felt that
way - that if there are people who can?t defend themselves, it?s 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 didn?t 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
didn?t give them an option."
Felushko?s father is Canadian, so he has dual citizenship, and he can
legally stay in Canada. But it?s 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 today?s 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 -a?? 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 it?s 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 don?t," says House. "When the president isn?t
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 doesn?t have to?' I
don?t think so. I don?t 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
couldn?t 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 didn?t 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 didn?t qualify as a
conscientious objector, and he was ordered to fight in Iraq.
Hinzman decided to take his family to Canada, where he?s 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 don?t
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.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
US Army plagued by desertion and plunging morale
Times of London - December 10, 2004
From Elaine Monaghan in Washington
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-1397131,00.html
While insurgents draw on deep wells of fury to expand
their ranks in Iraq, the US military is fighting
desertion, recruitment shortfalls and legal challenges
from its own troops.
The irritation among the rank and file became all too
clear this week when a soldier stood up in a televised
session with Donald Rumsfeld, the US Defence Secretary,
to ask why the world's richest army was having to hunt
for scrap metal to protect its vehicles.
The same night, interviews with three soldiers who are
seeking refugee status in Canada, where they have
become minor celebrities, dominated prime time
television. They are among more the than 5,000 troops
that CBS's 60 Minutes reported on Wednesday had
deserted since the war began.
Many experts say that America's 1.4 million active-duty
troops and 865,000 part-timers are stretched to the
point where President Bush may see other foreign policy
goals blunted.
The bleed from the US military is heaviest among
parttimers, who have been dragged en masse out of
civilian life to serve their country with unprecedented
sacrifice. For the first time in a decade, the Army
National Guard missed its recruitment target this year.
Instead of signing up 56,000 people, it found 51,000.
"This is something that the President and the country
should be worried about," said Lawrence Korb, an
assistant secretary of defence under Ronald Reagan and
now a military analyst who opposes the war.
A further sign of strain can be seen in the Army's
decision this year to mobilise 5,600 members of a pool
of former soldiers that can be mobilised only in a
national emergency.
More than 183,000 National Guard and reserve troops are
on active duty, compared with 79,000 before the
invasion of Iraq. Forty per cent of the 138,000 troops
in Iraq are part-timers who never expected to be sent
to the front line.
Instead, as a woman soldier pointedly reminded Mr
Rumsfeld on Wednesday, they face "stop loss" orders
that delay their return to civilian life.
Another soldier lost his court battle this week to stop
the Army extending his one-year contract by at least
two years. At least eight soldiers have turned to the
courts, accusing the military of tricking them into
enlisting for a fixed term without warning them that
they could be forced to stay longer. Once they get out,
soldiers are increasingly resisting hefty bonuses to
re-enlist, an incentive that had helped to meet
recruitment targets in the past.
The crisis may be even deeper than the statistics
suggest. Active-duty Army recruiters exceeded their
target of 77,000 by 587 this year only by dipping into
a pool of recruits who had not planned to report until
next year, and by dropping educational standards, Mr
Korb said.
At 10 per cent, the death rate among war casualties is
the lowest in history. But maimed men and women are
flocking home with horror stories about the war, which
is claiming more and more casualties. Between June,
when the Iraqi interim Government took over, and
September, the average monthly casualty rate among US
forces was 747 a month, compared with 482 during the
invasion and 415 before the coalition government was
disbanded. With elections looming next month, the toll
is expected to mount.
Most soldiers keep their anger under wraps, partly out
of patriotism but also out of loyalty to their units.
"There's a thin green line that you don't cross," said
a veteran with the 4th Infantry, who deployed to Iraq
last year to help to plan counterinsurgency operations
and train Iraqi forces.
But at his home base in Fort Carson, Colorado, he has
resisted a $10,000 re-enlistment incentive and plans to
get out as soon as he can.
He illustrates the long-term problem the Army faces. He
served for five years, first in Korea, then in Iraq,
where he was a combat soldier for almost a year. The
Americans received little training for the
counterinsurgency they face. "Every day you wake up
alive, is a gift from above," the soldier said.
Few experts are surprised to hear that a recent army
survey discovered that half the soldiers were not
planning to re-enlist.
Experts are divided over how stretched America's
military really is. But they agree that another
conflict would put the military in overdrive. Another
war would require a shift to a "no-kidding wartime
posture in which everybody who could shoot was given a
rifle and sent to the front," according to John Pike,
of GlobalSecurity.org.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
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.