The Red Sox were off last night (at least they couldn't lose), so after $5.00 martinis at our new local spot, we finally watched "Let Them Stay," the video produced by the War Resisters Support Campaign. If you want to support US war resisters in Canada and educate yourself about the issue, this is the best $20 you can spend.
Parts of the video are extremely disturbing, as former US soldiers attest to the horrors they saw in Iraq, and what they were forced to do.
The common expression "war crimes" seems like a pale euphemism when faced with the reality of these atrocities. I often say this about the expression "domestic violence". Those words seem a pale stand-in for being beaten up by someone who is supposed to love you.
Similarly, can the words "war crime" convey the horror of a pile of decapitated (civilian) bodies, with US soldiers running over them with jeeps? Of a soldier being exhorted to fire into a car at a checkpoint, then, seeing a family with two small children in the car, hesitating - and being ordered to shoot anyway? (He did not.)
I am so ashamed of my former country, and so grateful to be out of there. Now I look to Canada to do the right thing.
People who have courageously stood up to the military establishment, who have said No, I will not take part in this - and who have risked so much to do that - do not deserve to be court-martialled and imprisoned. They deserve to live out their lives in peace. They deserve refuge in Canada.
Canada, you must let them stay. Canadians, you must help your country do the right thing.
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