Re: "Off you go, soldier," Aug. 4.
No, the Canada Border Services Agency is not right to order American war resister (not "deserter") Kimberly Rivera back to the U.S.
The Harper Conservative government is turning its back on 200 proud years of Canadian history as a refuge for people in need of protection. Would this government have sent the slaves back to their U.S. slave owners?
The guest editorial argues it is different now because the U.S. has a volunteer army rather than a draft. Many are coerced into service by economic forces. My godson in the U.S. has considered joining the reserves in hopes of getting medical insurance, unaffordable otherwise, for his young family.
The editorial says Rivera knew what she was getting into when she enlisted.
Oh? Did these young soldiers know they would be sent to a war based on the lies of the Bush administration about "weapons of mass destruction"? Did they know they would be expected to become torturers, as some U.S. military have?
The editorial dismisses Canada's "humanitarian grounds" - "She will not be sent to a Third World country where she faces the prospect of torture."
Remember Abu Ghraib? Remember "extraordinary rendition," the abducting of people like Canadian Maher Arar to torture by U.S. allies in Syria. Remember Omar Khadr, a child soldier and Canadian citizen, tortured for years and tried as a war criminal in a U.S. military prison.
Let her and her family stay. Her moral fibre will enrich the nation.
Paul Glassen
Nanaimo
