Posted on 07/09/2006 10:34:29 AM PDT by LdSentinal
CASTLEGAR, British Columbia (Reuters) - George McGovern, who ran for the U.S. presidency on an anti-Vietnam War platform, said on Saturday history will show Canada was right to have sheltered that era's war resisters.
McGovern, who was in Canada to speak to a reunion of Vietnam War draft dodgers, said the Iraq war was also "needless and mistaken," but he said it would be presumptuous of him to say Canada should again provide haven for U.S. deserters.
"I always appreciated the generosity and imagination of Canada... I think history will be on the side of the Canadians," McGovern, 83, said, prior to addressing the event in Castlegar, British Columbia.
McGovern, a U.S. senator from South Dakota and Democratic presidential candidate in 1972, called for American troops to be withdrawn from Vietnam in his presidential campaign platform. He also supported an amnesty for draft dodgers. He lost the presidential race to Richard Nixon in a landslide.
During the Vietnam War, the Canadian government viewed draft dodgers and military deserters as potential immigrants. More than 50,000 entered the country, although about half returned after President Carter granted amnesty in 1977 to those who fled the draft.
Many of the estimated 300 people at the "Our Way Home" reunion in Castlegar, about 375 miles east of Vancouver, believe Canada should be doing the same thing now.
Iraq war military deserters must now apply as political refugees, but Canadian immigration officials are refusing to allow them to argue they were fleeing an illegal war. Peace activists want that rule changed.
'BROKEN CONTRACT WITH THE YOUNG SOLDIER'
Kyle Snyder, 22, who served as a combat engineer in Iraq before deserting in protest admitted he was surprised by the change, and had entered Canada with an outdated view of its political position.
"The opposition was strange to me because I thought I was making the right decision under the Geneva Convention," said Snyder, one of about two dozen deserters who are pursuing refugee claims.
Gerry Condon, a Vietnam deserter helping Snyder, said the fact that the draft was eliminated should not matter. Many soldiers in Iraq are there only because of a lack of civilian jobs, or because their enlistments were involuntarily extended, he said.
"In my opinion, it is George Bush who has broken the contract with the young soldiers, and not the other way around," Condon said.
Peace activists blame Canada's refusal to accept deserters on Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper's desire for close relations with the White House, but the rule barring the "illegal war" argument in refugee claims dates to a previous Liberal government.
Tom Hayden, the veteran peace activist who addressed the event earlier in the week, said Canadians worried about a U.S. backlash should remember they survived any fallout from accepting Vietnam deserters.
"The problem here is that Harper and Bush are ideological bedfellows," Hayden said.
Organizers of the Castlegar event said they wanted to honor both the Americans resisters and Canadians who helped them. It was held in southeast British Columbia's Kootenay region because many draft dodgers settled there.
"The problem here is that Harper and Bush are ideological bedfellows," Hayden said.
Tet68 says, " At least they never slept with Jane Fonda!".
How did Karl Rove get him to say that? Amazing. I am in awe.
This is a problem?
Real American troops don't desert.
Note to the less than esteemed former senator:George,a lot of us savor the thought of reading your obit.in a morning paper-soon.
On the side of history, the anti-war activists and their methods were made larger than life by the MSM and the majority of Americans were made to believe they were in the minority.
Those who refuse to support and defend a state have no claim to protection by that state. Killing an anarchist or a pacifist should not be defined as "murder" in a legalistic sense. The offense against the state, if any, should be "Using deadly weapons inside city limits," or "Creating a traffic hazard," or "Endangering bystanders," or other misdemeanor.
Lazarus Long
Well maybe you thought wrong, dumb-@ss!
My personal preference would be just cite them for violating whatever noise ordinance the city has. ;)
Yeah I know what you mean. I didn't realize he was still alive.
I voted for Richard M. Nixon for POTUS in the first election I was old enough to vote in. I'd vote for him over Mushy McGovern again and again, regardless of Watergate, etc. Kerry and Gore are roughly the same overall quality as McGovern. [Clinton is just white trash with an over-achiever for a wife.] God has not been kind to the Democrat Party over the years.
LOL! I was thinking that he'd passed on, too. Must have been one of those other fuzzy-headed idiots.
Just cleaning it up a bit ...
I recently finished the book by Ambrose about U S Airmen in WW2. Quite a bit of the book was devoted to McGovern. He may have changed drastically over the years, but when his squadron was stationed in Italy, he flew a lot of dangerous missions over nazi-occupied Europe.
In recent years, he has become one of the more prominent supporters of controversial political figure and economist, Lyndon LaRouche.
During the lecture he discussed the history of U.S. hunger initiatives along with his own role in establishing programs such as WIC and the National School Lunch Program.
******
"Thanks to the most crudely partisan decision in the history of the Supreme Court, the nation has been given a President of painfully limited wisdom and compassion and lacking any sense of the nation's true greatness."
George McGovern
******
"Bush's motives have more to do with empire and profit than with liberating Iraq."
George McGovern
The only legacy McGovern and the anti war crowd has given is making America look weak and a pushover for any third world crackpot.
Yeah George, you really ought to be an Canada with the rest of the deserters.
"The problem here is that Harper and Bush are ideological bedfellows," Hayden said.But no problem Hayden and Bin Laden being ideological bedfellows. I guess he's ok with that.
Braindead and Zombie Liberals still fighting the Vietnam War. Hilarious.
McGovern did have a good combat record. I wonder what happened to him?
Oh my goodness, more proof that liberals really ARE patriotic. <\sarcasim>
-Do liberals live for-frikken-ever?-
I think Satan has something to do with it.
Exasperation can produce an extremely cogent ( as another poster described) question. I, myself, quaffing an ice cold import American beer (from upstate New York) mused quietly.
Not only do they last for ever, they are like the energizer bunny. Nearly every week, something transpires against President Bush. One can imagine the liberal press (over their choice of libations). "We gottim' We gottim', run up the word impeach, work it in".
Next there is the military, every week some new "horror". The press virtually overjoyed, not at human tragedy, but at the opportunity to bash their own countrymen- and women. An old country saying.
"Like blue assed flies around a dustbin".
A dustbin being a refuse bin. A word similiar to assed. (Laughs).
George McGovern; is that ol' liberal fart still alive?
If we lose the current war, as liberals hope, there will be only muslim history.
There's no fool like an old fool.
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