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loose network of Mexican-American women, some of whom may be illegal immigrants, have been responsible for helping numerous Afghan military deserters go AWOL from an Air Force Base in Texas, FoxNews.com has learned. Many of the Afghans, with the women's assistance, have made their way to Canada; the whereabouts of others remain unknown. Some of the men have been schooled by the women in how to move around the U.S. without any documentation. The Afghan deserters refer to the women as "BMWs" — Big Mexican Women — and they often are the first step in the Afghans' journey from Lackland...

A Texas congressman is demanding answers from the Air Force on the current status of the 10 AWOL Afghan military deserters, which he called a breach of national security. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, asked Air Force Secretary Michael B. Donley for an immediate report on the status of the missing men and an assessment of the potential threat to citizens of Texas. He demanded to know why he was not informed about the missing Afghans over the course of the last two years. "Your department's failure to provide critical information related to this incident is unacceptable," Cornyn wrote. "Finally, it...

A Virginia man who once spent eight years on the run from naval investigators was arrested in Somerset County early today with a trove of high-powered weapons, including a grenade-launcher and two assault rifles, along with maps of a U.S. military base and a civilian neighborhood, authorities said. The federal government’s Joint Terrorism Task Force quickly joined the investigation into Lloyd R. Woodson, 43, who had been staying at a Branchburg motel since last week. Woodson, whose last known address was in Reston, Va., was wearing a bullet-proof vest and carrying one of the assault rifles — customized to shoot...

MEXICO CITY – A general is among the nearly 4,000 officers and men who have deserted from the Mexican army during the past 6½ years, Milenio newspaper reported Monday, citing government documents. The defense department opened legal proceedings for desertion against 3,972 soldiers between 2003 and July 2009. Among the soldiers being investigated are a general and more than 1,000 other officers. The report does not specify the number of those cases that have arisen since December 2006, when newly inaugurated President Felipe Calderon began deploying tens of thousands of soldiers to battle Mexico’s powerful drug cartels. Since then, there...

"This is a guy (former Weatherman terror-bomber Bill Ayers) who lives in my neighborhood ... the notion that somehow as a consequence of me knowing somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago - when I was 8 years old - somehow reflects on me and my values doesn't make much sense." -- Barack Obama on the Campaign trail, 2008 As President Obama prepared to commemorate D-Day, the Associated Press dug up old details and photos to write a warm fuzzy story about the WW2 service record of Obama's maternal grandfather and grand uncle. One could conclude that the...

WHAT'S REALLY SCARING WALL ST...... fresh threats of higher taxes on the most productive......bank bailout mystery..........contradictory policy measures......vows to unclog the banking system of toxic mortgage debt, along with a mortgage "cram down" that would make that debt more toxic. Candidate Obama won over the street even as he was bashing the financiers who'd plunged the country into crisis b/c of bad bets on risky bonds. Sources say Jamie Dimon, JP Morgan, Lloyd Blankfein, Goldman Sachs, John Mack, Morgan Stanley and Dick Fuld, then of Lehman Bros were supporters, as were Larry Fink of money-management powerhouse BlackRock, and senior execs...

Five American war resisters who face the threat of serious jail time if they're deported within the next two weeks should be given a "refuge from militarism" that would keep their families together and respect their opposition to the Iraq war, Liberal and New Democratic MPs said yesterday.

Still seeking to out lib the liberal Mecca’s of San Francisco and Seattle, Portland, Oregon is home to a class of professional protesters who live only to protest. Nothing energizes these moonbats more than the United States defending itself or fighting those who seek our total destruction. It should come as no surprise that once again, the malcontents that have infested Portland are seeking to make Portland a Sanctuary City where those who desert the obligation they volunteered for in our Military can come to when they need a safe place to live. The anti-war ilk in Portland desire the...

VANCOUVER — U.S. army deserter Robin Long is slated to be deported back to his army base in Fort Knox, Ky., Tuesday, which would make him the first resister to the U.S. war effort in Iraq to be sent out of Canada. Madam Justice Anne Mactavish of the Federal Court of Canada cleared the way for the deportation late Monday, dismissing a last-ditch attempt to delay the process while the 25-year-old pursued further appeals.

For those few Americans who decided to desert their comrades by running off to Canada prior to their deployment to Iraq or Afghanistan and who thought that the Canadian government would give them a safe haven from US prosecution, I've got some great news; you aren't welcome there. Unlike the role the Canadian government played during the Viet Nam War when thousands of young deserters and draft dodgers were welcomed with open arms, this time around it's a different story. The government of Prime Minister Harper has taken the position that these Americans are not refugees which the Canadians define...

Since deserting his unit in Iraq and fleeing to Canada two years ago, Corey Glass has become the poster boy of the war resisters movement. Thursday in Toronto, supporters are planning to protest his scheduled deportation back to the United States. Corey Glass, 25, who deserted the U.S. Army while his unit was in Iraq and fled to Canada has become a cause celebre there. The American's impending deportation has led to protests and a parliamentary resolution. (ABC News Photo Illustration)But it turns out Glass has had little reason to be on the lam, ABC News has learned. Unknown to...

Army deserters told fellow soldier they committed the crime, court papers say. Two U.S. Army deserters were arrested Friday and charged with killing the Rev. Mark McCalla, a former Franklin pastor. First-degree murder charges were filed against Stephen C. Wilson, 19, of Cincinnati, and Daniel R. Smith, 22, of Newport News, Va. The men were captured after 9 p.m. Friday in downtown Columbus, according to Sgt. Dana Norman of the Columbus Police Dept. homicide bureau. The men told a fellow soldier they had shot and killed McCalla, according to criminal complaints filed in Wayne County, W.Va., magistrate court. Wilson and...

A month after US army reservist Matthis Chiroux publicly refused to deploy to Iraq, the former sergeant on Sunday set himself up for possible prosecution by failing to report for active duty with his unit in South Carolina. "Tonight at midnight, I may face further action from the army for refusing to reactivate to participate in the Iraq occupation," Chiroux told reporters in Washington. "I stand here today in defense of those who have been stripped of their voices in this occupation, the warriors of this nation...", Chiroux read from a statement as his father Rob, who had travelled to...

MPs vote to give asylum to U.S. deserters, Tories say no CBC News June 3, 2008 The House of Commons has passed a motion to grant permanent residence status to American military deserters and their families, but it's not expected to help a U.S. soldier recently ordered to leave Canada. While all three opposition parties supported the non-binding NDP motion Tuesday, the government voted it down and is certain to ignore it. There are an estimated 200 Iraq War resisters in Canada, including Corey Glass, 25, who learned last month that his application to remain in the country has been...

BAGHDAD — A company of Iraqi soldiers abandoned their positions on Tuesday night in Sadr City, defying American soldiers who implored them to hold the line against Shiite militias. The retreat left a crucial stretch of road on the front lines undefended for hours and led to a tense series of exchanges between American soldiers and about 50 Iraqi troops who were fleeing. Capt. Logan Veath, a company commander in the 25th Infantry Division, pleaded with the Iraqi major who was leading his troops away from the Sadr City fight, urging him to return to the front. “If you turn...

TORONTO In from the cold they come, gangly young men and graying grandfathers alike, filling a downtown church with the kind of polite anticipation more befitting an afternoon wedding than an antiwar rally. ...Across Canada, the remnants of a lost counterculture are rising up again as hundreds of aging draft dodgers reluctantly leave the quiet comforts of their anonymous lives to help an estimated 200 Iraq war deserters who fled north with no promise of asylum...."You're being stop-lossed!"Phil McDowell tried to absorb his wife's frantic news in June 2006 that the Army was rescinding his discharge. Iraq had left him...

Since the beginning of the war, hundreds of deserters have fled to Canada, fearful of being jailed or forced to return to duty. It’s starting to look like they need not have bothered: Despite troop shortages and problems hitting recruitment targets, Pentagon officials say it would be a poor use of time to go after deserters. “We don’t actively look for a deserter or have bounty hunters who go out knocking on doors,” Army spokesman Major Nathan Banks says. “It doesn’t serve our purpose to lose manpower or focus in the global war on terror to find them, because the...

"Army desertion rate up 80 percent since '03 Iraq invasion," blared The Associated Press headline atop an article that began, "Soldiers strained by six years at war are deserting their posts at the highest rate since 1980." Sounds pretty bad until one puts 80 percent in context, which the AP didn't try to do, except to frame it to support its premise: Desertions "declined in 2003 and 2004, in the early years of the Iraq war, but then began to increase steadily," reaching "about nine in every 1,000 soldiers" in the year ending Sept. 30. As journalists are wont to...

Soldiers strained by six years at war are deserting their posts at the highest rate since 1980, with the number of Army deserters this year showing an 80 percent increase since the United States invaded Iraq in 2003. While the totals are still far lower than they were during the Vietnam War, when the draft was in effect, they show a steady increase over the past four years and a 42 percent jump since last year. “We’re asking a lot of soldiers these days,” said Roy Wallace, director of plans and resources for Army personnel. “They’re humans. They have all...

One of the young filmmakers behind a controversial 9/11 conspiracy documentary was arrested this week on charges that he deserted the Army, even though he claims he received an honorable discharge. Korey Rowe, 24, who served with the 101st Airborne in Afghanistan and Iraq, told FOXNews.com that he was honorably discharged from the military 18 months ago — which he said he explained to sheriffs when they pounded on his door late Monday night. “When they came to my house, I showed them my paperwork,” Rowe said. “The cops said, 'You’re still in the system.'” Rowe is one of the...

There is no crack team of bounty hunters, no elite military unit whose job is to track them down and bring them in. Despite a rise in desertions from the Army as the Iraq war drags on into a fifth year, the U.S. military does almost nothing to find those who flee and rarely prosecutes those it gets its hands on. An Associated Press examination of Pentagon figures shows that 174 troops were court-martialed by the Army last year for desertion — a figure that amounts to just 5 percent of the 3,301 soldiers who deserted in fiscal year 2006....

Failure to track the thousands of deserters may lead to a pool of hit men, critics say MEXICO CITY — The most ruthless gang of drug-cartel hit men in Mexico are deserters from the army's elite. But the Zetas, as the ex-soldiers are known, may not be the only troops who abandoned their posts to work for the cartels. In the eight years since the Zetas were organized, more than 120,000 Mexican soldiers have deserted the army, according to the government's records. Yet the country's defense officials have made little effort to track their whereabouts, security experts said, creating a...

TORONTO -- There is an untold story of the war in Iraq -- a story about soldiers who have gone to Canada to avoid going back to Iraq. Many people think about the Vietnam War draft dodgers when they hear about people heading to Canada to avoid military service, but the soldiers in the Persian Gulf War and the Iraq War are part of an all-volunteer force. "I signed up before the invasion of Iraq," Corey Glass said in his Toronto apartment. "I joined the National Guard thinking it was a humanitarian organization." Glass is an Army National Guardsman from...

On the morning of Monday, Jan. 9, 2006, a 21-year-old Army specialist named Suzanne Swift went AWOL. Her unit, the 54th Military Police Company, out of Fort Lewis, Wash., was two days away from leaving for Iraq. Swift and her platoon had been home less than a year, having completed one 12-month tour of duty in February 2005, and now the rumor was that they were headed to Baghdad to run a detention center. The footlockers were packed. The company's 130 soldiers had been granted a weekend leave in order to go where they needed to go, to say whatever...

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP)-A U.S. Army soldier who fled to Canad arather than return to Iraq has disappeared again, this time just a day after surrendering to the military.Pvt. Kyle Snyder, 23, of Colorado Springs, Colo., told The Associated Press he was supposed to return by bus to Fort Leonard Wood, Mo., from Louisville on Tuesday byt didn't go. He said he went AWOL after Fort Knox officials told him he would be sent back to his unit, the 94th Engineer Batallion.

MÉXICO, D.F. — The nation’s Defense Secretariat has submitted a proposal that calls for a 60-year prison sentence for soldiers who leave their posts to work for drug cartels.The bill submitted to Congress calls for defecting soldiers, such as those known as “Zetas,” and others who work for organized crime groups or who become guerrillas, to be charged with treason. Defecting in order to join organized crime gangs would become a crime under the Code of Military Justice. The proposal calls for the loss of service benefits and the prison sentence “for a military man who alone or with others...

WASHINGTON — Congressional researchers have identified dozens of AWOL guardsmen and reservists receiving paychecks despite their criminal absence, and said the Army has no reliable system to ensure that those deserters are taken off the service’s payroll. Over the last three years, the Government Accountability Office has monitored 75 cases of guardsmen and reservists who failed to report to active duty when their units were called up, but still received “improper and possibly fraudulent pay” while listed as deserters. The researchers estimated those errors cost the Army nearly $880,000 over that span, and said their calculations “likely significantly understate the...

Toronto -- Army Pvt. Ryan Johnson drove off his Mojave Desert base at 3 a.m. Sgt. Patrick Hart told his Army superiors he was going to watch one last Buffalo Bills football game. Marine police officer Christian Kjar of Santa Barbara got permission to leave his base in North Carolina to visit a mall. Rather than go to the Iraq war, all three went to Canada, where a small community of military deserters is growing as the conflict drags on. They are drawn by Canada's history of helping Vietnam War-era draft dodgers and the country's open opposition to the war....

FORT ERIE, Ontario - A group of American military deserters publicly embraced their new lives in Canada on Saturday with the support of "peace mom" Cindy Sheehan, who said she wished the son she lost in Iraq was among them. "I begged him not to go to Iraq," the anti-war activist said through tears at a rally in support of the former soldiers, who wore black T-shirts emblazoned with "AWOL." "And I wish he was standing up here with these people because he didn't want to go." Sheehan was making her second visit to Canada in support of sanctuary for...

LONDON: More than 1,000 members of the British armed forces have deserted since that start of the war in Iraq three years ago, the British Broadcasting Corporation reported on Sunday. The BBC did not say how it arrived at the figure. Earlier this week, Labour Party lawmaker John McDonnell told the House of Commons that the level of desertion had tripled since 2003. However, the Ministry of Defence said the army knew of only “a handful” of deserters since 1989, and said there had been no significant increase in the number of soldiers going absent without leave. Last month an...

More than 1,000 members of the British military have deserted the armed forces since the start of the 2003 Iraq war, the BBC has discovered. It comes as Parliament debates a law that will forbid military personnel from refusing to participate in the occupation of a foreign country. Some 900 have evaded capture since the Iraq war started, official figures say.

JERUSALEM – With national elections here just one week away and public rhetoric noticeably heating up between politicians, some candidates and parties have been bringing the family of acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert – running for top office – into campaign ads. In a television commercial last week, the opposition Likud party pointed out Olmert's son deserted Israeli army service and his children, including a declared pacifist, live abroad. Some ads attacked Olmert's wife, who has been active in organizations that promote the division of Jerusalem for a Palestinian state. Olmert, running as head of the newly formed Kadima party,...

<p>At least 8,000 members of the all-volunteer U.S. military have deserted since the Iraq war began, Pentagon records show, although the overall desertion rate has plunged since the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001.</p> <p>Since fall 2003, 4,387 Army soldiers, 3,454 Navy sailors and 82 Air Force personnel have deserted. The Marine Corps does not track the number of desertions each year but listed 1,455 Marines in desertion status last September, the end of fiscal 2005, says Capt. Jay Delarosa, a Marine Corps spokesman.</p>

MEXICO CITY - Mexico's military denied that its soldiers are deserting in high numbers and joining organized crime groups and said that low pay plays no role in any such defections. Desertion rates in Mexico are no different from what they are in other countries, including the United States, a military spokesman said in a letter to The Dallas Morning News. The faxed letter was a response to questions posed by The News last month for a report on concerns expressed by U.S. officials about corruption in the Mexican military. "It's strange that American officials would express worries over the...

Jeremy Hinzman Jeremy Hinzman was a U.S. soldier in the elite infantry division, the 82nd Airborne. He served in Afghanistan in a non-combat position after having applied for conscientious objector status. After being refused CO status and returning to America, he learned that they would be deployed to Iraq. Hinzman did not believe the stated reasons for the Iraq war. In January 2004 he drove to Canada to seek asylum. He is currently living in Toronto with his wife Nga Nguyen and son Liam. His refugee claim was turned down in March 2005 by the Immigration and Refugee Board. That...

Canada should grant special protection to U.S. soldiers who desert from the war in Iraq, even if they do not qualify as refugees, U.S. activists said on Thursday. A Canadian refugee tribunal rejected the asylum claim of U.S. infantryman Jeremy Hinzman last month, dealing a blow to several other soldiers who have fled north of the border. The activists met with Canadian parliamentarians in Ottawa to ask that the soldiers be given legal status. Tom Hayden, a former 1960s antiwar leader, said that if the deserters are not allowed to stay legally they could potentially be extradited back to the...

TORONTO - A U.S. Army paratrooper was denied political asylum Thursday, dealing a blow to Americans who are seeking refuge in Canada to avoid serving in an Iraq conflict that they argue would force them to commit atrocities against civilians. An immigration board ruled that Jeremy Hinzman had not convinced its members he would face persecution or cruel and unusual punishment if returned to the United States. Seven other American military personnel have applied for refugee status, and Hinzman's lawyer estimated dozens of others are in hiding in Canada waiting to see how the government ruled. The attorney, Jeffry House,...

MEXICO CITY – In a tree-shaded neighborhood at Mexico City's southern edge, the sound of bagpipes breaks the silence of a balmy March evening. A dentist, a blacksmith, a high school student and a criminal lawyer – Mexicans dressed in tartan plaid kilts – are playing the songs of centuries past. They call themselves the St. Patrick's Battalion Pipe Band, after a little-known battalion of Irishmen who fought for Mexico in the Mexican-American War of 1846-48. In a country known for mariachi music, and where wearing a kilt and playing the pipes can draw ridicule, these 15 men and women...

Texas National Guard Spc. Carl Webb is on the run, a deserter in the eyes of the Army, a disgrace to former comrades and a coward to many of his countrymen because he refused deployment to Iraq. 3rd Infantry Division Sgt. Kevin Benderman turned himself in this month to face military justice after he said he was unwilling to go back for a second tour.

Texas National Guard Spc. Carl Webb is on the run, a deserter in the eyes of the Army, a disgrace to former comrades and a coward to many of his countrymen because he refused deployment to Iraq. 3rd Infantry Division Sgt. Kevin Benderman turned himself in this month to face military justice after he said he was unwilling to go back for a second tour. 82nd Airborne Pvt. Jeremy Hinzman waits in Canada for immigration officials to decide whether to grant him political asylum after he left the United States rather than fight in what he considered an unjust war...

Two Heroes and an Objector Robin Mullins Boyd On Friday February 4, 2005, the Coastal Empire of Georgia and the USA suffered the tragic loss of two soldiers from the 3rd Infantry Division based at Ft. Stewart. According to the Savannah Morning News “Staff Sgt. Steven G. Bayow, 42, of Colonia, on the island of Yap in the Federated States of Micronesia, and Sgt. Daniel Torres, 23, of Fort Worth, Texas, died Friday in Bayji, Iraq when a roadside bomb exploded, hitting their patrol vehicle. Five other soldiers were wounded in the blast about 140 miles north of Baghdad.” The...

The cover of the February issue of Saturday Night magazine is graced with a picture of a stern looking Jeremy Hinzman, one of several U.S. military deserters who are currently in Canada seeking Convention refugee status. Across Hinzman’s picture are written the words, "The Deserter", the title of the cover story by writer Andrew Clark. Underneath the title is written, "Jeremy Hinzman is a model American soldier in every way but one. He refuses to kill anybody." How profound! Perhaps the magazine might one day publish the tragic story of Chantal, the world’s most perfect exotic dancer, if only she...

The Pentagon doesn't like to talk about it. But as the war in Iraq becomes ever more violent and prolonged, an increasing number of soldiers are opposing the war -- up to and including refusing to fight... But what is the same as Vietnam is a growing sense among soldiers that the civilian politicians making the decisions are prosecuting a pointless, unjust war -- and lying about their reasons for it. Established groups, including Veterans for Peace, and new ones, such as Iraq Veterans Against the War, are opposing the war, working to support resisters` and educating GIs about viable...

In a muted echo of Vietnam's draft dodgers, four young American Army deserters are seeking asylum in Canada, claiming that the Iraq war is illegal. TORONTO - Jeremy Hinzman, paratrooper-turned-Iraq war deserter, has a lot in common with the thousands of Vietnam War-era draft dodgers who poured into Canada decades ago. Like them, he sought asylum in a country that did not support a U.S.-led conflict to avoid fighting what he deemed an illegal war. But the lean, eloquent South Dakota native was not drafted. He voluntarily enlisted in the Army 4 ½ years ago to ''serve a higher purpose''...

US deserters flee to Canada to avoid service in IraqBy Charles Laurence in New York(Filed: 09/01/2005)American Army soldiers are deserting and fleeing to Canada rather than fight in Iraq, rekindling memories of the thousands of draft-dodgers who flooded north to avoid service in Vietnam.An estimated 5,500 men and women have deserted since the invasion of Iraq, reflecting Washington's growing problems with troop morale.   Jeremy Hinzman: a 'wrong career choice' Jeremy Hinzman, 26, from South Dakota, who deserted from the 82nd Airborne, is among those who - to the disgust of Pentagon officials - have applied for refugee status...

The family of a US marine held hostage in Iraq today begged for the world to pray his captors will drop their threat to behead him. Militants who abducted Corporal Wassef Ali Hassoun - a fluent Arabic speaker of Lebanese descent - have said they will decapitate him unless all Iraqi prisoners are released by coalition forces. No deadline was given, but there is little prospect their demands will be met as a symbolically important Nato conference in Turkey draws to its close tomorrow. It is the first time a coalition soldier has been put under threat of decapitation after...

Earlier this week, Prime Minister Paul Martin taped a year-end review interview with Global Television. After backtracking somewhat on Canada’s willingness to join the United States in missile defence, the interview turned to the issue of American deserters coming to Canada. After being reminded that Liberal icon, former prime minister Pierre Trudeau, had welcomed U.S. draft dodgers and deserters to Canada during the Vietnam War Martin was asked about accepting those U.S. citizens who desert the armed forces because they do not want to serve in Iraq. Martin replied, "In terms of immigration, we are a country of immigrants and...

It's an offense punishable by death during wartime. It's been committed by 5500 soldiers since the war with Iraq began. The men, who have violated military orders and oaths, tell 60 Minutes Wednesday that it isn't cowardice, but rather the nature of the war in Iraq, that turned them into American deserters. American soldiers currently living in Canada tell Correspondent Scott Pelley why they made the decision to desert their units, in a report to be broadcast on Dec. 8, at 8 p.m. ET/PT. One soldier, Pfc. Dan Felushko, 24, tells Pelley, "I didn't want...'Died deluded in Iraq' over my...

Fugitive U.S. soldier Jeremy Hinzman is an unrepentant embarrassment to his country of birth. Last year, he deserted from the 82nd Airborne Division, fled to Canada and became the anti-war movement's sexiest man alive. Now, in a desperate bid for refugee status, this AWOL poster boy is collectively smearing our brave men and women in Iraq as war criminals to save his hide. Do our neighbors to the north really want to become a paradise for America's cut-and-run reprobates? Apparently so. At Hinzman's refugee hearing on Monday, the National Post reports, “demonstrators braved the morning snow and icy winds to...

Vietnam-era men offer aid in Canada to Iraq deserters VANCOUVER, B.C. -- War can turn strangers into brothers. It's true if they're fighting it, and it's true if they're resisting it, as Vietnam War resisters resettled in this Canadian province know. In an American era of "love it or leave it," they left. Now a number have joined to help peace activists here form a new "underground railway" for resisters to the Iraq war, providing food and shelter and transportation north. The new generation of resisters includes AWOL airborne soldier Jeremy Hinzman, 25, who seeks refuge in Canada. His Canadian...