Sanctuary for cowards?

[DiamondDave]

Activists want to make Portland a sanctuary for AWOL service members - Breaking News From Oregon & Portland - Oregonlive.com

Activists from several peace groups will go before the Portland City Council today seeking support for making Portland a sanctuary for military resisters -- service members who have gone AWOL to protest the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Utterly disgusting...

 

[user_name_guest]

Haha. Peace groups should get resisters asylum in Northern Pakistan. They have tolerant people there. Maybe the resisters could be protected under the tribal groups. If Taliban and al-Qaeda could survive in Paki, so can military resisters and peace groups.

 

[catzmeow]

Activists want to make Portland a sanctuary for AWOL service members - Breaking News From Oregon & Portland - Oregonlive.com

Activists from several peace groups will go before the Portland City Council today seeking support for making Portland a sanctuary for military resisters -- service members who have gone AWOL to protest the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Utterly disgusting...

I wish the pacific northwest would just go ahead and join Canada.

 

[xsited1]

I've got a great idea! If they don't want to serve, don't join. If they join and they don't want to serve, put them in the brig for 20 years.

 

[WillowTree]

It takes a DUmmie!

 

[doeton]

Haha. Peace groups should get resisters asylum in Northern Pakistan. They have tolerant people there. Maybe the resisters could be protected under the tribal groups. If Taliban and al-Qaeda could survive in Paki, so can military resisters and peace groups.

and on the 17th day they become what they claimed to hate

 

[Angel Heart]

I wish the pacific northwest would just go ahead and join Canada.

I'm in the Northwest... I'll fight this happening. Not everyone here is brain dead.

 

[Black Lance]

Activists want to make Portland a sanctuary for AWOL service members - Breaking News From Oregon & Portland - Oregonlive.com

Activists from several peace groups will go before the Portland City Council today seeking support for making Portland a sanctuary for military resisters -- service members who have gone AWOL to protest the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Utterly disgusting...

Since many people will disagree with the below, let me preface this by saying that I am currently enlisted in the armed forces myself: I have spent one year on active duty and two in the guard.

I have mixed feelings about the sanctuary cities idea. It is entirely true that these "resisters" signed up of their own free will and took an oath to protect their country. After they accomplished military training these persons probably repeated that oath or a similar promise several times, and in the process of doing so they incurred certain obligations, not just to obey orders but also to adhere to broader obligationss of duty and honor.

Another side to the question, however, does exist. Reality is that military life is not right for everyone. Recruiters do not provide much information about what military service actually requires in practice, and as such it is difficult for potential recruits to adequately diagnose if the military is a good fit for them. The usual answer to such complaints is that people, if they are dissatisfied with military life, can leave the service when the term of their enlistment is over, but given the rigor of military life and the fact we are talking about a period of years, such solutions are much more easily stated than actually accomplished. There is much to be said on the subject of "sanctuary cities" for duty, honor, and holding people to their freely given promises. However, my personal feeling is that if veterans are so eager to avoid a second deployment to Iraq that they will uproot their entire lives to go into hiding, I must admit that a part of me is not very eager for the police to track them down.

 

[mightypeon]

I can understand Draft dogders. I would consider Draft dodging if my gouverment tells me to premptivly protect Georgias territorial integrity by attacking Russia. However, I am a Conscript. As far as I know, there are no Conscripts in the US Army.
If they signed up voluntarily its their problem.

 

[RetiredGySgt]

The police do not track down anyone that goes awol or UA. They simply are required to run a check on them if they are picked up and if found to be in that status report them to the military and hold them for the military to pick up.

If Portland does this I would advice the US Government to cut all funds of any kind to said city. To threaten the city Government with legal action and to carry out said threat. Cities do NOT have the right to pick and chose what Federal laws and statues they will obey or enforce. They do NOT have a right to become sanctuaries for deserters.

This is like the bullshit with illegal aliens. In both cases the federal Government should squash any city that agrees to this and do it in a VERY public way.

 

[Article 15]

I don't understand why these people didn't just honor their enlistments and separate later on. They had to have known they could end up in Iraq when they signed up, even if it was before 9/11. To go AWOL in protest of the war is flat out retarded.

 

[Lycurgus]

Well they will join San Francisco as another "go to hell" American city.

As the Plague called California spreads, it seems the once rugged NW is turning up Daisies. .

 

[editec]

A meaningless gesture.

they enlisted, they were NOT drafted.

I am not sympathetic to them even though I was against the invasion of Iraq to begin with.

I think though, that a better solution to people who want out of the contract is to make them PAY for all the service and training the recieved.

I don't suggest this to let them off, but for the good of the sevices.

What's the point of paying to keep them in jail?

Better to make them pay the government back for their investment into their military careers.

 

[Red Dawn]

The social compact america has with its volunteer soldiers is that we will never send them into war unless absolutely neccessary.

At various times on this board and elsewhere, I've seen young chicken hawks suggest that we should go to war with Russia (over georgia), with Iran, with Syria, on top of the wars we are fighting in afghanistan and iraq.

Maybe some people in the army figure that too many american's consider them to be expendable cannon fodder for the enjoyment of those who sit on their couches at home tuned into Fox News and all too ready to cheer on bloodshed and destruction.

Disobeying orders has consequences, we all understand that. I can also empathize with those who don't have the appetitie to wage war on countries that had nothing to do with 9/11, or with Al Qaeda.

 

[Navy1960]

I have always held the opinion that if these young men and women that no longer wish to be a part of the Branch of the US Military in which they themselves "freely" volunteered knowing that the mission of the US Military is the defense of this nation and everything else is secondary to that. If a young person joins the Military and on the pretext that they are there for an education or future college degree, then they lack an understanding of their own jobs and the meaning of the word benefit. It has always been my opinion that these people that go UA or AWOL and then turn up in the media to protest the mission that their fellow soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines are risking their very lives and are in fact a detriment to those units and effect fighting effectiveness, and unit cohesion, not to mention the moral of their counterparts. these people are in fact "cowards" of the lowest form, letting others fight in their stead and in some cases die or get wounded in their place. These people do not belong in the US Military and I have always held the opinion that someone of this nature should recieve a Dishonorable Discharge and be immediatly released from the US military. These so called cities that want to offer safe havens for these people that go UA or AWOL based on their beliefs is laughable as these individuals are in fact in violation of the UCMJ which civilian authority has ZERO jusridiction over. On a personal note though, it would be much simplier to just go to BUPERS and Dishonorably Discharge these individuals and force them to return to the US Military to try to change that status and trust me when these young people get a little older that is exactly what they will do.

 

[Epsilon Delta]

They shouldn't have signed up in the first place.

The only way I'd join a military would be if my country was ACTUALLY getting bombed, though.