Corey Glass has no reason NOT to go home to the US
Remember this guy? He has been the poster child for a group called War Resisters in Canada. I wrote about him previously here on Assoluta Tranquillita here: http://assolutatranquillita.blogspot.com/2008/06/canada-refuge-for-deserters.html
Glass, for those of you who have already forgotten him (and I am sure that wouldn’t sit well with him…lol) fled to Canada from the US army, of which he was a VOLUNTEER recruit, rather than be shipped back to Iraq. He has been fighting deportation from Canada based on the “illegal war,” and the fact that he would be punished by the US military for deserting.
Corey Glass NOT a deserter
Turns out that Mr. Glass has been so busy with public engagements, (oops I mean evading the nasty Americans), that he didn’t hear about an important fact. I got a BIG chuckle this week to read that Glass was DISCHARGED from the military just four months into his life as fugitive.
Yes, ABC carried this story last week:
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….
But it turns out Glass has had little reason to be on the lam, ABC News has learned.
Unknown to him and his legion of supporters, Glass, 25, was actually discharged from the U.S. Army shortly after he went AWOL in 2006…. [Link: http://a.abcnews.com/US/Story?id=5289506&page=1 ]
Back in January, I wrote on Tanker Bros about a national day of action.
This followed on the heels of a Supreme Court of Canada denying an appeal by the resisters claims in November last year. But then in December 2007:
The Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration adopted a motion that is a step forward for U.S. War Resisters seeking asylum in Canada. In a vote of 7 to 4, committee members passed a motion recommending that the government immediately implement a program to allow war resisters and their families to stay in Canada. It also calls for an immediate halt to deportation proceedings in these cases…
My original column on Tanker Bros can be found here [link: http://mikegulf.blogspot.com/2008/01/let-them-stay-home.html] for more background. The BBC here: [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7444116.stm ] is also good background for an earlier interview with Glass. In the ABC article, Glass is quoted as saying:
“This is insane. This is so weird. There are no warrants? No one is looking for me?” (If you must, you can read the rest of that article here: http://a.abcnews.com/US/Story?id=5289506&page=1)
Can you hear me laughing? Poor baby. I don’t know about my American military friends, but if I was in the sandbox, I really don’t think I would feel very safe with such a moron watching my back. And this guy was in ‘intelligence’ on his tour of Iraq? Puleeeeeeeeese, the mind boggles.
But, I have good news for Mr. Glass AND Canada! Canada’s immigration intends to proceed with their deportation of Glass on July 12. As Major Nathan Banks, a US military spokesman said (in part): .” ..He is fully welcome in the United States. …”
So there ya go, Corey. You CAN go home again! The ‘welcome’ mat just might be there for you. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out. 🙂
