What do Iraqi Christians, Karen refugees from Burma, refugees from Congo’s civil war and political refugees from the United States (huh?) have in common?
Nothing is probably the short answer most humans not suffering from bovine spongiform encephalopathy would give.
They’d be wrong, though. At least according to those poor, picked on and pursued (in their minds) asylum-seekers from God’s America seeking refuge in the UK, claiming “they were persecuted in their homeland.”
And who is Shorts&Pants to argue? It’s common knowledge these days that those who proclaim their disagreement with the policies of the United States government are routinely chucked into 24-hour lockdown at the Guantanamo Bay isolation unit.
Oh wait, that’s (supposed) enemy combatants, scooped up in the fog of war in Afghanistan, Iraq or Pakistan. Or incompetent, naive wannabe suicide bombers who can’t light a match with their shoes. Though it should be idiots who attempt to abuse the good will of non-warring nations the world over who take the plight of real refugees seriously.
The Guardian reports today that “between 2004 and 2008, 45 Americans submitted asylum applications to the UK Border Agency claiming they had fled the US and were unable to go back because they had a well-founded fear of persecution.” This of a total of 132,640 asylum seekers during that period.
One wannabe refugee, a Texan, even went so far as to claim he was “persecuted as a political dissident against US government war-mongering”. Which makes total sense. When Texas aren’t baying for the blood of criminals they’re crying about persecution (and threatening to secede.)
It would be funny if it weren’t so damn pathetic.
Listen you fucking “refugee” clowns — to claim that in God’s America anyone not incarcerated against their will for crimes they didn’t commit is in any way a political refugee is laughable at best, and criminally stupid at least. And mocks actual refugees whose lives really would be in danger were they forced to return to their home countries.
Not surprisingly, many of those supposedly persecuted Americans are thought to be cowards trying to avoid military service in Afghanistan or Iraq.
Now, your Shorts&Pants correspondent is as yellow as the day is long, and his fear of the battlefield is the equal of the yellowest of neocon chickenhawks. I, however, didn’t volunteer for military service.
Some of you whiners are probably thinking “what about the economic draft? Some people were forced to sign up due to straitened financial circumstances, and don’t want to die for something they don’t believe in.”
To which I say: if you voluntarily join an organization whose primary mission (no matter what they tell you) is to kill other human beings, then all I have to say to you is “good luck.” I’d rather starve than kill.
Easy for my pampered, work-shy ass to say, of course. Nevertheless, those attempting to escape punishment for desertion are only digging themselves a bigger hole by fleeing.
The military itself offers more palatable punishments if you refuse your call-up to war — the worst of which is 12 months in Leavenworth or equivalent, though most punishments involve a fine and bad conduct discharge — and won’t leave you fleeing from Corporal Johnny Law.
And won’t brand you a disgusting cad and mountebank for wasting the time and resources of countries doing God’s work helping true refugees.
Welcome back!
“Not surprisingly, many of those supposedly persecuted Americans are thought to be cowards trying to avoid military service in Afghanistan or Iraq.”
I would suspect they are mostly repugs as well.
Wilson Edgar
January 25, 2010 at 7:52 pm
Welcome back!
Thanks Wilson. I missed you, man.
Hadn’t thought of this distinction before.
Asylum for when there was a draft, yup. But not when there isn’t.
Back in the Vietnam War, applying for asylum simply meant you weren’t reThuglican enough to have the right connections to get a bogus medical waiver or bulls*** National Guard REMF position.
Perhaps a more hostile government, such as the Venezuelan one, would be more open to such requests? Chavez will look for any excuse for anti-American demagoguery, even U.S. aid to Haiti, so that’s seems an obvious choice. Do these lazy hippies not want to learn Spanish or are they just not particularly thoughtful?
Brendan M.: Both.
Plus Venezuela’s a communist shithole. I don’t think a fat, lazy, dumbass American is going to sacrifice anything for the common good if they’re trying to excape military service. They probably barely made it through basic training, and only then thanks to a sexual relationship with the drill seargent, who is also embittered by his NCO status and open to sexual favors, because that is the state of our military today.
There’ve been plenty of legitimate military resistors, especially in the early Bush years. If you signed up before Bush’s coup or right after 9/11, you’re more than justified in refusing the order to deploy to the illegal war in Iraq. I think you goddamn hippies here just really, really hate the troops, even the goddamn hippie ones.
Also, Venezuela is a socialist paradise with cheap, primo coke.