Truthout: Iraq Veteran Finds Sanctuary in Canadian Church

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Iraq Veteran Finds Sanctuary in Canadian Church

Wednesday 30 December 2009
by: Gerry Condon, t r u t h o u t | Interview


Rodney Watson is one of the bravest and nicest men I have had the pleasure of meeting. He is an African-American from Kansas City, Kansas. He is a very religious young man, 32 years old. His dream was to one day have his own restaurant. In 2004, when an Army recruiter told him he would be trained as a cook, he signed up for a three-year hitch. When Watson was deployed to Iraq in October 2005, his superiors told him he would be supervising the dining facility. Instead, he was given an M16 rifle and told to search for explosives on the perimeter of his base in Mosul.

The Army had not trained Watson to inspect or detonate explosives, so he was unhappy with this assignment. But this was not all that was bothering him. He was appalled at the blatant racism of some of his fellow soldiers in Iraq. He saw US soldiers spitting upon and kicking the Koran and beating Iraqi, even civilians. "I had to sit there and watch it," he told the Vancouver Courier, "and my hands were tied." He did not report the abuses. "I didn't want to be labeled a snitch - not with people walking around with machine guns."

Watson finished his twelve-month tour of duty in October 2006 and returned home, only to be told he would be going right back to Iraq. His three-year contract with the Army would have ended in the spring of 2007, but the Army was unilaterally extending it so that he could complete another tour of Iraq. Rodney Watson was being "stop-lossed."

On a two-week leave, Watson pondered his situation and decided he would not be a slave to the US Army or cannon fodder for the war in Iraq. Instead, he left a goodbye note in his father's Bible and made his way to Vancouver on the west coast of Canada. The Army has since charged him with desertion.

With the aid of the War Resisters Support Campaign in Vancouver, Rodney Watson sought sanctuary in Canada as a political refugee who would be persecuted for his beliefs if he were forced to return to the US. Despite widespread support in Canada for US war resisters, Watson was denied refugee status and the Conservative government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper ordered him deported. .........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.truthout.org/1230095

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1. Change doesn't happen by keeping your mouth shut.

A real hero.