By arthur Weinreb
February 4, 2005
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 take her clothes off. The Canadian government would be killing gays and lesbians, not allowing them to marry if Canadian soldiers and those of their World War II allies would have been such model soldiers.
Besides being silly, the words on the cover were wrong. Jeremy Hinzman never refused to kill "anybody". The ex member of the 82nd airborne had told military officials that he would kill to protect his company or his family; that was the reason that his application for conscientious objector status was refused by the army. as it was with that application, Hinzman is likely to be done in on his refugee claim by his honesty.
On the inside of the magazine, it is explained that andrew Clark was compelled to write this article because of his "interest in the inversion that war creates. During peacetime, a person who kills is sent to jail. During a war, a person who kills is sent to jail."
More profound thoughts!
"We’re a culture that prizes individualism, but during the war that becomes a liability".
What a bunch of gobbledegook and nonsense. If a man puts his 5-year-old daughter in a car and drives her to McDonald’s, he’s considered to be a caring father. If he grabs a strange 5-year-old off the street, puts her in his car and takes her to McDonald’s, an amber alert goes out. Life is just full of these so-called "inversions". To sit around and be fascinated by the fact that soldiers in combat do not go to jail for killing the enemy means that Clark obviously has too much time on his hands. and the notion of individualism was never meant to apply to soldiers deciding who they can kill, firefighters deciding which fires they feel like putting out, or sales clerks deciding which customers they want to wait on.
The article itself contains errors such as the repeated reference to the IRB, the tribunal hearing Hinzman’s claim, as being the Immigration Review Board--it is the Immigration and Refugee Board.
While Saturday Night is sold on newsstands, it is distributed free of charge in certain copies of the National Post. While the National Post is certainly not the newspaper today that it was back in 1998 when it was started by Conrad Black, it is difficult to believe that even the leftist Globe & Mail or Toronto Star would enclose and distribute such nonsense in their publications.
Perhaps Saturday Night should consider changing its name to Saturday Night Live. My apologies to Lorne Michaels.