# Ruxted's Take On Francisco Juarez



## ruxted (30 Oct 2006)

Francisco Juarez


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## George Wallace (19 Nov 2006)

I see that Francisco Juarez has found the Ruxted Group's site and has responded, bending the truth a little.  He claims that the media has not quoted him exactly and bent what he said a little.  He, however, overlooks the fact that the media has also shown him making those same claims live on television (Canada AM) and also live at rallies across Canada.

Reproduced here under the Fair Dealings provisions of the Copyright Act:


http://ruxted.ca/index.php?/archives/28-Francisco-Juarez.html


> Interesting perspective, you have made a number points that I feel compelled to address.
> 
> You see conspiracy in the media against your political perspective. Indeed you also blame me for those errors, as if I am responsible for the unfamiliarity that journalists have with the Armed Forces and the profession of arms. The Left also has its perspective on the media, being that it is corporatist and right of centre for the most part. So who is correct? Perhaps both.
> 
> ...


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## dglad (20 Nov 2006)

Mr. Juarez should, and probably will be a politician.  Consider the following statement:



> ...men and women who continue to serve their country even while the Conservatives use them in a poorly planned mission out of step with our country’s place in the world community.



What does this mean?  What is Canada's "place in the world community"?  How is our current mission "out of step with it"?  This is the sort of content-light statement that politicians often make, because it fits the needs of the sound-bite on legislature steps.  If one is going to make this sort of statement, one should also define their view of "our place in the world community", and be prepared to defend it.



> NATO partners are indeed unwilling to continue the military campaign because the global consensus is that the Bush administration has failed in its overall strategy in the War on Terror. Recognition is widespread amongst our NATO partners that we need a new plan that does not augment the power of the Taliban or warlords.



Again...a broad, but unsupported statement.  NATO partners appear to be willing to prosecute an ongoing military campaign in Afghanistan--certainly, this is true for the US, Canada, the UK and the Netherlands.  And, even if countries like Germany and France are comfortably nestled in less risky parts of the country, they are still there, doing a job.  Mr. Juarez really is making himself into a rebroadcaster of political statements, which really does nothing to improve his credibility. Perhaps it is time for him to move on to other things and accept that an Officer Cadet who has not completed his training is not an authority on strategic policy.  He is a citizen, like everyone else, entitled to an opinion--like everyone else.


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## Lost_Warrior (20 Nov 2006)

> ...men and women who continue to serve their country even while the Conservatives use them in a poorly planned mission out of step with our country’s place in the world community.



Maybe someone should also remind him that it was actually the Liberals who initially committed the troops to this mission....  :


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## GO!!! (20 Nov 2006)

Mr. Juarez is not a war resistor. He was not drafted, press ganged or conscripted. He joined the Navy and then (*requested*) a transfer to the Army. Once there, he made the somewhat lengthy jump from completing a daily fitness regime to opposing Canada's foreign policy goals, and I submit, furthering his own.

He was not in danger of being deployed to Afghanistan, requiring in excess of a years additional training to become eligible to enter into competition to do so. 

Make no mistake - we as Canadians must compete with each other to be deployed. Should you not wish to go overseas, there are scores of other enlisted men and officers who will take your place, many even volunteering to accept a lower rank (and associated pay) to gain the opportunity to do so.

It is my personal opinion that Mr. Juarez is attempting to launch a public life in the same manner as James Loney, portraying himself as a victim, whose actions are commendable, instead of a shameless opportunist, building his own name at the expense of the CF, the credibility of media and our deployed soldiers.

I'm sure he will find good company with James Loney, Stephen Staples, and a host of other make - believe experts in their respective fields who cherish every opportunity to slander the CF and the war in Afghanistan.


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## Trinity (20 Nov 2006)

Ok...  it is my perception that Mr. Juarez is saying that the media 
has twisted his words to suit the media's agenda. 

My question to him... is he has been labeled as a war resistor for
months now.. and even interviewed on tv live (which I watched). There
have been plenty of opportunities to speak freely on the topic and correct
the term war resistor and to set the record straight, yet he failed to do so.
Why is that Mr. Juarez?  Canada AM gave you the opportunity to correct
the fact you left the military of your own accord for personal reasons, not
for being a war resistor.  

I would be very interested to know to what manner did you try to clear your name?

No doubt if he found Ruxted... he has found this site as well.


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## derael (20 Nov 2006)

Here, I'll predict the future. 

Mr. Juarez writes a book about the big bad Conservatives and their mission to support the "G.W. Bush oil agenda"

Mr. Juarez profits as thousands of Canadians buy into his mindless NDP tripe.

Mr. Juarez runs for MP of random constituency as an NDP.

Mr. Juarez and Taliban Jack become "BFFs" (Best Friends Forever) awwww, how cute. 

Cheap shot? Sure, but I'm just pissed. It's bad enough that you were caught riding on the backs of our soldiers for your rise in popularity, but then you try and deny it. Sorry not this time...you're not fooling anyone here. As Trinity pointed out...you have had plenty of opportunity to set the record straight...instead you continue to push your political agenda based on misinfomation given to the public. Shame.

Is that wrong? I challenge you to prove it. Set the record straight.


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## AcornsRus (20 Nov 2006)

His speech at a Unitarian Church gathering:

Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Oe03w7e1T4
Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdsdekQU1pc&NR

Sounds like a personal publicity stunt to me.  He was in the Navy 3 1/2 years and it took him a couple months of Basic Officer Training to determine that he was against Afghanistan? He was only in the military for a free education.  He says he joined as an Infantry Officer to help by using his mediation and conflict resolution skills to advance the humanitarian aspect of the mission..... WTF?  He should have went into Public Affairs, or CIMIC, no?

Seems like he was looking for a more dramatic self serving way of getting out. Who knows maybe he planned this from the beginning. I have no problem with him disagreeing with Afghan, and wanting out of the military, but I think his motives are self-serving. I think he used the military for what he needed (education) and then left, leaving a stinking pile of turd as he left.


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## vonGarvin (20 Nov 2006)

Dunderhead said:
			
		

> He says he joined as an Infantry Officer to help by using his mediation and conflict resolution skills to advance the humanitarian aspect of the mission..... WTF?  He should have went into Public Affairs, or CIMIC, no?


Well, let's see.  Platoon Battle Drills:
Reaction to point section coming under effective enemy fire
Platoon Hasty Attack
Consolidation


Hrrrmmmm.....Wait, there is a fourth: (actually, it's the second pl battle drill)
"Conflict Resolution"
So, point section comes under fire
Pl comd scurries forward and says "Stop!  We are all God's Children"
Pl Comd dies in a flurry of bullets (the Royal Commision determines that they are enemy bullets, in spite of the fact that they all enter from the rear)
Pl WO Takes over and issues orders following a very quick estimate
The Pl destroys the enemy
The Pl Consolidates.

Two up, one back, bags of smoke, hot tea and medals on the objective


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## spud (20 Nov 2006)

Trinity said:
			
		

> My question to him... is he has been labeled as a war resistor for
> months now.. and even interviewed on tv live (which I watched). There
> have been plenty of opportunities to speak freely on the topic and correct
> the term war resistor and to set the record straight, yet he failed to do so.
> ...



Personally I think that he wasn't prepared enough or briefed enough and is now benefitting from some advice in the speech writing department; frankly I don't believe he is intelligent enough to formulate these thoughts let alone express them in a coherent or convincing manner. 

Corner him without his briefing notes, speech's or an advisor see how well he does. 


potato


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## Jarnhamar (20 Nov 2006)

Note to officer cadets on army.ca

Don't be this guy

Seriously you gotta feel bad for this guy.
He probably thought he'd join up, spend a little time in, get promoted to captian then leave and begin his public career. This fellow hardly got out of the gate. He's like a private who didn't complete basic training then tries to tell people "well back when I was a soldier"

Ya sure


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## Brad Sallows (20 Nov 2006)

I tried to post this at the Ruxted thread but the comment was blocked:

"But that raises the question of whether you admit to irresponsible or dishourable behaviour.  Do you suppose all of your public conduct in this matter to have been responsible and honourable, or not?

For someone who set out to be an officer, you have a curious sense of what is irresponsible and dishonourable, and what is not.  I've personally known plenty of people who quit the CF (mostly reservists) on good or bad terms, a few of whom may have had legitimate grievances.  I can't recall offhand any that permitted themselves to be poster boys - whether as willing associates or as indifferent or unwilling pawns - for political parties and media.  I suppose you could look across the entire set of people released from the CF over decades and find a handful.  Of how many people do you know who made a Return To Unit (RTU) from course or a release - voluntary or otherwise - a public affair?

This isn't about Canadian foreign and defence policy.  This is about you, and whether you deliberately or ignorantly misrepresented conditions of service or circumstances of your release, or whether you permitted media to do so, and when or whether you objected to any misrepresentations that were not your own.

Fortunately, you have the power to lay all such questions to rest.  Since Big Media don't control Ruxted, you can lay out all the facts as you know them right here and settle all the questions of what you said and what you meant, what you did and what was done, and what the media interpreted wrongly."

To which I add: Big Media don't control army.ca, either.  Double the power of information.


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## Danjanou (23 Nov 2006)

Ok now maybe it's because I’m an old broke down former Infanteer who went to higher reading and writing school in Newfoundland and therefore stunned, but something don’t make sense here.

Mr Juarez comes on here (well Ruxted actually) and states that he has been slandered (or is it libeled? I always get those two mixed up) and misrepresented by the main stream media and others who put words in his mouth re why or why not he left the military and that we’re a bunch of meanies for not understanding and sympathizing with one of our own who has been callously duped by others for their own presumed nefarious purposes. He never once deliberately or accidentally misrepresented himself in word though or deed. 

That basically is the jist of your rebuttal to the Rutxted editorial unless I’m misreading it isn’t it there Francisco?

Ok I can buy that, I mean that would be like those pesky TV people to pull that kind of stunt.

Then I go and watch those two video clips posted earlier in this thread of your lovely little speech to what appears to be some congregation in Vancouver. Thanks by the way to whoever posted them, that’s twenty minutes of my life I ain’t getting back.

Seems to me that everything Ruxted alluded to in their editorial there is present in the speech. You publicly stated that you were all a raging to go to Afghanistan and right away, not in three or four years maybe, if you asked and told you could, but right then and there. Then you decided nope not doing it for moral reasons and upped and quit. Nothing there about not wanting to do the obstacle course in Gagetown  (can’t blame ya by the way it is a bit of a ***** as far as obstacle courses go, but trust me there are worse ones).

Of course we are also treated to such tidbits as how you only joined up so the good taxpayer would pay for your higher education, which does provide us a wonderful insight into your personality although I do admire your honesty on that. 

Seems to me in between bouts of self righteously patting yourself on the back there for taking such a moral stand and the requisite bashing of the present Government, you also said a few other things in that clip. What was it again? Oh yeah that little bit about how serving Canadian soldiers had some sort of moral obligation to disobey lawful commands re service in Afghanistan. Now I’ve been out of uniform a bit but seems to me there used to be something in QROs and /or the NDA that covered that sort of thing and it was a no no.

I’m sure however Fransisco that you will soon offer a plausible explanation for your recorded rant. I mean lip-synching, dubbing oh I know it wasn’t you on that podium, it was a pod person.

Anyway I’m looking forward to your inevitable upcoming nomination as a NDP candidate in some Vancouver area riding for the next Federal Election. A bit of fashion advice if I may, nice suit but it needs a tie, maybe Jack will loan you one.


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## Journeyman (23 Nov 2006)

spud said:
			
		

> frankly I don't believe he is intelligent enough to formulate these thoughts let alone express them in a coherent or convincing manner


Well, in the current _Maclean's_ magazine: "I try to make that very, very clear" he says. "I haven't been obfuscatory about that at all." :

But he has followed Bill Clinton's "what is '_is_'?" spiel. "What is a war resister?" he asks. "How do you define a war resister?"1


1. Michael Friscolanti, "A Resister without a War. Is he a conscientious objector if he was never bound for combat?" _Maclean's_, 27 Nov '06, p. 22.


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## Colin Parkinson (23 Nov 2006)

Calling him a conscientious objector is an insult to my grandfather who was one, yet served as a Stretcher-bearer in WWI.


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## warrickdll (23 Nov 2006)

Colin P said:
			
		

> Calling him a conscientious objector is an insult to my grandfather who was one, yet served as a Stretcher-bearer in WWI.



That's an interesting example.

Others have pointed out that, while anyone can _be in resistance_ or _have an objection_ to a conflict, only those who have actually been called on to serve can then be a _resister_ or an _objector_ (in this context).

But has it been brought up that completion of his training would have allowed him to contribute to the many other missions the CF takes part in, and which he could have specifically volunteered for? 

And what if the NDP got its way, and Canada invaded Sudan - what good would he be then? - Probably as much good as he is now.


In contrast, the MacLean's article was too soft on him.


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## JesseWZ (23 Nov 2006)

Flawed Design said:
			
		

> Note to officer cadets on army.ca
> 
> Don't be this guy


Will do.


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## Blakey (27 Nov 2006)

> A Message for Remembrance Day: Why I refused to fight in Afghanistan
> November 9th, 2006
> Why I refused to fight in Afghanistan
> 
> ...


http://www.philallt.ca/


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## Cloud Cover (27 Nov 2006)

No surprise there, except that it further reveals the type of political and social company he attracts and retains, considering  his personal defect as a pathological liar.


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## vonGarvin (27 Nov 2006)

For those too lazy to click the link:

November 9th, 2006 
Why I refused to fight in Afghanistan
Speech given to the October 28 anti-war demonstration in Toronto.
Dateline: Monday, November 06, 2006
by Francisco Juarez
"I joined the Canadian Forces in 2002 and served my country proudly until this last summer. I transferred to the army in March of this year and applied for a commission as an infantry officer. I was full of desire to be a part of the humanitarian mission to assist the Afghan people in 2009.
After the last election, however, when the Conservatives took a minority Parliament as a mandate to reconstruct the national identity, and change the way our country acts abroad, I decided I could no longer be supportive of a mission that has as its priority and chief objective the support of US hegemony in the Middle East. The priority should be the assistance to the Afghan people.
We as Canadians are a compassionate and reasonable people, diverse and tolerant. We have compassion for all our serving members in the Canadian Forces, our American brothers and sisters, the Afghan people, and indeed the globe in its entirety. We have a long tradition of acting through our foreign policy with such a nature and acting as facilitators of peace and intermediaries in conflict.
This is our Canadian identity itself.
And without permission from the Canadian people, Harper and the conservatives have drastically altered the fundamental meaning of being Canadian.
It is because of our compassionate nature that we were sold on use of force in Afghanistan as a means to provide humanitarian aid, and enabling of representative democracy in Afghanistan.
As the people of Southern Afghanistan starve for lack of food and shelter in the approaching winter… perhaps they optimistically hope that this time that Canadian tank coming down the road is in fact full of food instead of high explosive rounds.
Conservatives are changing the fundamental meaning of being Canadian.
Armies — and our American brothers here today can attest to this — are by definition meant to close with and destroy the enemy. Armies are not designed to deliver aid and not to help in enabling representative democracy. They are mechanisms of death and destruction — period.
And as the use of the military must be an expression of our “rights driven society” and of our national will, I feel compelled to say that the majority of Canadians do not support the use of our troops in direct military confrontation.
This is not in the best interest of Canadian security nor, and most importantly, is it in the long-term best interest of the Afghan people. So whose best interest then is the war in Afghanistan?
We should demand a fuller debate in the House of Commons and in our broader society about the reasons why conflict exists in Afghanistan, and what our role is to be there.
We are told that we must stay the course in some form of dubious nautical metaphor. But I would suggest that perhaps it is time to take the ship back and repair its faulty rudder, and leave those leaders whom we see as irresponsible and disconnected from the national will — rowing away in a small boat of their own.
SUPPORT OUR TROOPS, BRING THEM HOME NOW!"

Now, if I may comment.
You applied to be an infantry officer in order to "...be a part of the humanitarian mission to assist the Afghan people in 2009."  Later, you state: "Armies...are by definition meant to close with and destroy the enemy. Armies are not designed to deliver aid and not to help in enabling representative democracy. They are mechanisms of death and destruction — period."
So, which is it Francisco?  You joined the infantry, whose role is to "Close with and destroy the enemy", but you wanted to be part of a humanitarian mission.    As I recall, sometimes armies ARE necessary to help in "enabling representative democracy", as our Canadian Army did in World War Two and later in The Federal Republic of Germany from Op PANDA in the 1950s until the stand down of CFE in Germany in the 1990s.

Strike One.

You also state: "I transferred to the army in March of this year ", and then you state "After the last election, however, when the Conservatives took a minority Parliament as a mandate to reconstruct the national identity, and change the way our country acts abroad, I decided I could no longer be supportive of a mission that has as its priority and chief objective the support of US hegemony in the Middle East."  
*NEWSFLASH:  * 
The Conservative party won the last election in January of 2006.  You transferred to the army in March of that same year, the same month in which Pte Costall was killled in action in a firefight with the enemy.  You blame the conservatives for taking us to Khandahar.  You are way off base.  Check this out from the Mothercorp:
"Canada will increase its troop contribution to Afghanistan, sending as many as 1,250 soldiers to the southern part of the country. 
Roughly 1,000 new troops will be sent to the southern city of Kandahar by February 2006, where they'll stay for up to a year, said Defence Minister *Bill Graham* on Monday. 
As well, a 250-person Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) will arrive in the region in August 2005 and remain for about 18 months. 
"This commitment is consistent with our new international and defence policies, which demonstrate Canada's emphasis on bringing stability and humanitarian relief to fragile states," said Graham in a news release."  http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2005/05/17/afghanistan-050517.html 
This was posted to the CBC website on 17 May, 2005.  Yes, a full EIGHT MONTHS before the conservatives won the election and TEN MONTHS before you transferred to the army.

Strike Two

Why are we in Afghanistan?  According to you, we are there to "...support...US hegemony in the Middle East."
I refer to UN Security Council resolution S/RES/1707 (2006) which states in part:
"...welcoming the extension of ISAF into Southern Afghanistan, with effect from 31 July 2006, the planned further ISAF expansion into Eastern Afghanistan and the increased coordination between ISAF and the OEF coalition..."
http://daccessdds.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N06/517/70/PDF/N0651770.pdf?OpenElement

Strike Three


You're out.


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## FredDaHead (27 Nov 2006)

Flawed Design said:
			
		

> Note to officer cadets on army.ca
> 
> Don't be this guy
> 
> ...



You know what's sad?

Even here at RMC there seems to be Juarez-wannabe's, who don't really want to serve or fight or anything, they just want their free education, paycheck, and a nice resume when they "retire" from the military. Sad but true.


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## GDawg (27 Nov 2006)

Everything this guy says is full of Orwellian left-wing double speak. Clearly, the best way to support your position is to re-write the past.

It always astounds me that the "peaceniks" are always the ones resorting to extremely sinister tactics such as:

Ignoring the facts
Distorting the truth
Re-writing the past
Branding your own forces as the bad guys
Branding those who would commit mass murder on the west, and human rights atrocities against their own people as the good guys.
They also present their petitions signed by 10,000 people as representing the will of 30,000,000 people.

They view freedom and democracy as some sort of nuisance, that gets in the way of their shining socialist (read:FACIST) utopia.


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## vonGarvin (27 Nov 2006)

Francisco Juarez says:  "Armies — and our American brothers here today can attest to this — are by definition meant to close with and destroy the enemy. Armies are not designed to deliver aid and not to help in enabling representative democracy. They are mechanisms of death and destruction — period."

I wonder what the people of Manitoba say to that?  Or the people of Quebec?  Floods and Ice aside, there wasn't much "death and destruction" going on back in the late 1990s.


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## George Wallace (27 Nov 2006)

He doesn't have to make sense or be consistant in his tirades.  He is a "Talking Head" who has only one agenda; to hear his own voice on the news.  He doesn't care what he says, as long as he can hear himself on the nightly news and have people mention his name.  He is a great big 'wannabe' who failed in this quest via the CF, so now must find another channel.


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## Teflon (27 Nov 2006)

From Macleans.ca dated 27 Nov:

http://www.macleans.ca/topstories/canada/article.jsp?content=20061127_137184_137184

A resister without a war
Is he a conscientious objector if he was never bound for combat?
MICHAEL FRISCOLANTI
Francisco Juarez is the newest voice of Canada's anti-war movement, and understandably so. A former navy seaman turned army reservist, the 35-year-old famously quit the military because he couldn't stomach the thought of deploying to Afghanistan. Free to speak his mind, Juarez now spends much of his time travelling the country, telling crowds large and small why the rest of Canada's troops don't belong in Kandahar, either. Journalists have dubbed him the "first Afghan war resister" -- a title he happily accepts. "My ethics guide me," Juarez says, "and I followed them."
Peace activists couldn't buy a better spokesman, a real-life soldier who saw the light at the end of the propaganda tunnel. "If we send Canadian Forces members to work and possibly die in another part of the world, we owe them a debate," Juarez says. "There needs to be a broader discussion within our society about what we are doing, and I think the Prime Minister needs to be a bit more honest about the objectives." But others -- including officials at the Department of National Defence -- believe it is Juarez, not Stephen Harper, who needs to start telling the truth. "From my point of view, he doesn't have any credibility," says Commander Denise Laviolette, a spokeswoman for the chief of military personnel. "He wasn't resisting anything because he wasn't even in line to go." 
In March, after four years on the water, Juarez transferred from the full-time navy to the part-time army in the hopes of finishing his university degree while training to be an infantry officer. Now a reservist, Juarez was under no obligation to serve in Afghanistan. Part-time soldiers cannot be forced to deploy; they must volunteer. Juarez insists he intended to sign up for a tour by 2009, but then he began to question the military's evolving Afghan strategy, which he describes as war first, aid second. He became so disillusioned that during a training course in New Brunswick he simply refused to participate, citing personal and family reasons. But he never mentioned Afghanistan. "I kept that to myself," he says, speaking by telephone from his home in Victoria, B.C. "I just wanted to make it easy so I could get out and, as a private citizen, express my point of view." He got his wish. The Forces fined Juarez $500 and discharged him without honour.
Since then, he has become a poster boy for peace, applauded in the press for his refusal "to train for the Afghan campaign." To the military's chagrin, most reports have failed to mention the obvious fact: Juarez was never bound for the war he now claims to resist. The Forces' public affairs department has tried to set the record straight, but with little success. "We are not in a situation similar to other nations that have had numerous individuals desert because they didn't want to serve," Laviolette says. "We have had zero conscientious objectors and we have had zero folks go absent without leave." The Ruxted Group, a website that publishes defence-related commentary, has even gone so far as to demand that Juarez apologize for misleading the public. "The time has come for Mr. Juarez to come clean," the site reads. "As a former service member, however briefly, we are sure he is still familiar with the concepts of personal responsibility and honour. As such, he knows that we cannot quietly accept his blatant disregard for the truth."
Juarez insists he was never dishonest. "I was not in danger of being ordered to go to Afghanistan, and I try to make that very, very clear," he says. "I haven't been obfuscatory about that at all. I know in some of the articles it sort of sounds like it, but that was not my intention." He believes his status as a reservist doesn't change the fact that he is a bona fide war resister. "What is a war resister?" he asks. "How do we define a war resister? Certainly some people say you have to be in a situation where you are going to be sent and then you refuse. But I think there are many different kinds of war resisters." Take the United States, for example. Some deserters deployed, then fled. Others simply refused to board the plane. "I sort of see myself in there somewhere," Juarez continues. "But I don't spend a lot of time worrying about what kind of war resister I am. I just know that I oppose the mission as it is in Afghanistan and what Stephen Harper is doing to our country."


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## bcbarman (27 Nov 2006)

Has any one out there actually met this monkey when he was in Uniform??  If he is from Victoria, he must have been with the Canadian Scottish, even though his time at the unit was probably measured in seconds.  

How about the navy, anyone talked to a shipmate that served with him?  Has he always been this disillusioned or is he just looking for a forum to step up his political aspirations?

Must be something that clicked in his head to make him a peacenic, that or he got busted for something else that he is not telling the rest of the world.

My $0.02


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## a_majoor (27 Nov 2006)

The best way to deal with the  Francisco Juarez's of this world, who only see the CF as a means to get a "free" education (only because "we" are paying for it), is to rewrite the regulations to change signing bonus and education expenses as "completion bonus'" to be paid after the sucessful fulfillment of the contract.

Granted a 17 year old BOTC officer cadet cannot pony up the funds for his/her four years at RMC, but they certainly should be charged for the entire four years if they pull a stunt like that between signing on the dotted line and the end of their first contract. I have similar feelings for paying a signing bonus, even for specialists. Tell them the cheque is waiting for them at the *end* of their contract, and let them earn every penny. For 90% of the people in the CF, this probably will not change their desire to serve and carry out every tasking and challenge presented to them, they would probably serve regardless. Weeding out that 10% would save a lot of heartache down the line, however.........


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## FredDaHead (27 Nov 2006)

a_majoor said:
			
		

> The best way to deal with the  Francisco Juarez's of this world, who only see the CF as a means to get a "free" education (only because "we" are paying for it), is to rewrite the regulations to change signing bonus and education expenses as "completion bonus'" to be paid after the sucessful fulfillment of the contract.
> 
> Granted a 17 year old BOTC officer cadet cannot pony up the funds for his/her four years at RMC, but* they certainly should be charged for the entire four years if they pull a stunt like that between signing on the dotted line and the end of their first contract*. I have similar feelings for paying a signing bonus, even for specialists. Tell them the cheque is waiting for them at the *end* of their contract, and let them earn every penny. For 90% of the people in the CF, this probably will not change their desire to serve and carry out every tasking and challenge presented to them, they would probably serve regardless. Weeding out that 10% would save a lot of heartache down the line, however.........



I don't know the particulars (I could look it up) but if we quit before the end of our contract we DO have to pay for tuition AND repay the salary we received up to that point. (IE, bankrupcy for most) The exception is for people being released for medical reasons and the like.


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## Magravan (27 Nov 2006)

Not that I want to give him any credibility, but from what I've heard of transfers, they tend to take longer than 2 months, don't they? Especially an OT and CT mixed into one?

He strikes me as someone who couldn't handle it, and has created a reason for his lack after the fact. If you can't handle it, make peace with yourself and leave the stage. Don't stay up there and try to feed people a song and dance, because you might still be on the stage, but you wont like who has attached some strings.


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## dglad (27 Nov 2006)

The best way to deal with the likes of Mr. Juarez is the same way you deal with any behaviour you wish to extinguish...you ignore it/him.  I suspect that the peace movement has milked him for about all of the mileage they're likely to get out of him; like any news item, the moment he stops being novel or contentious, he ceases to be marketable and, therefore, of no further interest.  The novelty has worn off and, frankly, as a failed Officer Cadet, he simply doesn't have what it takes to be contentious in a national defence context.  If he was a Colonel or General who quit out of "resistance" to the Afghan conflict, or was, at least, someone who had been there and could speak from something resembling experience, there might be some spark left to him.  But he's been retreaded about as much as he can, so he'll get to speak to smaller and smaller groups of people who've already made up their minds anyway, until he eventually dwindles to just what he is--a rather unremarkable person who has, it appears, had his Warhol-ian 15 minutes.


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## Cloud Cover (27 Nov 2006)

From what I understand, his time in the Navy was for the most part unremarkable one way or the other. 

It may be that he had difficulty with the way the Navy treats its people, but that is also unremarkable so far as that complaint is much more frequent about the Navy than in the other branches of the military, and is also an entirely different matter.


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## tasop_999 (27 Nov 2006)

For those wondering, I did sail with Juarez.  He always seemed a little off but never quite disillusioned.  He just never quite got the ship life.  For more info, PM me or ref. some of my previous posts.


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## LordOsborne (6 Apr 2007)

bcbarman said:
			
		

> Has any one out there actually met this monkey when he was in Uniform??  If he is from Victoria, he must have been with the Canadian Scottish, even though his time at the unit was probably measured in seconds.
> 
> How about the navy, anyone talked to a shipmate that served with him?  Has he always been this disillusioned or is he just looking for a forum to step up his political aspirations?
> 
> ...



I did, in fact, serve some time alongside Juarez. I did my reserve BOTP II course with him in Chilliwack and he seemed normal enough to me. I did my CAP serial two weeks ahead of him and I did see him now and again in the shacks, and once again he seemed normal enough. To my everlasting surprise and disgust, I get home and suddenly this guy is on TV claiming to be resisting the war, saying that he would have been going in 2007. Not bloody likely.. the earliest he'd go overseas (having completed 3/4 of his training) would be in 2008 in a DNS capacity in all likelihood. I felt pretty betrayed, to say the least.


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