Tuesday, October 13, 2015

Pardons by President Carter for those fleeing service. By Travis Baum

The controversy of pardons for those fleeing the draft started during the campaign of President Jimmy Carter. His pledge was to "pardon those who had unlawfully avoided military service either by not registering for the draft or fleeing to a different country. Although this may not seem too controversial, however some veterans considered President Carters actions to be an insult to those who did not flee and did fight in the vietnam war. Not everyone disagreed with Jimmy Carter either. Americans for Amnesty complained that "by excluding deserters, carter had not gone far enough". This pardon had allowed thousands of fleers to come back to their homes and countries without any worries of prosecution. Although most american draft avoiders were not charged, there were still a fair amount that were prosecuted. They had prosecuted 209,517 draft dodgers, but 360,000 were not charged with anything. This made the whole controversy worse because if you are going to prosecute some why not prosecute all? About 90% of fleers went to Canada  where after much controversy they were considered as legal immigrants. The Canadian border patrol were told to not ask many questions.

3 comments:

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  2. While we're on the subject of pardons, it's worth noting that Nixon was actually pardoned by his successor, Gerald Ford, for his actions during the Watergate scandal. This was also an unpopular pardon among the public, and is theorized to be one of the reasons Ford failed to win reelection in 1976.

    Source:

    http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/president-ford-pardons-former-president-nixon

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  3. I can see the issue from both sides but I completely understand why the veterans who served were upset about this. Those who served may have not wanted too and did it because their country asked them too. Those who decided to flee took the easy way out and hid instead of going to war. I do believe though that the people who left the country should be allowed back in but they must do some sort of volunteer work and help make the country better.

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