US Vet Seeks Indian Asylum

A former Vietnam War veteran has renounced his U.S. citizenship and is seeking political asylum in India.

Jeff Knaebel, who claims to be inspired by Mahatma Gandhi’s nonviolence philosophy, claims he shred his U.S. passport in June 2009 at Gandhi’s memorial, because: “The United States government is a stain upon humanity. It is a grotesque distortion of human relations and the human conscience.”

Knaebel has published a “Declaration of Renunciation and Severance of U.S. Citizenship,” in which he declares:

“I renounce my birth certificate — I renounce my citizenship — and reject all claims of whatsoever nature made by the United States against me. I am not government property, and I am not a criminal. I am a peace-loving human being who is finished with being a slave to the Corporate Warfare State. I am not a citizen of any Government. I renounce all of them.

I hereby destroy my United States passport by which the United States government claims control of my movement upon this earth, and thus lays claim upon my right to exist. I will place the shredded remains of my passport upon the monument of Mahatma Gandhi. I have chosen this monument because it is a symbol that all mankind can recognize: of nonviolent resistance to immoral, corrupt, and violent Governments.”