What has happened to Omar Khadr in Guantanamo is unspeakable. According to documents released last week this Canadian citizen has been tortured through sleep deprivation – wakened up every few hours and moved to another cell so that he feels continually disoriented. Khadr is charged with killing an American soldier in Afghanistan when he was 15 (he is now 21and has been detained for six years in the hell-hole in Cuba).
It doesn’t have to be this way. Other western governments have all extracted their nationals from Guantanamo. Shamefully, Canada is the last member of the North Atlantic Alliance to leave a prisoner there. If Harper demanded that Khadr be released he would be.
But Harper has said, in effect, he won’t lift a finger to help this young Canadian. He is winking at the mistreatment of Khadr in what the American Civil Liberties Union call “a mockery” of justice.
Rather than continue to defend the indefensible, Harper should bring Khadr home before this sordid case further taints his government and our nation. Each fresh twist in this sad affair undermine’s Harper’s bland claim that American justice can be trusted.
Do you agree?
“Unspeakable”, Neil?
Flying Airbuses into skyscrapers is “unspeakable”. Raping and murdering little children is “unspeakable”.
Depriving a suspected killer of sleep in the manner you describe is, at the very most, what could PERHAPS be construed as harsh treatment and, at the very least, a bad night’s sleep. Geez, Neil, in the neighbourhood I live in, I sometimes get woken up during the night by a barking dog. And, yes, I am disoriented as a result and I once — oh, horror of horrors! — opened the window and, like a madman, shouted to the neighbour to silence the damn beast.
So my first reaction to your piece is your choice of words.
Same goes for those other doozies you employed: “shamefully”, “indefensible”, “sordid”…
If this is the worst that you can paint of “American justice” as you call it, it should be the standard of treatment throughout the world. You are stretching here, Neil, and methinks it exposes your anti-Americanism.
But you’ll have to do a lot better than that.
Tony:-
I enjoy your good humour so early on a Monday morning.
But you seem to be talking about the people who caused 9/11. Of course Khadr wasn’t one of them. He has been charged but not convicted of killing one American.
As for the American justice system. I’d prefer a Canadian court room every time.
Although Neil may have been somewhat hyperbolic in his comments, he is basically right about one thing: treating a fifteen year old as a war prisoner goes against international law. Even more so treating him according to the American invention of “illegal ennemy combatant”.
Six years in detention is a lot more than he would have gotten here had he murdered his whole family.
The American military system, declared illegal by the US Supreme court several times, is a mockery of justice. Dubbia Harper has fudged this one big time.
And let me, once again, make very clear that I’m not anti-american, just anti-bush and cronies who shame their countries for just being there. Quick an election.
Good morrow, all! Has anybody reading this blog ever read “Animal Farm?” It WAS meant to be a dark satire on the promise and reality of Communism. As Pogo (Walt Kelly) once said: We has met the enemy, and he is us. Harper seeks to emulate the philosophy of the current US administration, forgetting some simple principles of democracy:
1.The government belongs to the people, not the other way around.
2. It’s not their money, it’s OUR money.
3. The purpose of government is to protect those of lesser economic influence from those of greater economic influence.
Try reading some of Molly Ivens’ books on Dubya and his band of merry men. I’m not surprised at Harper’s overall behaviour. What saddens me is that very little of the media do anything but suck up to the government, as though access to the inner sanctum is worth more than journalistic integrity, and the abiding need to hold the government accountable for all that it does.
With both the government and the media bleating the same tune. who do we have to speak up for the citizens of either Canada or the US?
But then, I digress…CTZen
By the way Neil, where is your server? I posted at 11:35am EDST and it shows 3:35 pm? 4 hours east?
Good morrow, Paul! To paraphrase despair, inc.: A company that will go to the ends of the Earth for its employees will generally find them willing to work for 10% of the cost of Canadians. Thus, a server, located in Afghanistan, powered by village youngsters, riding stationary bicycles, occasionally breaking for incoming fire, thereby explaining the intermittent interruptions in service. Does anybody have a better explanation? But, then, I digress…CTZen
Well, no, I don’t have a better explanation. My server seems to be operating on another time zone. I will endeavour to correct this.
Your server, Neil, is somewhere in Venezuela or western Brazil’s Amazonia, if I believe time zone charts.
Sorry, I miscalculated, it is in west Africa: Algeria, Mali, Burkina Faso, Togo or Benin. Well in Burkina Faso they have little or no electricity, even in the presidential palace, so a friend of mine who spent 4 years there with his family says. Rule it out.
I just read in the online version of the Gazette this morning that Kadr was caught on tape crying over his ordeal.
This made headlines.
There is only one issue and one issue only that is of concern to me: did he or did he not kill an American soldier?
Let me add this little tidbit about Kadr from a cbc story on him:
“But retired soldier Sgt. Layne Morris, who was in the firefight in which U.S. medic Sgt. First Class Christopher J. Speer was killed by a grenade, allegedly by Khadr, said he has no sympathy for the Guantanamo detainee.
” ‘Whoever has sympathy for a young snivelling, whining, crying Omar is misplaced sympathy because this is not a man who deserves any sympathy,’ he told CBCNews.ca.
” ‘I use all my sympathy for Chris Speer’s widow and two children. I have none left for Omar Khadr.’ ”
My sentiments exactly.
Good morrow, all!
Whatever happened to “habeus corpus?” Whatever happened to “due process?” Where in Heaven’s name is the EVIDENCE that a fifteen year old boy had ANYTHING to do with the death of an American soldier?
In war zones, soldiers get killed. In times of war, enemy combatants get captured. What exactly does that fifteen year old boy know about the STRATEGY or the TACTICS of the enemy? He is being tortured, simply because the involved “intelligence” personnel can get away with it, not because he knows anything.
Whatever is not explicitly opposed, is implicitly supported. The Canadian government is implicitly supportive of torture. Period. Full stop. THAT is the government’s crime. The crime is compounded by allowing a Canadian to be tortured. Who exactly is holding the government accountable for this implicit support?
We have met the enemy – he is us. No wonder Jesus wept. CTZen.