The Return of The Unambiguous Weasel

Faux civility mole and torture fan Raphael Alexander soils the comments back here by excreting the following:

raphael alexander said...
You exaggerate about torture. They offered the kid a "subway" sandwich. He seemed quite normal in the interview, and for a moment seemed like he was going to get rescued. Only when he realized he was being interrogated and there was no chance of fleeing his crime did he begin to weep pitiably.

Omar Khadr may have been a child, but he's a man now. Let him take his medicine like a man. The boy in that video is long gone.

The boy in the video is all of 16 years of age, legally a minor. He had been subjected to sleep deprivation, solitary confinement and harsh treatment. He was denied all of rights due a prisoner of war, he was denied the rights due a minor being held in custody. Under our law and under the binding international treaties we as a nation are signatory to, he was tortured. The offer of a sandwich does not disprove torture. If Khadr's behaviour in that tape seemed normal to you Raphael, then I feel sorry for your kids. When they clutch their heads and rock back and forth muttering incoherently and crying we'll just ignore that shall we?

The tape was from his second day of CSIS interrogation, he'd been grilled before and he was grilled after. He was subjected to CIA interrogation without the company of a CSIS pal to offer him a sandwich. There is little doubt that he understood the gravity of his circumstance. There didn't seem to be any indication that he was being offered a trip home. However, you show your true colours with your last snipe, he committed an alleged crime as a boy. Fuck the law, fuck his rights, fuck our treaty obligations. Raphael is keen to rewrite the law in this instance because he is working from the presupposition of guilt. That's because under that gloss of civility, Raphael is the kind of scum that wants one law for them and another law for us.

It is not news that I view Raphael with contempt. He is little better than Patrick Ross with a patina of politeness. Raphael is another big fan of the mobile goalposts. If one set of assumptions don't work he has another, his values are as slippery as his arguments. He's happy to damn Omar Khadr and declare him guilty until some fixed up "judicial process" concurs, as surely it will. But when it comes to the child of the local Nazi supporters he has reservations about state interference.

In my own article of the topic I expressed severe concern about the state making decisions based on the ideological beliefs of the parents as being too subjective...

Well isn't that special, garnish with bullshit and a sprig of fabrication for the picture perfect dissembler's feast.

It was pointed out by many that while the Nazis are universally reviled, there are numerous other "hate" groups that exist, and even flourish in Canada. By our best estimates there are 3,000 white supremacists that eke out an existence in multicultural Canada, while there are easily ten times that number of immigrant parents who impart extremist beliefs on their own children.

By whose best estimates? Cry panic and let piss the pants of fear. 30,000 swarthy families teaching extremism here in poor, befuddled and multicultural Canada. And given the conservative understanding that all of those dirty brown folk can't control their impulses, they must then be breeding in terrible numbers. How many little terrorist kiddies are there mixing with the good white youths that scamper about the innocent playgrounds of Canada? Three or four, maybe five to a family... why there might be as many as 150,000 terror babies plotting the death and destruction of little Betty and Bobby. So why get upset about a single white power family when there are murderous brown hordes everywhere you look!

So many on the left claim that Omar Khadr and his brothers were victims of the evil deeds of their brain-washing terrorist father Ahmed Said Khadr, and as a "child soldier" Omar Khadr should be released from responsibility. But what this episode also shows is that while the state is quick to pick up on the evident warning signs of extremism where it pertains to white supremacists, it is lax in dealing with the extremist views of the multicultural community.

Here is a lovely example of one word carrying significant weight, "claim" is used to impugn all arguments that don't agree with Raphael's dubious views. As one of the many on the left I will more than claim I will make a flat out statement of fact, Omar Khadr was corrupted by his parents. As a child of 13 he was indoctrinated in a terrorist training camp and made a child soldier. There are no scare quotes to be applied Raphael, he was 15 when he was shot in the back and captured in Afghanistan. According to the rules of the Geneva Conventions and Protocols, as signed and agreed to by Canada, he was a child soldier. Further, many on the left are seeking his repatriation to Canada to face Canadian law, not to be absolved of responsibility.

We on the left, if I might adopt the royal tone for a moment, abhor the illegal imprisonment and extra-judicial incarceration of a child soldier. We further deplore the trumped up process being called a military commissions tribunal. The Guantanamo farce has no honest legal standing and no jurisdiction over Khadr. He is being tried for an alleged murder, committed in a battle zone. He is being held as an illegal enemy combatant, a detainee and not as a prisoner of war. If this is the case then his trial for murder should be taking place within the civilian justice system. It is not. But what does Raphael take from all of this? The state is eager to pick on the long suffering local Nazi and ignores the dreaded brown folk and their terror cults.

There are none so blind as will not see. Raphael is a xenophobic bigot. He will happily thwart the rule of law to pursue punishment rather than justice. That he couches his ugliness in benign language doesn't change that.