Prime Minister Stephen Harper is playing fast with the facts when he says the Conservative government has "no real alternative" to the U.S. legal process in the Omar Khadr case, say the Canadian detainee's lawyers.
"This is a disingenuous comment from the prime minister," says Khadr's Canadian lawyer, Dennis Edney.
"The prime minister, through his cabinet members, particularly Mr. (Peter) MacKay, have long said that they have been assured that Omar Khadr was being well treated, when in fact the Canadian government well knew that was not the case," Edney said in a telephone interview from Edmonton.
Harper is not alone in Canadian governance when it comes to mewling and pathetic acquiescence to the Bush government's abandonment of the rule of law. Former Prime Minister Jean Chretien was at the helm when these interrogations took place and Paul Martin's rule followed. There is more than plenty of shame to go around but Mr. Harper goes well beyond the call of duty with his disingenuous comments. His government has made the abandonment of Canadians in difficulty a policy. How sad that the leader of our elected government is so willfully blind to Canadian tradition and to that much vaunted notion of law and order. We share in the British common law tradition that dates back centuries and equips us quite ably with the mechanisms of justice quite sufficient to the task of dealing with a Canadian citizen and former child soldier. To state otherwise is to partake in the ongoing crime being committed against Mr Khadr.
We are a signatory nation to the Geneva Conventions and Protocols. For five long years we have allowed a Canadian youth to be held and mistreated in direct conflict with the standards we have vowed to uphold. And so we become that which we fear and detest, war criminals, liars and torturers.
6 comments:
I have no problem admitting that I sat through that horror on the verge of tears the entire time.
My baby boy is barely older now then Omar Khadr was then - how have we allowed this to happen in this day and age? We're supposed to be better than this.
And no doubt the worst of the BT mouthbreathers are all wanking furiously over it like the manly men they think they are. Stephen Taylor must be so proud.
They just ran some excerpts on CBC's The Current. Omar Khadr tries to let the CSIS guys know that there is something wrong with his eyes and his feet have wounds... and the condescending prick just answers, you got your two eyes in your head and your feet at the end of your legs.... At another point he tells him to stop stressing out.
This case is really an all time low for Canada. Thank the stars that Omar was appointed a decent lawyer by the court tribunal.
Lt.C. Ralph Peters on Omar Khadr Gitmo Tape: "We Should Have Killed That Punk on a Battlefield where it was legal to do so!"
Watch video at http://muslimsagainstsharia.blogspot.com/2008/07/ltc-ralph-peters-on-omar-khadr-gitmo.html
"And so we become that which we fear and detest, war criminals, liars and torturers."
welcome to the club.
KEvron
Good post. It shouldn't be a partisan issue. Just the right and Canadian thing to do.
On the French CBC today John Gomery said the case had certain overtones of the Dreyfus Affair.If the guilty in that case had known how history would judge them, their government, and their country, you can bet they would have thought twice.
Too bad more Canadians didn't because, we're all going to have to live with the shame for a long long time...
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.
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