There isn't anything more I can add so, here are two web pages:
http://fairuse.100webcustomers.com/thatseemsfair/nyt012.html
http://original.antiwar.com/wothington/2009/07/12/fromer-insider-shatters/
Although the person in question is Mohammed Jawad, he could just as easily be Omar Khadr. The universal legal and human rights issues are the same.
[url=http://www.ndp.ca/press/canada-needs-clear-policy-on-torture]Canada needs clear policy on torture: NDP[/url]
"As a member and Vice-Chair of the Public Safety Committee, I am proud of the role that New Democrats have played in pushing for this report to be adopted," said Davies. "No one can undo the terrible wrongs that have been done to these men. But the government must recognize, apologize and offer compensation for its role in their detainment and torture. And it must take the necessary actions to ensure that no Canadian will ever suffer their same fate."
Liberals and Tories need cleaning out of Ottawa after 140 consecutive years in power and sharing power. It's the decay and rot and general all around democracy gap that is now a chasm in this Northern Puerto Rico.
Hope for Omar Khadr; similar case
http://rawstory.com/08/news/2009/07/25/us-judge-gutted-gitmo-inmates-case/
Omar Khadr should run for office in Toronto.
Yeah, because Im sure he's all in favour of things like democracy, rights for women and minorities and all that good stuff. Even better, he should be invited to be the grand marshall of the Pride parade. I'm sure he's all in favour of that too...
Yeah, because Im sure he's all in favour of things like democracy, rights for women and minorities and all that good stuff. Even better, he should be invited to be the grand marshall of the Pride parade. I'm sure he's all in favour of that too...
I wonder if the U.S. would consider an exchange? I've got just the candidate in mind.
So do you support people who are opposed to rights for women and LGBT then?
So do you support people who are opposed to rights for women and LGBT then?
Well, I've never interviewed Omar Khadr on his opinions - have you? - but no, I wouldn't support someone like that for Prime Minister.
However, if a Canadian were illegally held and tortured abroad, in violation of Geneva Conventions and other elements of international law, I would definitely demand that they be returned to Canada, without even asking their opinions about pay equity or queer issues.
Why, I'd even lobby to have you released in such a situation.
Why, I'd even lobby to have you released in such a situation.
i doubt it.
But yes, given that he was schooled in a Muslim school overseas vto avoid the decadent homosexuals in the Canadian system (this was mother Khadr's explanation, anyhoo) he probably doesn't make the best poster boy for social justice. I agree that he should be brought back because he was a kid at the time. Mom and pop Khadr do, however, have a lot of 'splaining to do! I would be all for charging them with something. I take it they are all citizens and can't be deported, huh?
Pop Khadr is dead. He was killed. Ma Khadr first immigrated to Canada, went back to Pakistan, then came back to Canada to take advantage of our health care system. Why the Canadian government(s) at the time allowed this to happen - well, they have a lot of 'splainin' to do.
Just like the "five o clock (news) follies" on the Abdelrazik fiasco.
Ma Khadr first immigrated to Canada, went back to Pakistan, then came back to Canada to take advantage of our health care system. Why the Canadian government(s) at the time allowed this to happen - well, they have a lot of 'splainin' to do.
Absolutely. She hates Canada, but she likes the free health care. I love people like that.
These posts belong on Free Dominion. Aren't you getting tired of slumming here?
Why, I'd even lobby to have you released in such a situation.
i doubt it.
Of course you doubt it. I've found that people tend to ascribe their own principles (or lack of same) to others. Thus, a thief presumes that everyone else is a thief.
Ma Khadr first immigrated to Canada, went back to Pakistan, then came back to Canada to take advantage of our health care system. Why the Canadian government(s) at the time allowed this to happen - well, they have a lot of 'splainin' to do.
Why do you feel the need to spew this hatred and these lies?
"Ma Khadr" has been a Canadian citizen for many years. She went to high school in Toronto. As a citizen, she is just as entitled as you or me or any of the wealthy Canadian "Snowbird" class to go and live in other countries for a while and return to Canada to "take advantage" of whatever perks there may be remaining for being a citizen of this glorious country, despite the lousy weather.
Who else is on your list of citizens whom the government should be excluding from the country because of their political opinions? Is fellow citizen Abousfian Abdelrazik on your list? The government certainly tried its damnedest to keep him from "taking advantage" of our health care system. That must have made you very happy.
As a citizen, she is just as entitled as you or me or any of the wealthy Canadian "Snowbird" class to go and live in other countries for a while and return to Canada to "take advantage" of whatever perks there may be remaining for being a citizen of this glorious country, despite the lousy weather.
There's a difference between disliking the Toronto winters and, for example, hating Canada and all that we stand for.
So when do we start quizzing Canadian citizens to see whether they love Canada enough to be allowed to stay here?
I'd like to know so I can start preparing my answers.
You can start by taking the Dominion Institute's Canadian Icons Quiz:
I scored 10 out of 10, 100%, but then I always was a Reach-For-The-Top kind of nerd.
What incredible bias.
There's a difference between disliking the Toronto winters and, for example, hating Canada and all that we stand for.
Who's "we"?
I hate that Canada now stands for unconditional support for the genocidal fascists in Israel. I hate that Canada stands against the rest of the world when it comes to carbon emissions. I hate the Canada stands for the brutal occupation and subjegation of Afghanistan so the wealthy can plunder it. I hate that vast swaths of Canadians are so fucking ignorant that they continue to support people like Harper and Ignasty against their own best interest.
I guess I hate all that "we" stand for too.
Ma Khadr first immigrated to Canada, went back to Pakistan, then came back to Canada to take advantage of our health care system. Why the Canadian government(s) at the time allowed this to happen - well, they have a lot of 'splainin' to do.
Who else is on your list of citizens whom the government should be excluding from the country because of their political opinions? Is fellow citizen Abousfian Abdelrazik on your list? The government certainly tried its damnedest to keep him from "taking advantage" of our health care system. That must have made you very happy.
My points are:
1. Mrs Khadr's attitude toward her own son is the same as the Canadian government's: Let him rot in GTMO. Mrs. Khadr goes farther - she feel's Omar's capture is an embarrassment. She would have preferred it if he died on the battlefield. He would be in paradise now. Her attitude toward her son is of no help to repatriating Mr. Khadr. At the time of 9/11 and the early years of the Afghan war, CSIS was monitoring and aware of Pa Khadr's movements and activities. The musical borders game Ma Khadr was playing makes the Canadian governments look like the clowns they were. Just like the Bush administration and 9/11. American intelligence knew there were people planning terrorist attacks on the U.S.A. in Germany. They were aware that people were taking flying lessons on commercial airliners who weren't bothering to take the final class - you know, the one where you learn how to land - in Florida. The U.S. government had this information and yet were caught napping on 9/11. Unless, of course, it was an inside job.
2. Concerning Mr. Abousfian Abdelrazik: After conducting investigations on him, CSIS and the RCMP came to the conclusion that he was innocent. Yet they encouraged the Sudanese government to arrest him, which they did - twice. During the times of his arrest Mr. Abdelrazik was tortured but was never charged. The Canadian government was informed of this. The Canadian government also received requests that it drop all protections of Mr. Abdelrazik from Sudan. The Sudanese government wanted to implement a "final solution" on Mr. Abdelrazik - in other words, they wanted to execute him. Again, the Canadian government knew this. The Canadian government is complicit in these actions and is therefore criminally culpable. It amazes me how the Canadian people allow our government to get away with the crap that it does.
I am very glad that Mr. Abdelrazik is back. I hope Harper loses his appeal of the Supreme Justice's order to repatriate Mr. Khadr. Failing that, I hope President Barack Obama, U.S. envoys, Mr. Ignatieff and Mr. Layton and others will be able to persuade Harper to repatriate Mr. Khadr.
To get an idea of where I am coming from on this issue, see my above posts in this thread. If my arguments appear to contradict, then you are applying the incorrect interpretation of them. I do make the effort to try to make my arguments logically consistent.
Jingles, you are absolutely right to feel this way because it is true - at least you're processing reality more or less accurately - everything follows from there..
I think Frmrsldr has been consistent on the issue of Khadr, as on the U.S.-Canadian war on "terror" in general. I don't begrudge him his opinions on the Khadr family, because he doesn't use them (as some others have on this board) against the need to bring Omar back nor to run interference for the U.S. or Canadian governments. We're entitled to have minor differences of opinion without beating each other up.
My points are:
1. Mrs Khadr's attitude toward her own son is the same as the Canadian government's: Let him rot in GTMO. Mrs. Khadr goes farther - she feel's Omar's capture is an embarrassment. She would have preferred it if he died on the battlefield. He would be in paradise now. Her attitude toward her son is of no help to repatriating Mr. Khadr. At the time of 9/11 and the early years of the Afghan war, CSIS was monitoring and aware of Pa Khadr's movements and activities. The musical borders game Ma Khadr was playing makes the Canadian governments look like the clowns they were. Just like the Bush administration and 9/11. American intelligence knew there were people planning terrorist attacks on the U.S.A. in Germany. They were aware that people were taking flying lessons on commercial airliners who weren't bothering to take the final class - you know, the one where you learn how to land - in Florida. The U.S. government had this information and yet were caught napping on 9/11. Unless, of course, it was an inside job.
Bullshit.
The mother of Omar Khadr could only sit helplessly and watch Tuesday as her "tiny boy," accused in the death of a U.S. soldier in Afghanistan, cried out to her in a 2003 recording of a marathon Guantanamo Bay interrogation -- her first glimpse of him in more than six years.In an exclusive interview at the family's east-end Toronto home, Maha Elsamnah told The Canadian Press she felt powerless to intervene as she watched the video of Khadr, then just 16, weeping for his mother during an interview with a Canadian intelligence agent.
"My son is calling for me and I'm sitting here," said Elsamnah, by turns stoic and distraught as she described seeing Khadr for the first time since he was taken into U.S. military custody following a deadly firefight in Afghanistan in 2002.
"I cried. I said, 'O God, please answer his call. I can't answer.' I wish I can tell him. What can I do? I'm here. I wish he can hear me answering back."
Part of the video, recorded in February 2003, shows Khadr sobbing uncontrollably. At one point, he whimpers a mantra that sounds like "Help me," but which Elsamnah said were in fact an Arabic expression meaning, "Oh, mother."
"I always heard his call in my dreams," she said. "But I don't know if he hears me crying." - Canadian Press, July 16, 2008
What do Omar Khadr or his mother have to do with 9/11? This is supposed to be your "point"?
Why then did you say the government owed you an explanation as to why they "allowed" his mother to come back to Canada?
You still haven't answered my question: Who else is on your list of citizens whom the government should be excluding from the country because of their political opinions?
2. Concerning Mr. Abousfian Abdelrazik: After conducting investigations on him, CSIS and the RCMP came to the conclusion that he was innocent. Yet they encouraged the Sudanese government to arrest him, which they did - twice. During the times of his arrest Mr. Abdelrazik was tortured but was never charged. The Canadian government was informed of this. The Canadian government also received requests that it drop all protections of Mr. Abdelrazik from Sudan. The Sudanese government wanted to implement a "final solution" on Mr. Abdelrazik - in other words, they wanted to execute him. Again, the Canadian government knew this. The Canadian government is complicit in these actions and is therefore criminally culpable. It amazes me how the Canadian people allow our government to get away with the crap that it does.
Again, is this really one of your "points"? The government has some explaining to do as to why they wouldn't let Citizen Abdelrazik come back to Canada, but at the same time they have some explaining to do as to why they DID allow Citizen Maha Elsamnah Khadr to return to Canada?
What are they, different classes of citizens?
What are they, different classes of citizens?
No, they're not. If you observe the words and behaviors of Harper and his government, you will see inconsistencies. "My own judgement... quite frankly is we are not going to ever defeat the insurgency." Harper in a CNN interview March 1, 2009. Why are the troops still there?
Perhaps Mrs. Kadr is just as much a victim as Omar. The reason why she was in Pakistan is Pa Khadr dragged them over there so himself and Omar and Omar's older brother could receive radical Islamic teaching and weapons training at a Pakistani madrassa(s).
As you suggest, in the eyes of the government Mrs. Khadr and Mr. Abdelrazik had ties to al-Qaeda - yet they were treated differently. The government needs to 'splain the inconsistencies to justify the legal and moral basis of its behavior.
You still haven't addressed your own contradictions.
In post #9 above you clearly indicated that the Canadian government ought to have prevented Canadian citizen Maha Elsamnah Khadr from returning to Canada because of her alleged political views. And yet, that is exactly what the Canadian government did with Abdelrazik - and indeed with Omar Khadr himself - which you say you oppose!
You want to resolve the inconsistency how - by excluding Elsamnah and Abdelrazik? Or by allowing both to return to Canada without hindrance?
Pick one and stick with it. You can't suck and blow. If you oppose the government's exclusion of citizens abroad from the right to return to Canada, then you should withdraw what you said in post #9.
Pop Khadr is dead. He was killed. Ma Khadr first immigrated to Canada, went back to Pakistan, then came back to Canada to take advantage of our health care system. Why the Canadian government(s) at the time allowed this to happen - well, they have a lot of 'splainin' to do.
Just like the "five o clock (news) follies" on the Abdelrazik fiasco.
Frmrsldr may be right about the family or wrong about the family, I have not studied closely enough to know, but demonizations are also consistent in such cases, and are distractions from the main event too. Had Omar Khadr been born a century before and killed fascists in Spain instead of Afghanistan, he'd be a hero now as would be his family right?
Khadr is a powerful, explosive indicator of just how far gone we are here. Were there even a modicum of awareness of his case, he'd be out of there. Khadr is an indictment of us as a citizenry no matter what else it is. If they can do it to him they can do it to you, if all else fails to move one into action.
If I were to win several millions in the lottery tomorrow, I'd indulge myself by retaining Klaus Barbie's lawyer Jacques Verges to work his magic and create some frisson and charge around the issues so that it could be used to club to political death, all those responsible among our elected and non elected public servants and others who deserve it. It could be and should be a great eyeopener to all the sleeping canuckleheads who really need to awaken soon, start getting what is going on all around them, and get a move on in the right direction instead of the right wing direction.
And in all seriousness - consider how long they've had him and what he's been through. If they can make you lose track of that, and other similar things on other threads, this defiles us all I think
You still haven't addressed your own contradictions.
In post #9 above you clearly indicated that the Canadian government ought to have prevented Canadian citizen Maha Elsamnah Khadr from returning to Canada because of her alleged political views. And yet, that is exactly what the Canadian government did with Abdelrazik - and indeed with Omar Khadr himself - which you say you oppose!
You want to resolve the inconsistency how - by excluding Elsamnah and Abdelrazik? Or by allowing both to return to Canada without hindrance?
Pop Khadr is dead. He was killed. Ma Khadr first immigrated to Canada, went back to Pakistan, then came back to Canada to take advantage of our health care system. Why the Canadian government(s) at the time allowed this to happen - well, they have a lot of 'splainin' to do.
Just like the "five o clock (news) follies" on the Abdelrazik fiasco.
Where do I indicate in post #9 "that I clearly believe the government ought to have prevented Canadian citizen Maha Elsamannah Khadr from returning to Canada because of her alleged political views."?
I don't.
What I am indicating, is that compared to the government's words and actions at that time and since then concerning persons abroad who wish to return to Canada but who are deemed to either be terrorists or have terrorist connections by the government, the government (by its own standards) is inconsistent and needs to expalain these inconsistencies.
I am explaining what was the case, not what (morally) ought to be the case.
"I share few sympathies with our government." - from the movie "The Wild Bunch".
"Just like the five o clock (news) follies." I think the government is a bunch of evil clowns who are giving Canada a bad name.
You can backpedal all you want, but the clear meaning of your post #9 was to malign Khadr's mother and call on the government to explain why it let her come back to Canada to "take advantage" of our health care system.
That kind of trash talk in a thread about repatriating Omar Khadr only plays into the hands of those who would have him stay in a U.S. gulag forever. Big Daddy's post at #10 is case in point.
There's constructive criticism and there's negative (destructive) criticism. When Mrs. Khadr was interviewed shortly after she returned to Canada, Mrs. Khadr offered a lot of negative criticism of Canada. When asked why she returned to Canada, she replied that someone (I forget who) needed medical attention in her family and she wanted the service provided by Canada's health care system. Had she offered constructive criticism, she would have put herself in a much better light, in a lot of people's views.
When it comes to child soldiers, we often think about what is going on in Africa. Self styled 'military leaders' kidnap children and force them to become soldiers. In this case, the abuse is perpetrated by strangers.
Let us not forget that, in the case of Omar Khadr, he was forced into becoming a child soldier by his family. He was mistreated and abused in this regard, by his own parents. There are the Geneva Conventions, U.N. and other international laws that make this a crime.
Needless to say, the sharp minds of the federal Conservatives have not made this distinction.
Omar Khadr is innocent
Abousfian Abdelrazik is innocent.
There is/was no moral and legal justification for their incarceration, mistreatment and obstruction of repatriation.
The problem with sarcasm is that it often easy to misunderstand.
If Afghanistan can ask for Mohamed Jawad back, why can't Canada ask for Omar Khadr back?
http://wire.antiwar.com/2009/07/28/afghanistan-said-ready-to-pick-up-git...
Also see:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/29/us/29gitmo.html?_r=1&ref=global-home
"One of Mr. Jawad's lawyers, ... Mr. Hafetz said Mr. Jawad was hopeful but bewildered. 'Every time he is on the verge of winning and proving his innocence, the government seeks to change the rules of the game.'"
NDPPIf Afghanistan can ask for Mohamed Jawad back, why can't Canada ask for Omar Khadr back?
They could but it will require application of pressure to compel. Not much but more than there is.
NDPP
They could but it will require application of pressure to compel. Not much but more than there is.
[/quote]
With the commendable effort he made wrt to the Abousfian Abdelrazik case, perhaps Mr. Dewar (and his friends and allies) is the man/are the people for the job in Mr. Omar Khadr's case. If the details were to be later covered by the press, this would be a great boon to the NDP.
whatever works!
maybe a cheezy publicity stunt a la Michael Moore or Captain Paul Watson - Guantanamo boat trip of do gooders and counterculture notables: "We've come to take Omar Khadr home" with cameras rolling. Release the raging grannies..
Seriously, I think the time is propitious to bust him out of there. The file stinks to high heaven and changing politics could make spitting him out more advantageous than keeping him there. I can quite easily see a scenario where both Harpo and Obama make political hay and brownie points from a strategic release of Omar.
Like the War Resisters issue - need more folks to sign on and put some time and energy into it. Same old same old.
There's constructive criticism and there's negative (destructive) criticism. When Mrs. Khadr was interviewed shortly after she returned to Canada, Mrs. Khadr offered a lot of negative criticism of Canada. When asked why she returned to Canada, she replied that someone (I forget who) needed medical attention in her family and she wanted the service provided by Canada's health care system. Had she offered constructive criticism, she would have put herself in a much better light, in a lot of people's views.
What is the relevance of this crap? Is this your way of saying the government should have excluded her from Canada? You obviously hold that opinion, as you have not stated otherwise, despite being called on it repeatedly in this thread.
Is that how you think Canadians who are "negatively" critical of their government should be treated?
Since when is it a crime for Canadians to return from abroad in order to receive medical treatment for themselves or their families? Do you imagine there are not thousands of Canadians - and wealthy ones at that - who sojourn in backward countries like the United States of America and then high-tail it back to Canada whenever they need medical treatment? I don't see you calling for their exclusion from the country; is it only the ones who offer "negative (destructive)" criticism who should be turned away at the border?
What is the relevance of this crap?
Since when is it a crime for Canadians to return from abroad in order to receive medical treatment for themselves or their families? Do you imagine there are not thousands of Canadians - and wealthy ones at that - who sojourn in backward countries like the United States of America and then high-tail it back to Canada whenever they need medical treatment?
Precisely M. Spector, what is the relevance of this crap? This is not about Ma Khadr. It's about Omar Khadr.
People who go abroad for vacation or go, say to Africa to do humanitarian work and then come back to Canada and, if required, seek medical attention, are not criminals.
What part of (and this is my argument, not the government's) Pa and Ma Khadr went to Pakistan to improve their jihadist credentials and commited the criminal act of being participants in the process of turning their children into soldiers, do you not understand?
Saying the same stupid thing four times doen't make it any less stupid.
Derailing a thread about Omar Khadr by repeating right-wing talking points about what ungrateful and "negative" citizens his family are and how they should have been kicked/kept out of the country is entirely destructive and counterproductive.
Now you abandon your dogged persistence with the idiotic position that Khadr's mother should have been excluded because she wanted to take advantage of our medicare system, and come up instead with a phony allegation that she is guilty of a crime that is punishable under Canadian law. So if that's the case, why hasn't she been charged? Is it because the Canadian government is soft on terrorism? Is that the new tack you've decided to take?
Do you want the border services goons to be quizzing returning Canadian citizens about whether they were doing something "humanitarian" or worthwhile while out of the country, and using that as a basis for deciding whether they should be allowed back into Canada?
How thick-skulled does one have to be not to realize that such a position, if implemented by the government would result in hundreds of Abdelrazik-type cases?
I think Frmrsldr has been consistent on the issue of Khadr, as on the U.S.-Canadian war on "terror" in general. I don't begrudge him his opinions on the Khadr family, because he doesn't use them (as some others have on this board) against the need to bring Omar back nor to run interference for the U.S. or Canadian governments.
There's where we disagree. This guy is running interference for the kangaroo court persecutors of Omar Khadr, who would just love to have everyone believe that Omar Khadr was acting as a child [b]soldier[/b] when he was apprehended. That would make it easier for the public to accept that Khadr was in fact an "enemy combatant" who threw the grenade that killed the US soldier, and to excuse the cowardly bastard who shot Khadr in the back twice at close range.
Nobody saw Khadr throw the grenade. He was unarmed when he was first seen, and was promptly thereafter shot in the back.
Khadr's defence is "I didn't do it" - not "My mother made me do it".
Even if you could prove (which you can't) that Khadr's mother turned him into a child soldier, it would have nothing to do with his arrest, torture, imprisonment, and trial, which are not his mother's fault, but the result of the lawlessness and brutality of the United States military and government. What it would do, however, is strengthen the position of Stephen Harper, who seeks to absolve the Canadian and US authorities and put the blame on Omar and his "evil family" for his predicament, while legitimizing the military kangaroo court process - if after all Khadr was an enemy "soldier". It also helps to deflect our demands that he be repatriated.
It is not for nothing that the main talking point of the Canadian right on Khadr is how his family "hates Canada" and should never have been allowed to come here. When you want to justify the unjustifiable, you resort to hatemongering. When you want to draw attention away from the illegality and immorality of the Guantanamo gulag and the military commissions process; when you want to pretend that the case against Khadr is (a) legitimate and (b) strong; when you want to cover for the Canadian government's continuing complicity - you concoct bullshit theories about how this would never have happened to Khadr if it weren't for his dysfunctional family.
If that isn't undermining our campaign and running interference for the governments of Canada and the U.S., it's as close as makes no difference.
So with the thought of bringing the thread back on track, here is an update on Mohamed Jawad with the hope that this might be a precursor for what happens with Omar Khadr:
From your link:
Jawad has been in Guantanamo almost seven years. U.S. officials think he was 17 when he was first detained, but Afghan officials have said they think he was actually 12.
The amazing thing about these U.S. crooks is that they don't particularly care - about anything human. We are discussing "evil" and "crime" in another thread. Perhaps we should merge the two.
What a revolting performance! Stephen Harper couldn't have done it better himself.
You're not worth wasting any more time on.
Derailing a thread about Omar Khadr by repeating right-wing talking points about what ungrateful and "negative" citizens his family are and how they should have been kicked/kept out of the country is entirely destructive and counterproductive.
Precisely,
So with the thought of bringing the thread back on track, here is an update on Mohamed Jawad with the hope that this might be a precursor for what happens with Omar Khadr:
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/world/story/72701.html
http://fairuse.100webcustomers.com/thatseemsfair/latimes0266.html
What a revolting performance! Stephen Harper couldn't have done it better himself.
You're not worth wasting any more time on.
Dear M. Spector: Posting on rabble is not a "performance". Posting on rabble is not about getting into arguments with others. It is not about "winning" and "losing". Posting on rabble is about imparting knowledge to and gaining knowledge from others. If we post with this in mind, we all win. No one is "wasting time" here. Rather, I look upon it as spending valuable time with my cyber friends on rabble.
So please, don't be mad. Join the discussion again soon. We all appreciate your valuable contribution. Just, perhaps, maybe tone down the "combativeness"(?)
I derive no joy from causing others frustration.
Here is a recent article on child soldiers in the Af-Pak region:
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2009/07/200972914236661774.html
Sorry, a virus is playing havoc with my modem and causing multiple posts at times.
Ditto.
Ditto.
Torturing Children: Bush's Legacy Democracy's Failure
http://www.truthout.org/080309A
"Nowhere is there a more disturbing, if not horrifying, example of the relationship between a culture of cruelty and the politics of irresponsibility than in the resounding silence that surrounds the torture of children under the presidency of George W Bush - and the equal moral and political failure of the Obama administration.."
"Several senior U.S. officials said the administration is eyeing a soon-to-be-shuttered state maximum security prison in Michigan and the 134-year-old military penitentiary at Fort leavenworth, Kan., as possible locations for a heavily guarded site to hold the 229 suspected al-Qaida, Taliban and foreign fighters now jailed at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090802/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_guantanamo_detainees
http://news.antiwar.com/2009/08/03/is-standish-mi-the-new-gitmo/
Very good article NDPP.
Military lawyer claims U.S. paid Guantanamo prosecution witnesses in Jawad case:
http://washingtonindependent.com/53655/gitmo-detainee-claims-u-s-paid-pr...
"U.S. Marine Corps Major Eric Montalvo, one of Jawad's military defense lawyers, said he's [']spoken to all the government's star witnesses' and 'they all have a couple of things in common.' First, 'they know how to describe the day of the incident anywhere from two to five different ways, placing themselves in different locations for each of these descriptions and witnessing or not witnessing different things,' he said in a recent e-mail message. Second, 'they have all received some sort of U.S. government compensation, from shoes and a trip to the United States to $400 for cooperation, which is a princely sum in Afghanistan.'"
"They were built on a foundation of legal distortions and illegality. The rules, procedures and substantive law created for the commissions were the product of, or were necessitated by, the abandonment of the rule of law by the Bush administration in the months after 9/11... Another major step in the abandonment of the rule of law came on Feb. 7, 2002, when President Bush announced that the Geneva Conventions would not apply to 'unlawful combatants' detained in the war on terror. The term itself was new and misleading. The president held not only that such persons were not entitled to be treated as prisoners of war, but also, shockingly, that they were not even legally entitled to be treated humanely... The worst that could be said about many of them was that they had fought against the U.S. and Coalition forces that had invaded Afghanistan, conduct that was not previously considered a war crime.":
http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2009/08/04/military_commissions/
Torturing Children: Bush's Legacy Democracy's Failure
http://www.truthout.org/080309A
"Nowhere is there a more disturbing, if not horrifying, example of the relationship between a culture of cruelty and the politics of irresponsibility than in the resounding silence that surrounds the torture of children under the presidency of George W Bush - and the equal moral and political failure of the Obama administration.."
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/world/story/73272.html
"Minors are considered less capable of exercising independent judgement in their own interest."
Court confirms ruling to repatriate KhadrA Federal Court of Appeal judge upheld a ruling Friday ordering the government to repatriate Canadian-born terrorism suspect Omar Khadr from the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay.
http://www.windsorstar.com/story_print.html?id=1893453&sponsor=true
It seems a given that the Crown will appeal to the Supreme Court. And the Supreme Court will likely accept to hear the case. Stay tuned...
Given that it was a 2-1 ruling the appeal is inevitable.
In a 2-1 judgment, the appeal court found that Khadr's rights under Section 7 of the Charter - the right to life, liberty and security of person - had been breached when officials interviewed him at the prison at Guantanamo Bay and shared the resulting information with United States officials.
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2009/08/13/omar-khadr-appeal081309.html
