Wading Through The Hysteria

About five years ago, I wrote a blog entry about a book that had a great impact on my understanding of the child soldier. Here is an excerpt from it:

I suppose I might feel differently about Omar Khadr if I hadn't read a particular book, A Long Way Gone, by Ishmael Beah. It provided indelible insights into both the realities of the child soldier's world and the possibilities of redemption and rehabilitation. It should be read by everyone who is quick to judge and condemn Khadr.

Now 31 years old, Beah, a very bright, articulate and talented writer effectively conveyed in his memoir the horror of his experiences as a child soldier, conscripted into the army at the age of 13 to fight the rebels in Sierra Leone, although the bloody, inhumane behaviour of each side made them virtually impossible to distinguish.

I suspect it is the kind of world that Kadhr is very familiar with, uprooted as he was from Canada by his fanatical father at a young age and moved to Pakistan and Afghanistan to become part of Al Qaeda’s jihad against the West.

Facts and research are probably our strongest weapons against the hysterical and the politically opportunistic. And the facts surrounding the Omar Khadr compensation for the violation of his Charter Rights while incarcerated in Guantanamo are readily available.

In discussing the outrage emanating from some quarters about Khadr, the Star's Shree Paradkar writes:

When it became known last week that Canada was to issue an apology worth $10.5 million to former Guantanamo Bay prisoner Omar Khadr, a Canadian, it came to many as a no-brainer.

After all, it aligned with Canadian values of freedom, ethics and social justice.

Morality aside, it wasn’t as if the government had a choice.

The Supreme Court of Canada ruled in favour of Khadr three times after his lawyers took the case to court, and in 2010 had unequivocally stated that Canadian officials had violated Khadr’s human rights under the Charter and that his treatment “offends the most basic Canadian standards about the treatment of detained youth suspects.”

There was no chance of the government winning the $20 million civil suit Khadr’s lawyers had launched in 2004.

She goes on to us remind of some of the facts of Khadr's life:

It didn’t seem possible that any Canadians would look askance at making reparations with a man whose life has been shaped by repeated betrayals: his father Al-Qaeda fundraiser Ahmed Said Khadr who took him, an 8-year-old boy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, his mother Maha Elsamnah who supported this, the American military who instead of treating him as a child soldier (he was 15 when captured), detained, tortured and subjected him to an unfair trial, and Canada that — under Jean Chretien and Paul Martin’s Liberals and Harper’s Conservatives — abandoned him in the illegal hellhole that is Guantanamo Bay.

The Star's Michelle Shepherd, who wrote Guantanimo's Child and co-directed a documentary with the same title, can be considered an expert on the case. In today's Star, she also reminds us of some facts that the rabid right chooses to ignore:

... the main claim in Khadr’s $20-million civil suit is that Canadian officials violated his rights when they interrogated him in Guantanamo in 2003 and 2004, knowing he was a minor, without legal representation and had been subjected to torture.

A unanimous Supreme Court ruling in 2010 said they had.

The firefight in which U.S. soldier and medic Speer was killed, perhaps by Khadr or perhaps by someone else, is not the issue, but there are some interesting facts surrounding it:

Medics (unarmed civilians) have always been considered “protected persons” in conflict. Since the drafting of the Geneva Conventions, killing a medic is punishable as a war crime. But that is not what the Pentagon considered Speer. [Indeed, he was a decorated soldier and the medic on his elite Delta Force team.] And it was not what Khadr was prosecuted for.

Khadr was charged under the Military Commissions Act, drafted by the U.S. after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, which introduced an offence called “murder in violation of the laws of war.” Despite the deaths of thousands of U.S. service members in Iraq and Afghanistan, Khadr remains the only captive charged with killing a soldier.

Also writing in the Star, Azeezah Kanji says,

It is “absolutely wrong” that the U.S. re-wrote the laws of war at Guantanamo to retroactively criminalize its enemies: a laws of war of international law, which forbids prosecuting people for criminal offences invented after the fact. Khadr was charged as a war criminal for allegedly killing American soldier Christopher Speer — but killing an enemy soldier in combat is not a war crime. Under the international laws of armed conflict, soldiers can be killed because they are allowed to kill.

Khadr was accorded all the vulnerabilities of being a soldier, but none of the privileges. As senior officials in the Obama administration pointed out at the time, if Omar Khadr could be convicted of war crimes for “murdering” Sgt. Speer, then so could the CIA for its drone operations in countries such as Pakistan. But this was victor’s justice, meted out only against the vanquished.

And here is one more fact that the ideologues, ranters and opportunists choose to ignore but bears repeating:

Canada’s compensation to Khadr is not an act of largesse; the Supreme Court of Canada has repeatedly found that Canada violated Khadr’s rights, and the UN Convention Against Torture obliges states to provide recompense to victims of abuse. (The convention also requires states to prosecute officials complicit in torture, which Canada has so far failed to do.)

None of this will likely make any difference to those who see Omar Khadr as some kind of demon, but for the rest of us, i.e. those who seek to develop informed opinions rather than indulge in mindless screeds, these facts are really the heart of the matter.

Facts Are Facts

Despite the impotent snorting and sputtering of the likes of Andrew Sheer and his fellow travellers, the facts about the apology and compensation awarded to Omar Khadr speak for themselves.

In today's Star, Adriel Weaver writes the following, which I am reproducing in toto.

Why we should embrace the Khadr settlement
Toronto Star 9 Jul 2017

ADRIEL WEAVER

Adriel Weaver (Goldblatt Partners LLP) on behalf of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA). Adriel served as counsel to CCLA in the 2010 Supreme Court Khadr case.

The Canadian government’s recent announcement that it would issue an apology and compensation to Omar Khadr has given rise to considerable controversy.

Much of the discussion and debate has focused on the question of what Khadr did or didn’t do. But while it’s easy to get caught up in arguments about Khadr’s own actions, which may never be fully resolved, we cannot afford to lose sight of the issue at the heart of the settlement: what Canadian officials did — and failed to do. There, the facts are clear. On several occasions in 2003 and 2004, Canadian officials interrogated Khadr at Guantanamo Bay. On one occasion, they did so knowing that he had been subjected to the “frequent flyer program” — three weeks of scheduled sleep deprivation designed to make detainees more compliant and break down their resistance to interrogation. They then shared the fruits of those interrogations with U.S. prosecutors.

There is no question that at the time these interrogations were conducted, the regime governing Khadr’s detention and prosecution was illegal under U.S. and international law. There is equally no question that by participating in that regime, Canadian officials violated Canada’s international human rights obligations and Khadr’s charter rights.

Those are the facts as found by the Supreme Court of Canada more than seven years ago. Yet even in the face of those findings, the government of Canada refused to seek Khadr’s repatriation and instead fought his return.

And while we like to think of Canada as a champion of human rights, it’s worth noting that every other Western democracy not only sought, but secured the return of its citizens held in Guantanamo Bay to their own countries. Canada alone failed to do so.
It’s a legal truism that a right without a remedy is no right at all. The Canadian Civil Liberties Association welcomes the settlement as a necessary step if Canada wishes to maintain that it values, upholds and adheres to its own laws.

The settlement not only compensates Khadr for the profound abuses and rights violations he endured, but also affirms Canada’s obligation to defend and promote human rights, and to take meaningful steps to admit and redress past wrongs.

As many have pointed out, Khadr is not the only person to have suffered gross human rights violations in which the Canadian government was at the very least complicit. This is all the more reason to embrace the settlement. The apology and compensation extended to Khadr are a hopeful sign of the government’s growing willingness to acknowledge and make amends for the historic injustices it has caused and contributed to.

Those efforts must continue.

There are those who choose to ignore facts that don't agree with their philosophy and worldview. Clearly, it is time for them to grow up.

Two Letters About Omar Khadr

Yesterday I wrote a post on the contempt for the rule of law evident in the Harper regime's refusal to thus far repatriate Omar Khadr from Guantanimo.

Following are two thoughtful letters on the topic from today's Star I am taking the liberty of reproducing:

I am disgusted at the vitriol spewed by some people over the fate of Omar Khadr. Apparently the rule of law is a mask to be discarded at will.

Canada signed the Convention on the Rights of the Child, including the protocol on child soldiers. If Khadr was a combatant, he would be covered by that protocol, which states he is to be returned to his home nation for rehabilitation. If Khadr was not a combatant then there is no reason to hold him.

Moreover, in the sham of justice that was the Guantanamo military tribunal, Khadr struck a deal with the prosecution to plead guilty in return for him being returned to Canada. In short, under anything even remotely passing for law, Canada has no choice but to accept his return.

In fact, Khadr is the only foreign national still held in Guantanamo. Citizens of other nations have all been repatriated even though they were sometimes adult combatants.

Of course, Canada should do far more than simply take him back. The evidence that has come out over the last decade shows that Canada was complicit in the torture Khadr was subjected to. This violates other international agreements that Canada has signed and is also a violation of our Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Canada has a moral and probably a legal obligation to make amends. Had Khadr been a 15-year-old gang member convicted of killing someone in Toronto, as a young offender he would be be free by now. Instead, as a boy dragged into a war zone by his father and caught up in a firefight where he was severely wounded, he has become, to some people anyway, a symbol of terrorism for whom no punishment will suffice.

Their thirst for vengeance at the expense of justice does not represent the Canada that I grew up in. We need to return to the rule of law. We need to rebuild our reputation as a lawful, just and compassionate nation.

Gary Dale, West Hill

With respect to Omar Khadr’s return to Canada from Guantanamo Bay at the request of the American government, Public Safety Minister Vic Toews says, “A decision will be made in due course.”

The decision was made 20 months ago when then Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon provided a diplomatic note promising favourable consideration for Khadr’s return last November.

To argue otherwise is to admit that the government made a written promise to both Omar Khadr and the American government without any thought to its eventual execution. That would clearly be irresponsible and incompetent.

No, the only decision that the Harper government has to make at this time is whether or not they keep their promises.

Robert Betty, Edmonton

Harper's Jihad - Part Two

As I have written elsewhere on this blog, I am convinced that humans (along with other primates) have an innate sense of fairness, one that is regularly violated in so many ways by the Harper regime. Yesterday I wrote a post about the bald and unsavoury political motivations behind Dear Leader's crusade against Muslims both domestic and foreign. One egregious example is his ongoing war against Omar Khadr, the latest skirmish involving the government's efforts to prevent the former child soldier from being released on bail.

Happily, there is ample evidence from a host of Star letter writers that Canadians feel deep outrage at this persecution, and see through Harper's divisive and self-serving rhetoric. Here is just a small sampling of those letters:

Re: Free at last, almost, Editorial April 25
Re: Let the Khadr furor fade away with him, April 27

What is the matter with Mr. Harper? Why this persistence in hounding this young man, who as a child was prosecuted in the U.S. and served most of his time. We Canadians believe in being fair and we try not to demand that last pound of flesh. Not so Mr. Harper it seems. He wants his pound of flesh.

Omar Khadr deserves a chance to prove he has moved on from his teenage years and their influences and can be a valuable member of society. Mr. Harper needs to check his big bully ways at the courtroom door.

Joan Joseph, Cambridge

The behaviour of the Harper government in relation to Omar Khadr continues to be mean and vicious, all apparently based in politics. It is calculated to appeal to the Harper base in the so-called tough defense of national security and be useful in the coming election.

I think, however, that this may in fact work against the government. Surely the general Canadian public is not that ugly.

Derek Chadwick, Toronto

Please let Omar Khadr go. Let him go. Enough already. Hasn’t this poor man suffered enough?

The Harper regime’s decision to appeal the granting of bail is frankly despicable. Once again, thank goodness for the Charter of Rights. I’m sure Stephen Harper wishes he could abolish it, but it’s fortunately too well entrenched for even a seasoned political opportunist like him to destroy.

Nothing says more about the mean-spirited, reptilian rule of Supreme Leader Harper than the tragic saga of Omar Khadr. Yes, his ordeal began under a Liberal government, but nobody has exploited his story as eagerly and effectively as Harper, simply to further his anti-Muslim agenda and his bogus war on so-called “terrorism.”

As Thomas Walkom mentions in a recent column, Khadr is nothing more than a political football to be tossed around in the upcoming election campaign. This is disgusting beyond words.

Khadr has been the victim of a mockery and travesty of justice unseen in recent times. The injustice he has been subjected to is a stain on the Canadian body politic. All Canadians should be ashamed of his inhumane treatment.

How dare Canada lecture anyone on human rights after what we’ve put this guy through?

I say go, Omar, go – enjoy your freedom. You’ve more than earned it.

Andrew van Velzen, Toronto

Why do Stephen Harper and the Conservatives hate Omar Khadr?

Omar Khadr was a child soldier, captured by the Americans in 2002 at the age of 15. They chose to ignore his child soldier status and to prosecute him under laws that were enacted years after he was captured and imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay. All other G8 countries demanded the release of their nationals from Guantanamo Bay, except Canada.

Omar Khadr’s father was an operative for Al Qaeda and a personal friend of Osama Bin Laden. His son had no choice about becoming an Al Qaeda soldier. He has spent the past 13 years in detention at Guantanamo Bay and in prison in Canada, where he has been denied access to anyone who would speak for him in the press.

Stephen Harper and the Conservative government have made it clear that they intend to continue persecuting this young man as long as they can use him as a scapegoat to whip up fear and hatred (against “terrorists” and Muslims) – whatever might help them to get re-elected.

Surely, Harper and the Conservative government are guilty of conspiracy to persecute a child soldier and should be charged under the Geneva Convention. At the very least they are guilty of promoting hatred against this young man.

Bill Aird, North York

Meanwhile, Back At Campaign Central

Hate campaign, that is. True to form, the Harper regime wasted no time in denouncing the decision to release Omar Khadr on bail pending his appeal. And in addition to playing to their rabid base, they took the opportunity to excoriate both Trudeau and Mulcair with some verbal prestidigitation:

Meanwhile, Thomas Walkom offers a good analysis of the government's strategy:

Conservative Roxanne James, [seen in the above video] the government’s designated spokesperson, said Ottawa opposes Khadr’s release because he has been convicted of “heinous crimes.”

What she should have said is that, in the lead-up to this fall’s election, the Conservatives hope to use the Khadr affair as a political wedge issue.

A polarizing figure since his arrest in Afghanistan, the former child soldier is viewed in rather absolutist terms by the Canadian public. There are those who believe he is an inveterate terrorist who deserves no mercy, while others see him as a victim of his parents' jihadist zeal and a political football very useful when governments want to vent their demagogic spleen and manipulate the masses.

He is, in short, a perfect political vehicle for a Conservative prime minister hoping to use crime and national security as defining elements in the election campaign.

Khadr's political usefulness began with the Americans:

The Americans, meanwhile, were desperate to have their much-maligned military tribunal system score a judicial victory. Khadr seemed to fit the bill. The U.S. had already decided to ignore the Geneva Conventions in Afghanistan. Instead, captives like Khadr would be labelled “unlawful combatants” and accorded none of the usual rights of soldiers at war.

Not far behind, the Canadian government picked up the ball:

... by then, Harper had discovered Khadr’s political usefulness. The organizations that the Conservative base loves to hate — including human rights groups, liberal churches and lawyers — were all clamouring for Ottawa to bring Khadr home, where he could have a chance at parole.

So the prime minister resisted. The more the critics clamoured, the more strident his resistance became.

Last year, the Conservatives castigated Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau for suggesting that Khadr be treated fairly.

Clearly, in contrast to the take-no-prisoners approach the Conservatives usually employ in their politicking for the hearts of Canadians, they are making an exception for Omar Khadr.

Parsing Conservative Lies

Recently, newly-selected Conservative Party leader Andrew Scheer wrote a column condemning the compensation awarded to Omar Khadr for the violation of his rights as a Canadian citizen. Not only did his piece send a message to his base that the animus so regularly cultivated by the party's former overlord, Stephen Harper, is alive and well, but it also attested to the Tory tendency to fabricate and conflate 'facts.'

Fortunately, ever-sharp Toronto Star readers are giving him no quarter:

Re: Justin Trudeau had a choice on Khadr settlement, Opinion, July 26

In answer to federal Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer’s emotionally overwrought attack on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s decision to make a payment to Omar Khadr in respect of the heinous behaviour of several Canadian governments responsible for his illegal incarceration at Guantanamo Bay, I can find agreement with one statement: “Principles are worth fighting for.”

Principles set out in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms apply to all Canadians. That is indeed a principle worth fighting for.

Sadly, Mr. Scheer and his like-minded followers believe they have a right to apply those Charter rights selectively. This emotional response is the same as that exhibited by the government of the day’s delegitimization/incarceration of Japanese Canadians during the Second World War, and the denial of entry to Jewish refugees prior to the war, to name just two examples of demonizing, hate-mongering behaviour of Canadian governments.

Nevertheless, there are many Canadians, I believe a majority, who reject that past behaviour and agree with the current government’s payment to Mr. Khadr.

Indeed, the former Conservative government led by Stephen Harper approved a similar payment to Maher Arar. I do not recall Mr. Scheer sanctioning interviews to discredit the Harper government with U.S. news outlets or writing columns to the Star to evoke hatred against Maher or Harper.

That he engages in this behaviour now reveals his need to mimic the political rants so disgraceful south of the border. It demonstrates that he will make self-serving political decisions that benefit only some Canadians, but not all. Who is next to lose their Charter rights? Be careful, it could be you.

Liz Iwata, Pickering

Andrew Scheer says the Supreme Court ruled that Omar Khadr’s rights were violated and that the Conservatives recognized and accepted that finding.

His inconvenient truth is that the Supreme Court issued its finding in January 2010, and Khadr was repatriated in September 2012. It appears to have taken the Conservatives 2-1/2 years to accept the finding. Khadr then spent a further 2-1/2 years in prison before being finally released on bail in May 2015, after the government failed in a last-ditch attempt to deny bail.

Yes, the settlement was a Liberal decision. But the actions of the Conservative government were a large part of the decision.

Cheryl Adams, Toronto

Although Andrew Scheer has some counterpoints to the Omar Khadr debate worth discussing, he unfortunately leaves out one pressing detail to his entire argument: Khadr was a child soldier and his rights as a Canadian were violated, period.

No matter how much the Conservative Party spins this debate, it’s a strong and valid point that will always rise to the surface.

Bobby Leeson, Brampton

The Sweet Taste Of Freedom

Watching Omar Khadr's media scrum last night, it became obvious why the Harper regime fought so hard, first, to deny media access to him while he was in prison, and second, why it so vigorously opposed his release on bail: when you control the narrative, you have free rein, as the regime had, to demonize and incite fear and hatred. When that control is lost, a different perspective and narrative emerges.

While I am no expert in human psychology, what I saw last night was a reflective and articulate young man who was enjoying his first tast of freedom in 15 years, a young man who appears to be without bitterness or rancour over his gross mistreatment by the Harper government. When asked what he had to say to the prime minister, he essesntially said that he would have to disappoint him, as he is not the person Harper thinks he is.

He showed admirable restraint; perhaps he felt that his lawyer. Dennis Edney's, earlier excoriation of Harper as a bigot, a man who doesn't like Muslims, was sufficient denunciation of our cruel overlord.

I doubt that Khadr has an easy road ahead of him. His freedom on bail comes with many restrictions, and where his appeal against his American conviction will go is anyone's guess. What the years of imprisonment, torture and other abuse have done to him remains to be seen.

Perhaps those experiences will have been leavened by the efforts of people who have worked hard to help educate him during his long incarceration:

Nine Alberta university professors, most of them from The King’s University College in suburban Edmonton, have spent years visiting Khadr in prison, spending hours tutoring him. Since Khadr was transferred to Alberta in May 2013, the professors have worked with him at least once a week.

Then there is the social network knitted together by University of Alberta graduate Muna Abougoush, who

began the website six years ago to keep Khadr’s name circulating and to remind people that he was still imprisoned. She began writing to him and visiting him in prison. “Omar has such a support community. I could probably say with certainty most inmates don’t have this,” says Abougoush. This past Christmas, Khadr received 500 letters from supporters — some as far away as China. And he tries to answer them all.

Perhaps some of those lacking in sympathy for Khadr, now that they have something more than government propaganda upon which to base their opinion, will come to new insights. As pointed out in today's Star editorial,

whatever his misdeeds Khadr, now 28, has paid the full price, and more. From the day U.S. troops captured him in Afghanistan in 2002 he has been denied justice, tortured, forsaken by Ottawa and tried in a discredited U.S. military court. He has spent twice the time behind bars as he would have, had he been convicted here of first-degree murder as a young offender.

Omar Khadr now stands at a crossroad: the life he has lived thus far, over which he had little to no control, and the life ahead, ultimately filled with the freedom to choose. May his journey be a fulfilling one.

Well-Said!

Sometimes, when I wake up in the middle of the night, I find myself thinking about the sad state of the world today, a state infinitely exacerbated by the current politics of the failed American Empire. Indeed, I had planned this morning to discuss at some length some of its spillover effects into our own country, not least of which is evident in the current incompetent and decidedly demagogic direction of the Conservative Party under Andrew Scheer. To suggest that Trump is responsible for this would be inaccurate and facile, but the permission the Orange Ogre has granted to the bigoted and the simple-minded to trumpet and revel in their ignorance is undeniable.

Although I am not really developing that theme today, I want to take a moment to make the following observation before getting to my purpose. That there was plenty of gutter politics under the old Harper regime is unquestionable, but I was initially a bit surprised that the Con Party under its new leader, Andrew Scheer, has embraced such a robust continuation of the same divisive themes; currently, the Omar Khadr compensation is the subject of his demonization. But then I realized that the kind of political 'narrowcasting,' the playing to the base at the expense of any pretense of representing Canadians in general, has gotten new life, given that Trump is making an art of it in the U.S.: Galvanize the base, ensure their blind, reflexive loyalty by appealing to their worst instincts, and make certain their hatreds and prejudices are so stoked that they vote.

What is, however, missing from the cynical calculations of Team Trump and the Scheer Stooges is the assumption that other people on both sides of the border, people of sanity, deliberation and a highly-developed sense of fair play, will sleep while the rabble have their way.

The following letters from today's Star give me hope for that quieter, but very potent, segment of our respective populations:

Re: Justin Trudeau had a choice on Khadr settlement, Opinion, July 26

In answer to federal Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer’s emotionally overwrought attack on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s decision to make a payment to Omar Khadr in respect of the heinous behaviour of several Canadian governments responsible for his illegal incarceration at Guantanamo Bay, I can find agreement with one statement: “Principles are worth fighting for.”

Principles set out in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms apply to all Canadians. That is indeed a principle worth fighting for.

Sadly, Mr. Scheer and his like-minded followers believe they have a right to apply those Charter rights selectively. This emotional response is the same as that exhibited by the government of the day’s delegitimization/incarceration of Japanese Canadians during the Second World War, and the denial of entry to Jewish refugees prior to the war, to name just two examples of demonizing, hate-mongering behaviour of Canadian governments.

Nevertheless, there are many Canadians, I believe a majority, who reject that past behaviour and agree with the current government’s payment to Mr. Khadr.

Indeed, the former Conservative government led by Stephen Harper approved a similar payment to Maher Arar. I do not recall Mr. Scheer sanctioning interviews to discredit the Harper government with U.S. news outlets or writing columns to the Star to evoke hatred against Maher or Harper.

That he engages in this behaviour now reveals his need to mimic the political rants so disgraceful south of the border. It demonstrates that he will make self-serving political decisions that benefit only some Canadians, but not all. Who is next to lose their Charter rights? Be careful, it could be you.

Liz Iwata, Pickering

Andrew Scheer says the Supreme Court ruled that Omar Khadr’s rights were violated and that the Conservatives recognized and accepted that finding.

His inconvenient truth is that the Supreme Court issued its finding in January 2010, and Khadr was repatriated in September 2012. It appears to have taken the Conservatives 2-1/2 years to accept the finding. Khadr then spent a further 2-1/2 years in prison before being finally released on bail in May 2015, after the government failed in a last-ditch attempt to deny bail.

Yes, the settlement was a Liberal decision. But the actions of the Conservative government were a large part of the decision.

Cheryl Adams, Toronto

Although Andrew Scheer has some counterpoints to the Omar Khadr debate worth discussing, he unfortunately leaves out one pressing detail to his entire argument: Khadr was a child soldier and his rights as a Canadian were violated, period.

No matter how much the Conservative Party spins this debate, it’s a strong and valid point that will always rise to the surface.

Bobby Leeson, Brampton

A Very Good Week

H/t The Toronto Star

For progressives, it has been a very good week. For Stephen Harper and his adherents, not so much.

First, there was the resounding and iconic defeat of the Progressive Conservative dynasty in Alberta. The message to the broader population: change is possible, a message not likely to be forgotten as we head into an October election.

Next, a major misplay by the Prime Minister's team in publishing online, for the infamous propaganda organ 24/Seven, the faces of Canadian soldiers during Harper's visit to iraq and Kuwait, part of his never-ending re-election campaign.

Finally, and perhaps most significantly, was the release of Omar Khadr, the government's relentless efforts to keep Khadr from the public's view so they could control the narrative about him having failed, as noted yesterday. Instead of the remorseless terrorist portrayed by the regime, the public saw a thoughtful, gracious and reflective man eager to get on with his life.

As observed by Thomas Walkom in today's Star,

he came across in that brief press conference as remarkably human — as someone who wants to build a new life, but isn’t entirely sure how to do it; as a person who has outgrown his past but is still trying to come to terms with it.

This is not the Omar Khadr that the Harper government wants us to see. It prefers a world that is black and white, where the bad guys are terrorists who commit heinous crimes and the good guys are one-dimensionally heroic.

Government ministers, and the prime minister himself, refer to the fact that Khadr pled guilty to war crimes, including murder.

The Star's Chantal Hebert is equally lacerating in her assessment of this week's displays of Harperian ineptitude:

All week, partisan overkill made the government look both ugly and inept. It is hard to think of a more self-defeating combination for a party that is about to solicit a fourth mandate.

Her observations about Khadr echo those of Walkom:

As the former Guantanamo detainee holds his first scrum, it becomes apparent why Harper’s government was so adamant that he not be allowed to speak to the media. It was easier to paint Khadr as an unredeemable terrorist in the abstract than it will be now that most Canadians have the opportunity to hear from the actual person.

Despite that, the government held firm, Mr. Harper refusing to utter even the glimmer of a gracious note, as he offered his thoughts and prayers to the family members of U.S. Sgt. Christopher Speer.


For a man who always seeks to be in total control, Stephen Harper must have found this a very frustrating week. May he continue to live in interesting times.

UPDATED: Harper's Jihad Part 3

Dear Leader's jihad against Muslims continues apace. As you probably know, his regime is going to court today to request an "emergency" stay of Omar Khadr's release on bail, their arguments appearing increasingly desperate. Previous claims that his release would do irreparable harm to Canada's relationship with the U.S. have proven to be unfounded. That he poses a threat to public safety is refuted by the fact that he has proven to be a model prisoner.

Even as conservative and pro-government an organ as The Globe and Mail is saying enough is enough.

What is a government desperate to use Khadr as a political pinata to do? How to appeal to the prejudices and hatreds of a rabid base?

The latest claim, made yesterday and in all likelihood as fatuous as the others, is this:

"A lack of clarity in the international transfer process may jeopardize the system as a whole," the government states in documents obtained by The Canadian Press.

"(Khadr's) release unsettles the foundation of this system by introducing uncertainty and a lack of control over the manner in which Canadian offenders' sentences are enforced."

In response, Khadr's lawyers said the government's case for a stay was weak.

For one thing, they say, the government acknowledges Khadr's case is unique and will have little or no effect on other prison transfers.

"The onus is on the (Crown) to establish that irreparable harm will actually occur if a stay is not granted," they state in their reply brief.

"Reliance upon harm that is speculative or merely 'likely' is insufficient."

And so the drama continues.

Meanwhile, the Kafkaesque persecution of Hamilton lawyer Hussein Hamdani, about which I wrote last week, continues. In an interview yesterday on CHCH News, Hamdani yielded an interesting perspective, one that seems entirely plausible given the remorselessly vindictive nature of the Harper regime.

“This is politically motivated in my estimation, so it’s not really a review. This is just something that’s been said to remove someone, who’s been critical of a recent piece of legislation, bill c-51,” Says Hamdani.

Which may be true. The allegations contained in the TVA news report are not new, they’ve been investigated before by CSIS, and the RCMP. “Which is interesting because I’ve been renewed, and renewed and renewed and every renewal there is further security checks that are done by CSIS, by the RCMP and I’m vetted again. And every time I’ve passed, you know, right from the beginning.”

And, if you read the next paragraph, fresh insight into the regime's motivation is offered:

As recently as February however, Hamdani was the pride of the Harper government at President Obama’s summit on countering violent extremism. Hamdani says his ouster could also have something to do with his recent appearance at a fundraiser for Justin Trudeau. “I think what’s happening is that this government says, why are we having somebody who is obviously a Liberal supporter on our round table? We don’t like him. We’re gonna get a better ‘yes man’!”

None of this, of course, will come as a surprise to those of us aware of the deeply vile nature of our current government. The difficult task before all of us is making a wide swath of Canadians aware of the terrible manipulations they are being subjected to, all in the service of retaining power.

A better reason to get rid of these renegades in October I cannot think of.

UPDATE: Thanks to the regime's tireless persecution of Khadr, he will have to wait at least two more days to be released on bail.

UPDATED:Seeing Above The Clouds

One of the consequences of being a longtime follower of politics is the development of a cynical perspective on life, one that recognizes the avarice, self-interest and self-promotion that all too frequently masquerade as service for the greater good. It seems that those we elect regularly abandon any semblance of service to their constituents, choosing instead to curry favour with their 'masters' in the hope of career advancement and consolidation of power. In doing so, they subject us, as the current cabal in Ottawa has so skillfully done, to a worldview that emphasizes threat, darkness and selfishness.

Hope, collective interest and redemption are not in their lexicon.

Yet despite my deep distrust of people's motives, I have never lost faith in the possibility of redemption, a concept I often think of when considering Omar Khadr. His story is well-known, and I will not rehash it here other than to say that having experienced 15 years of consequences for being a child soldier must have left a deep mark on his psyche. Yet if I have learned anything in life, it is the incredible resilience of the human spirit. The story of Ismael Beah, who was a child soldier in Sierra Leone, amply attests to that fact.

All of which makes it hard for me to countenance the relentless efforts to both demonize Khadr and vigorously oppose his release on bail from Alberta prison Bowden Institution. Well, today the judge will make her ruling, after which he could very well be released into the custody of his lawyer. As reported in today's Star, here is what the former Guantanamo inmate has to say:

“In prison, I had lots of bad experiences. If I hold on to each one, I would have been very bitter,” he told the prison psychologist, Nathan Lau, during an interview on Feb. 20.

“I can’t afford to be bitter. I did something bad and I’m here for a reason. The only way to survive is to have hope,” he said. “If I hope for people to give me a second chance, I should afford them the same.”

Khadr says he looks forward to life on the outside but conceded, “I don’t think it will be a piece of cake.”

“I’ve screwed up in the past and I’m worried it will haunt me. People will think I’m the same person I was 12 or 13 years ago. They might treat me in the same light,” he said.

“However, if I carry myself with dignity and respect, people will respect me. I hope there won’t be this terrorism nonsense. I’m not going to get involved.”

I, for one, hope Khadr gets his chance, starting today.

UPDATE: Apparently, the judge deciding Omar Khadr's fate was able to see through the hyperbole and hateful rhetoric of the Harper regime and has ordered his release on bail:

Justice June Ross of the Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench said bail is a Canadian right, and while Mr. Khadr is in jail in Canada, he is covered by Canadian law.

We All Have An 'Opinion'

In a democracy, it is hardly expected that we will all be of one accord on anything. Opinion and debate are the lifeblood of a healthy and free society. The problem arises, of course, when the debate is fueled, not by reason and facts, but by rancour and misinformation. Such perhaps is the price to be paid in the name of egalitarianism.

In her column today, Susan Delacourt discuses the flurry of opinion prompted by the Omar Kadhr settlement.

....the widely different views on Khadr were also an apt illustration of something not so constructive in 21st-century politics: polarization, and the increasing tendency of political partisans to divide the world into black-and-white, good-versus-evil teams.

The more that politics gets polarized, needless to say, the less we talk about finding middle ground or brokerage roles for political parties. We also don’t think much about changing minds or opinions.

This phenomenon of polarization and absolutism has, of course, been aided and abetted by the platform that social media provide for anyone with an opinion. Unfiltered and unrestrained by the conventions that sometimes make for balance in the MSM, one can snort and vent and pontificate on virtually any topic, secure in the knowledge that fellow travellers and purveyors of ignorance are but a mouse click away. Affirmation of even the most diseased views readily abound.

Polarized political people don’t debate to persuade the other side; they argue to prove who’s louder or more right.

Delacourt offers a better way, something well-worth consideration:

I was curious to see this week whether anyone did have a change of mind about Khadr after hearing the news of the potential $10-million payout. It seemed like a good case study for where journalism fits when political issues separate the public into sharply, passionately divided camps.

The good news, at least as I see it for my business, is that some journalism did make a difference this week amid the cacophony of opinion about Khadr.

I asked on my Facebook page whether anyone had changed his or her opinion about the settlement — for or against — because of something they’d read or seen in the media.

I got a lot of response: some of it privately, some of it posted on the Facebook page. Some people wanted to vent outrage; others told me that further information really had made a difference.

Generally, the extra information turned opponents of the Khadr settlement into supporters: maybe grudging supporters, but supporters nonetheless.

Some cited the work that’s been done by the Star’s own Michelle Shephard, author of the book on Khadr, Guantanamo’s Child, and part of the journalistic team behind the documentary of the same name.

The director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, Aaron Wudrick, made this telling observation:

Wudrick told me that people’s views seemed to be influenced by which part of the story they were focused on: Khadr’s experience in Afghanistan or his life in prison and the courts afterward.

Delacourt draws a very interesting conclusion from this entire experience:

In all, this small glimpse into a highly polarized debate in Canada this week persuaded me that we political journalists may want to tell more stories about how and when people change their minds. Rather than seeing endless panels on TV, with people expressing their strong opinions on some political development or another, what about having people talking about how their opinions changed?

Yet another example of the vital role conventional media still play in the health of a democracy.

Omar Khadr: A Powerful Refutation Of The Harper Narrative

If you saw last night's documentary on Omar Khadr, like me, perhaps you came away feeling some awe at the remarkable resilience of the human spirit. Unless you believe Khadr is a master actor manipulating all of us, you could not have seen the film without a resulting deep respect for his maturity, intelligence, and remarkable insights that one could only hope to see in a much older person; I daresay many of us (me included) cannot claim such insightful equanimity. That those qualities could have emerged out of the crucible of his horrendous years in Guantanamo almost defies understanding.

Toward the end of the interview, Khadr reflects on a question he is often asked: if he could change the past, would he? His answer was that except for the firefight (in which he may or may not have killed Christopher Speers), he is not so sure he would change things, as it was through his years of imprisonment that he learned about himself and became the person he is today,

All of which stands as a powerful refutation of the Harper narrative of the former child soldier as an irredeemable terrorist who poses an ongoing threat to the Canadian public.

It occurs to me that Omar Khadr serves as a kind of personal Rorschach test; to reject him out of hand is perhaps to mirror something cold and dark within one's own psyche; to admit the possibility of his redemption perhaps points to something powerful and positive that resides within.

The former child soldier also challenges us as a country. Do the values that have traditionally made Canada such an enviable country still reside here? Are tolerance, acceptance and compassion still some of the markers of our national character? Or have they been fatally subverted by a federal government all too content to demonize, divide, and stoke hatred and intolerance of "the other'?

My own description of the documentary has purposely been brief; watch it as time permits and form your own view of Omar Khadr:

Omar Khadr: Out Of The Shadows

The above is the title of a documentary to be broadcast tonight at 9 p.m. on the CBC's main network. Here is a brief excerpt:


Given all of the taxpayer money it has spent challenging Khadr's repatriation, his bail, and his access to the media, I am certain that the enemy of critical thinking, the Harper regime, would prefer that we not watch it. It would much rather that people not understand the hollowness of its bifurcated worldview of good and evil so relentlessly presented since its ascension to power - a rule based upon fear, one that it continues to promote through its foreign adventurism against ISIS, its liberty-eroding Bill C-51, and its constant rhetoric about the danger all of us face from terrorists.

Pablum for simple minds, an ongoing insult to the rest of us.

Today's Star has an exclusive interview with Khadr; I would suggest all those with an open mind read it before watching tonight's documentary. Here are a couple of quotes from Khadr that say a great deal:

"I don't wish people to love me. I don't wish people to hate me. I just wish for people to give me a chance," he says.

"I believe that each person, each human being, is capable of doing great harms or great good," Khadr says. "People who did these bad things (torture) are not any different than any one of us.

"Even for people who tortured. There are a lot of people who came back and regretted what they did, so as along as a person is alive there is still hope for him that he's going to change."

A plea for a chance to rebuild his life. An understanding that redemption is possible even for those who have partaken in heinous acts.

Who among us has the right to deny Omar Khadr his chance?

Distracted Thinking

I am something of a creature of routine. For example, all things being equal, my early morning ritual consists of retrieving the Toronto Star from my mailbox and reading the front section while enjoying my breakfast. It is during this reading that I often get my idea for the day's blog post. Firing up the computer, checking email and going to my blog dashboard are my next steps, assuming no exigencies have arisen requiring my attention elsewhere.

A requisite part of these quotidian activities is a certain amount of focus and concentration, perhaps one of the reasons I don't scan the entire paper during breakfast. If reading a political column, for example, I have to concentrate so as no to misread the writer's intent. Without that focus, distraction and digression would undoubtedly result. Of course, as I get older, that concentration becomes harder to maintain. It is the way of all flesh, I suspect.

It seems to me that as a nation, perhaps as a species, we allow ourselves to be far too easily distracted by the bauble, by the sensational, by the essentially meaningless, while failing to note or appreciate far more important underlying realities.

Take the overreaction to Elizabeth May's 'performance' the other night at the press gallery dinner. The fact that she dropped the 'f' bomb, and not the context of its use, is what everyone talked about, to the point, quite hypocritically in my view, that some say she should resign as Green Party leader.

In today's Star, Thomas Walkon offers some perspective:

First she said she was surprised that previous speakers hadn’t acknowledged that the dinner was taking place on land claimed by the Algonquins.

“What the f--- was wrong with the rest of you,” she said.

This, incidentally, was one of only two times she used vulgarity in what has been labelled a profanity-laden speech.

Then she noted that the prime minister, as usual, wasn’t attending. Maybe he fretted about being hit by flying bread rolls, she mused, before suggesting that such fears were unfounded because “there’s got to be a closet here somewhere.”

I confess I found that rather amusing, in a mean sort of way.

May then turned her attention to Omar Khadr:

“Welcome back Omar Khadr,” she said. “It matters to say it. Welcome back. You’re home. Omar Khadr, you’ve got more class than the entire f---ing cabinet.”

And in fact he does. Khadr’s response to being jailed almost half of his life for the crime of being a child soldier has been gracious and measured. The Harper government’s response to Khadr has been anything but.

Despite that very important context, all anyone could talk about was May's language and whether or not she was drunk.

Our predilection to think trivially, to be overwhelmed by the sensational while ignoring the substantive, serves the ruling class very well. Gwynne Dyer's most recent column, I think, addresses this issue within the context of anti-terrorism laws passed by both France and Canada:

Left-wing, right-wing, it makes no difference. Almost every elected government, confronted with even the slightest “terrorist threat”, responds by attacking the civil liberties of its own citizens. And the citizens often cheer them on.

Last week, the French government passed a new bill through the National Assembly that vastly expanded the powers of the country’s intelligence services. French intelligence agents will now be free to plant cameras and recording devices in private homes and cars, intercept phone conversations without judicial oversight, and even install “keylogger” devices that record every key stroke on a targeted computer in real time.

Things are almost equally as grim here in Canada:

The Anti-Terror Act, which has just passed the Canadian House of Commons, gives the Canadian Security Intelligence Service the right to make “preventive” arrests in Canada. It lets police arrest and detain individuals without charge for up to seven days.

The bill’s prohibitions on speech that “promotes or glorifies terrorism” are so broad and vague that any extreme political opinion can be criminalized.

In both countries, the sensational, (the threat of death by terrorist) stoked by respective governments to cultivate a compliant response from their citizens, ignores a very important factual context:

France has 65 million people, and it lost 17 of them to terrorism in the past year. Canada has 36 million people, and it has lost precisely two of them to domestic terrorism in the past 20 years.

That seems to have worked for France:

The cruel truth is that we put a higher value on the lives of those killed in terrorist attacks because they get more publicity. That’s why, in an opinion poll last month, nearly two-thirds of French people were in favor of restricting freedoms in the name of fighting extremism—and the French parliament passed the new security law by 438 votes to 86.

It appears to have been less successful here:

And the Canadian public, at the start 82 percent in favour of the new law, had a rethink during the course of the debate. By the time the Anti-Terror Act was passed in the House of Commons, 56 percent of Canadians were against it. Among Canadians between 18 and 34 years old, fully three-quarters opposed it.

Should Canadians feel superior? Not really. After all, Bill C-51 is now the law of the land, and we can be certain that the 'terror card' will be played relentlessly in the Harper campaign for re-election.

Time for a crash course in Critical Thinking 101.

A Different Kind Of Terrorism

While I have written extensively on Omar Khadr in the past, the former child combatant has not been much in the news of late, and so I assumed he had more or less settled down into a normal life. However, such an attempt, it would seem, is fated to be lined with obstacles. given his notoriety and the reflexive mouth-foaming of the rabid right-wing that apparently would like nothing more than see their delusion that he is a terrorist fulfilled. In their collective hysteria, they see Khadr as a clear and present danger to all that is sacred.

How else to explain this?

The tenants of a north-side strip mall in Edmonton say they’ve been subjected to growing harassment, both online and through phone calls, after news surfaced of Omar Khadr’s recent purchase of the property.

The commercial strip is home to a variety of businesses, including an auto shop, a daycare, and a travel agency — all of which have been serving the community for several years. Most of the Google reviews on those businesses have been positive, until reports emerged on Monday of Khadr’s ownership.

That this uproar is taking place in Albert is perhaps not surprising, but one hesitates to lump all inhabitants into the stereotype of that province: gun-toting, truck-driving good ol' boys. Yet there is clearly that element present, given the efforts to drive out of business all the enterprises that happen to be located in the strip mall:

“Don’t support this terrorist,” a Google review on Skyview International Travel and Tourism Inc.’s page reads. Bluesky Daycare, another long-standing business in the strip, has received several one-star reviews in the last two days.

The owner of Bluesky Daycare, who did not want to be named for fear of threats to them, said they knew of a change of ownership, but were not aware of the new owner and have not met Khadr either. They’ve owned the daycare for five years, and it has been operational out of the strip mall for almost 30 years in total.

“I’m receiving these reviews, and they’re kind of scary,” the owner said of the influx of negative reviews the daycare is receiving online. “ ... It’s going to damage my whole business.”

Few of those targeting the businesses will see the irony of their actions. In their zeal to see a 'terrorist' fail, they are engaging in their own form of economic terrorism, intimidation that serves no one well.

But then, when you are dealing with hysteria, common sense and logic rarely prevail.

Oh, And Another Thing

Without doubt, some readers will be wearying of my seeming obsession with Omar Khadr. A good part of my interest in him over the past few years stems from the injustice with which he has been treated, given the flouting by both Canada and the U.S. of International human rights law as it pertains to the child soldier. The other part of my interest stems from the fact that Khadr has been a Rorschach test for the Harper government, revealing the latter's relentless meanspiritedness and willingness to sacrifice people for electoral power.

It is my hope, as stated previously, that the tide will begin to turn against the Harper regime as its mask slips away, given the public's opportunity to see and hear Khadr now that he has been released into his lawyer's custody.

If the following letters from The Globe and Mail are any indication, people are beginning to see beyond the stereotype of the 'terrorist' that Harper et al. have been promoting all these years:

Capacity for reform

Anyone who heard Omar Khadr’s comments to the media after being released on bail cannot help but be struck by the federal government’s doggedly vindictive response (‘Freedom Is Way Better Than I Thought’ – May 8). If the heart and soul of the Canadian penal system is truly rehabilitation, surely he is a good example of the human capacity for reform. Unless, of course, the government is committed to an ideological agenda from which it is unwilling to deviate, however compelling the evidence to the contrary.

Peter Laurie, Peterborough, Ont.

..........

At last, the “convicted terrorist” Omar Khadr speaks. First, Prime Minister Stephen Harper muzzled the child, then he muzzled the man, but on Thursday Canadians were allowed to finally hear him for themselves. I am proud of Canada.

Robin Hannah, Toronto

Whether any of this has long-term efficacy will, of course, be put to the test in October.

Oh, And Another Thing

This letter from today's Star is a fitting response to all of the snarling and foaming coming from the mouth of newly-installed Conservative leader Andrew Scheer over the apology and compensation given to Omar Khadr by the Canadian government.

Re: Ottawa apologizes for violating Khadr’s rights, July 8

I read in today’s Star that Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer says Canadians are “shocked” by the Khadr settlement, which included an apology from the government and compensation of $10.5 million.

Scheer does not speak for me. This settlement was long overdue and much deserved. I, and most other Canadians, applaud it.

What shocked me was that the U.S. could assert the right to imprison in Guantanamo a child who was essentially a prisoner of war.

What shocked me was that successive Canadian governments, both Liberal and Conservative, failed to repatriate from Guantanamo that Canadian child citizen. Is Canadian citizenship of so little value that our government will refuse to go to the boards for its citizens?

What shocked me was that Canadian CSIS officials took advantage of the travesty of justice in Guantanamo and participated in those interrogations. But the Supreme Court of Canada has already ruled that this violated Khadr’s Charter rights.

What shocks me now is the insensitivity, inhumanity and complete disregard for the law shown by Scheer in a crass effort to make political hay.

Shame on you, Andrew Scheer!

Jack Coop, Toronto

The Realities Of The Child Soldier

I suppose I might feel differently about Omar Khadr if I hadn't read a particular book, A Long Way Gone, by Ishmael Beah. It provided indelible insights into both the realities of the child soldier's world and the possibilities of redemption and rehabilitation. It should be read by everyone who is quick to judge and condemn Khadr.

Now 31 years old, Beah, a very bright, articulate and talented writer effectively conveyed in his memoir the horror of his experiences as a child soldier, conscripted into the army at the age of 13 to fight the rebels in Sierra Leone, although the bloody, inhumane behaviour of each side made them virtually impossible to distinguish.

I suspect it is the kind of world that Kadhr is very familiar with, uprooted as he was from Canada by his fanatical father at a young age and moved to Pakistan and Afghanistan to become part of Al Qaeda’s jihad against the West.

There is a story in today's Star about the ongoing efforts of a group of professors from Edmonton who developed a curriculum of study for Khadr, still languishing in Guantanamo Bay’s Camp Echo thanks to the reluctance of the Harper government to repatriate him. It is a story that goes beyond the stereotypes and the sensational headlines one usually associates with the Khadr name, a story suggesting that maybe, just maybe, there is something very salvageable about this former child soldier.

Of course, we have a chance of recognizing that something only if we are willing to relinquish our preconceived notions about the sole remaining Western inmate languishing in America's Cuban prison.

Breaking News On Omar Khadr

The Harper vendetta against Omar Khadr has suffered another defeat:

The Supreme Court of Canada ruled Thursday that Omar Khadr, the former teenage al-Qaeda member freed on bail last week in Alberta, should be treated as if he were sentenced as a juvenile. The federal government had argued that he deserved to be treated more severely, as an adult.

The case centres on whether the eight-year war-crimes sentence Khadr was given by a U.S. military commission in 2010 ought to be interpreted as a youth or adult sentence.

Nonetheless, it would be naive indeed to think that the regime will leave him alone to get on with his life, not with an election in the offering.

So little time, so much hatred and division yet to foment.