It isn't Stephen Harper's pig headed arrogance that upsets me the most in his handling of Omar Khadr, but the knowledge that way too many Canadians, who must also believe in Santa Claus, even though he repeatedly violates rules governing international air space, unquestionably buy the primary-school level logic that Khadr is guilty because some biased american 'authority' says so, even though law experts have lined up to condemn the entire Guantanamo process, and Canada's abdication of responsibility to look after it's citizens.

Never mind that the Canadian government is practically gleeful in its pride over how it treats someone who was only 15 at the time, in a grand 'fuck you' to the international conventions outlawing trials of child soldiers, to which Canada is a signatory.  This is the Harper Archipeligo, after all, and goddammit Democracy is whatever the hell he says it is. Lawyers know that evidence like the fact that it was an American grenade that killed Sgt. Speer, and not anything that Khadr possessed, is meaningless in this movie version of Alice in Wonderland as written by Khafka. 

And, if the comments on the media sites are anything to go by, I'm swimming in a sea of fear and ignorance. "That's what you get for killing someone" is a common theme, even though an actual unbiased trial would be a slam-dunk in Khadr's favour, in this universe, he has to plea-bargain in order to avoid life in prison in extra-terratorial space. Life in Guantanamo is the life of the un-dead, and to the untrained eye of conservative supporters, Khadr's life is neither here nor there.

Eight years he's plea-bargained for. Eight fucking years on top of the eight he's served. There's no "time served" in Alice in Kafka-land, so he'll serve 16, which, if you're Mullah Omar, is fitting as it delays his reunion with the 72 virgins, but for someone who is innocent, it's just tragic, and insulting to the rest of us who believe in a just Canada. We should have insisted on his return a long time ago. The Americans acually wanted, no, begged us to take him back. But Harper would have none of it. It wouldn't play to his base. Justice isn't worth pissing off the 35 percent of people who vote for him at election time. God, how I don't want to live in that world. 

The front-line of ministers, Lawrence Cannon-Foreign Affairs, Vic Toews-Public Safety,and  Peter McKay- defence, who is still acting out all this time after getting dumped by Belinda Stronach, have no interest other than towing the party line. Nuance need not apply.

I'll give ya this much. The rest of the Khadr family is pretty nasty. You'd think his mother would shut up already about how Americans should die. Omar Kadr is suffering for nothing more than the sins of his parents.

A pre-empitve note to the ignorant commentators to follow. No, you are.

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In the run-up to the election of Barack Obama, polls showed that Canadians were falling over themselves in adoration as much as anybody. If Canadians could vote, polls showed we would have done so in the near-70 percent range.

So in one of the great disconnects in Canadian history, I can't figure out why we keep going back to the Stephen Harper well. We've all acknowledged that President Obama is more than just a pretty face. In this era of complex hardships, his Harvard law degree gives him street cred the way a bullet wound would give Snoop Dog his. Obama's moral leadership on the issues of torture and the illegality of Guantanamo has resonated with people all over the world, but Harper still clings to his faith in Gitmo the way a child hopes against hope that the Easter bunny more closely resembles chocolate than rabbit fricassee.

Now, nobody is saying that the inmates in Cuba are the ideal bachelor pool for your daughters’ prom dates, but we must not forget, for those of us who were ever aware of this at all, that the Americans went in to Afghanistan and practiced the military version of Japanese drag-net fishing: Go fish for tuna, and scoop up everything else as well, including dolphins. The dolphins don’t get tossed back. It’s statistically highly unlikely that there aren’t a good number of innocent people in Guantanamo. I’m not incapable of the extra-judicial thought that members of Al-Qaeda should be fried, in the most uncomfortable manner possible. But the equal and opposite thought is the revolutionary position that the innocent should be set free. It shouldn’t take a magnanimous rocket scientist to figure this out.

But Stephen Harper continues to be enamoured and all-faithful to the Gitmo process, Canadian citizens be damned. God forbid Stephen Harper should show a modicum of human decency and at least try Omar Khadr at home.

And with no one else to compete against, Harper can only one-up himself in the category of abject disrespect for the law, and he makes a sport of defying those far more learned than him.

Abousian Abdelrazik, a Canadian citizen, is being refused re-entry to Canada because the Harper minion parade tow the line that he’s on a terror watch list, even though the RCMP, CSIS and the government of Sudan have said he’s not a threat, and UN officials have said it’s okay for Canada to bring its citizens home. It’s like déjà vu all over again.  At one point in the hearing to bring Mr. Abdelrazik back, the judge exclaimed “It’s like Kafka, isn’t it?” to the Government lawyers.

All Canadians should be deeply disturbed by this, including that fine category of Canadian who believes we shouldn’t go easy on “those people.” Look again, Bubbles, as far as Harper is concerned, you’re “those people”, too. 

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