Stephen Harper Under Seige

On departing from Japan and the meeting of G8 leaders Canada’s prime minister announced that his government would do nothing in the case of Omar Khadr. Truth in all her radiant beauty is knocking at his door and he is under siege. The question is: How long can he maintain his delusional behavior before Truth breaks down the door and points her accusatory finger?

Even the most casual review of the Omar Khadr case quickly reveals that it is one of vigilante justice and kangaroo courts. Once Truth gains entry into the shadowed inner sanctum of the PMO she will have much to say to those assembled and they should surely be taking notes as their retention of factual information is slipshod at best.

Truth would no doubt start by pointing out that since 9/11  and the inception of the crazed War on Terror Gitmo has been used as a detention center to circumvent US legal rights for   detainees held there.  The term “enemy combatant” was created to deny them rights under the Geneva Conventions and last but not least, Gitmo, along with other secret and not so secret sites around the globe, provided a venue where torture could be administered with impunity.

She would also point out Khadr was a mere 15 years of age at the time of his alleged crime-and the crime quite incredibly -is murder- which raises one of the great philosophical questions of our time: Can murder be committed in a combat zone? For the American military it would seem so even though Khadr was found severely wounded and there was no eye witness to his alleged killing of the US medic. Like so many other detainees it might very well be Khadr was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. A recurrent theme in this case is that Omar is the son of a known Al-Qaeda operative and the question persists: Is he being punished for the sins of his deceased father?

Truth might also note a certain arrogance on the part of the US military in its willingness to lay charges of murder against a 15 year old at a time when it is responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of Iraqi and Afghan civilians, casually dismissed as no more than “collateral damage”- no doubt the greatest euphemism of all time.

Truth might also make reference to the endemic racism that underlies both these conflicts and the reckless military spending on the part of Western powers, especially the US, and that their economies in reality can ill-afford. She might even be so bold as to question the integrity of the War on Terror, its ambiguous origins and dubious strategies.

Truth, as the leading lady, is omnipresent and presides in a number of different venues. She presides in the US Supreme Court- where in spite of being stacked with Bush appointees- it has ruled against Gitmo three times in the last four years. Most recently in a 5-4 decision it ruled Gimto detainees do have habeas corpus protections in US law.

She is also present in the office of US Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates who recognizes it is time to close Gitmo – a very dark chapter for US jurisprudence- and move it to the mainland US but he is running into the “not in my back yard” phenomena. Canada could indeed help Gates by giving him one less detainee to deal with by repatriating him to our “back yard.”

Though it is claimed Canada tried to repatriate Khadr we failed. We failed where every other Western country that had citizens in Gitmo succeeded in repatriating them.  So why did we fail where others succeeded? Maybe, just maybe, Truth has a few pertinent observations here.  

 Truth has a glowing presence is in the hearts and souls of Khadr’s US Military defense team- men who have  great acuity for what is just and reasonable; men like Lieutenant Commander William Kuebler who has been Khadr’s most vociferous, constant and determined defender. Kuebler is a pit bull in defense of his client and not the least bit shy about tearing a leg off a prime minister:

“It is utterly preposterous that a Prime Minister of Canada

would say that there is nothing he can do…… He can stand up as Prime Minister of Canada and protect the rights of a Canadian citizen…and he can stop taking his orders from the Bush administration and stop being the last leader of a Western country to subsidize a failed process in Guantanamo Bay.”

Kuebler’s comment is a stinging rebuke for every Canadian as we have been too willing to “subsidize” failed processes-too willing to let our politicos betray Truth.

The Khadr case is also about Harper- about Deep Integration, about North American Union- a leader in resignation as his government retreats from governance. He is another Bush poodle, another Tony Blair- another political casualty in the fatuous war on terror. Under these circumstances slandering Truth becomes a matter of necessity.

Robert Billyard

© 2008