I am writing my post this morning from my brand new office at home. It’s been painted and the hardwood flooring is down. The trim isn’t done, but I set up my desk, I’ve got my laptop and a cup of coffee. There’s a bit of an echo, but I finally have some good workspace at home. I am happy.
I am reading the news this morning and I felt compelled to write about the situation with Omar Khadr at Guantanamo. With the imminent closure of the U.S. torture facility, there’s a chance he could come back to Canada. Now, I’m not a fan of his family’s ties to Al Quaeda, nor am I fond of the fact that Omar Khadr was in Afghanistan fighting with them and the Taliban, but I don’t agree with how he was treated since his capture.
What prompted this? I read this morning that they may try to ‘deradicalize’ Khadr. Good luck with that. And that’s the gist of the comment I put on this story:
Good luck ever trying to rehabilitate Khadr after what he’s been through. Who could blame him for being more radical after his treatment and torture for how many years?
If he manages to make it out alive and back to normal society, he’ll have a chance to prove his detractors wrong. I hope he does, for his sake.
What I find most offensive is that our government has, in effect and in practice, been supporting the torture of its own citizens and others. I can’t believe Canadians re-elect governments who seem to think this is okay.
I have no problem fighting terrorism, but if we’re using the same tactics they are, we’re no better than them. If we’re going to be preaching from our moral high ground, we should at least live those principles too.
I’m ready for the usual thoughtless, knee-jerk comments about how I support terrorists and the usual crap. I don’t subscribe to the Bush model of ‘you’re with us, or you’re with the terrorists’ line of BS. You think you can’t fight terrorists without hypocritically resorting to the same tactics they do?
Insulting Obama
The first story I read this morning was along the same lines as the one I commented on. Oh, I commented on this one too, but forgot to copy and paste for posterity. I thought it was going to be a really good story but I realized I misread it when I thought it said ‘Al Qaeda lieutenant insults Osama.‘
This ought to be good, but then I realized my mistake. So now Al Qaeda has proved themselves to be racists in addition to being terrorists. Nothing revealing this morning.
No related posts.
