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TechnoratiStephen Harper's stance on Omar Khadr is not surprising.
Given a choice between standing up for a Canadian citizen and standing by the United States or Israel, the Prime Minister chooses the latter.
His government has maligned Louise Arbour, the distinguished jurist. Her crime? As head of the United Nations Commission for Human Rights, she criticized the U.S. (for Guantanamo Bay) and Israel (for civilian casualties during its 2006 invasion of Lebanon).
In that war, Canadian Forces Major Paeta Hess-von Kruedener was killed by an Israeli bomb, along with three others at a UN monitoring mission. Harper wouldn't criticize Israel or help Hess-von Kruedener's wife, Cynthia.
Harper is similarly refusing to budge on the Khadr case, despite disturbing new revelations that the youth was subjected to the torture of sleep deprivation, a tactic since prohibited by the U.S. military.
In fact, our Prime Minister has let it be known that he prefers Gitmo's discredited military trials to the Canadian justice system:
"Mr. Khadr is accused of very serious things. There is a legal process in the United States ... Frankly, we do not have a real alternative to that process to get to the truth about those accusations."
Even Khadr's American military lawyer, Lt.-Cmdr. William Kuebler, found that "preposterous."
Harper, he said, should "stand up as the Prime Minister of Canada and protect the rights of a Canadian citizen, and stop taking his orders from the Bush administration and stop being the last leader of a Western country to support a failed process in Guantanamo Bay."
A similar sentiment was expressed on the same day by New Democrat Alexa McDonough: "We have a Prime Minister who alone in the world still considers George Bush his political hero."
I had asked her about the sustainability of Harper's position boycotting Hamas and Hezbollah, when Israel itself is dealing with both, and also Syria:
* Using Egypt as a mediator, Israel worked out a ceasefire that has more or less held in the Gaza Strip since June 19. Israel is also negotiating the swap of a soldier captured by Hamas two years ago for the release of jailed Palestinians.
* Using the United Nations as mediator, Israel is close to a deal with Hezbollah for the return of two soldiers whose capture triggered the war in Lebanon. Israel is also ready to talk with Lebanon about a tiny piece of Israeli-occupied land, known as Shabaa Farms.
* Using Turkey as a mediator, Israel has held two rounds of talks with Syria about a peace treaty.
If Israel is talking to all the relevant parties, why can't Canada?
McDonough: "Whether it's the Israeli-Palestinian dispute or Iran, we can't seem to get our government to understand that a policy of belligerence doesn't do anything to advance peace."
On the Iran nuclear issue, Harper sides with the hard-line American-Israeli approach, which is inching toward a military confrontation.
Israel sent 100 warplanes 1,400 kilometres on what was said to be a trial run for attacking Iran's nuclear facilities. Iran fired off missiles said to be capable of reaching Israel. It also threatened to hit neighbours hosting American bases (that would be Iraq, Afghanistan, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, etc.) Condoleezza Rice said the U.S. would protect its allies.
So it goes - and so goes the price of oil skyward.
Taking out Iranian nuclear facilities won't be as easy as the 1981 Israeli attack on Osirak, the Iraqi reactor. Iranian facilities are dispersed and deep underground. The Iranian capacity to muck up the Strait of Hormuz, from whence flows oil, should not be underestimated, nor its readiness to use its proxies in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, the Gaza Strip and elsewhere.
This is a time for Canada to diffuse tensions, not add to them by aping the disastrous policies of Bush.
Haroon Siddiqui writes Thursday and Sunday.
© Copyright Toronto Star 1996-2008
24 Comments so far
Show Allelmysterio, I AM a Westerner, Calgary to be precise. Jason Kenney is my MP, and Harper's riding is almost next door.
blucheek, I agree. Next time I'll support Rae as well. I vote NDP, but that is a frustrating experience in Calgary. There's no hope, with our "first past the post" system.
Regards,
Wood_boot
Wood_boot: While Dion may be attractive to those in the east, us westerners see him as another Quebec politician. I find it difficult to see the liberals under Dion garnering much support in the west. What the liberals needed was a leader that could unite, and be appealing in both the west and the east. I still think that the Liberals choice of leader is a red herring to drive support to Harper's fascist party.
Bluecheek: I also wonder if Bob Rae would have been a better choice. In fact, I would feel more comfortable voting liberal if Rae were the leader. And while I really admire Jack Layton, I think he's far more effective in the opposition than he would be as Prime Minister.
Wood_boot,
Harper's French is no better, but he gets to speak English most of the time so it's not so obvious.
I like Dion too. What makes him a desirable PM unfortunately also makes him an easy target for ridicule from the Right.
During the convention, I rooted for Dion, but now I wonder if Bob Rae would not have been a more effective - and still acceptable - leader.
I liked Rae's recent article about granting asylum to war resisters.
So there is no confusion, Harper was brainwashed with hard right-wing ideas while studying economics (MA, BA) at the University of Calgary. The University of Alberta is located in Edmonton, 300 km north, and has nothing to do with Harper's development as a fundamentalist right-wing nutcase.
Too many current and former professors at the U of C are known for their devotion to the ideas of Leo Strauss and Milton Friedman, both "giants of compassion," who spouted their political and economic drivel at another U of C, the University of Chicago.
elmysterio, there is no need to call Stephane Dion names. Compared to Harper, Dion is a gentleman and a scholar - literally. I like him; he has balls and brains. He is a mensch.
The Liberals have no money to run a successful election, and Dion is employing the best strategy possible. Dion has been able to stop Harper from implementing many far right-wing policies by reminding him that he can trigger an election at almost anytime. The Conservatives have not been able to improve their standings in the polls, and another minority government for Harper would be seen as a defeat by the CRAPers (members of the former Conservative Reform Alliance Party - I'm not kidding), the fundamentalist far right-wingers in the Conservative Party. Then Harper would be looking for a new job, possibly with the Fraser Institute (Manning, Harris, Klein) or the AEI (Frum).
As an aside: Many in the West make fun of Dion's English, but I wonder if Harper's French is any better. Does anyone know?
Part of the probelm with the West is that th ecurrent economic boom they experience was long in coming and perople somehow believe it due to having Conservatives in power.
The truth of the matter is that harper had nothing to do with Oil jumping to 140 bucks a barrel, or the rise in the price of Potash, the demand for uranium and the like which all allow those western economies to boom.
Saskatchewan used to have a history of voting in the NDP and is the birthplace of health care , but they had the NDP in power for years provincially before electing in a Conservative Government and have never had it as good as they do today.
The difficulty is in trying to demonstrate that it just good fortune that the rise in commodities happened just as those Governmnets took power, and is not really due to sound policy.
Albertas boom has been ongoing for a long time. All the Conservatives have to do there is say "remember the NEP" and Albertans will reject any other party because the NEP was a disaster for Alberta.
Again they ascribe the success to the Conservatives in power, when it simply the fact that Alberta has oil .
I dont see Dion selling the Liberals at all in the West.
While Harper is a traitor to Canada and deserves to be run out on a rail, I don't think that having an election in the near term is going to get rid of him. I kind of think that the fix is in. Take a look at who the Liberal party elected as leader! Dion is spineless, weaselly little Frenchman, who is so unelectable, especially in the west, it's not even funny. It's like the Liberals WANT to lose the next election.
As well, the conservative party is billing itself as the "party of the west" and capitalizing on the alienation felt by many westerners that all important decisions come from the east. Harper, running from Calgary (which is in what I like to call America-Light) appeals to that western alienation and if you look at the electoral map, the west is all conservative, with the exception of a few isolated pockets in urban areas. It's sad really that the population buys into Harper's bullshit.
Harper is VERY dangerous and is a traitor to his country.
Yes. Most unfortunate. Obsequious, creeping annexation, belligerancy and disdain for the Canadian people are all hallmarks of the Harper Government.
The Opposition, except for the NDP (occasionally) and the Greens (occasionlly and the Bloc occasionally), play dead.
We need an election soon!
www.reedwrites.ca
Why is everyone writing as if Canada still existed as a separate Nation?
Has nobody noticed that we've been annexed on the sly through agreements like the SPP (Security and Prosperity Partnership), the incremental, administrative implementation of the NAU and the military mutual assistance declaration? Not to mention NAFTA.
No public debate, no announcements, just facts established in private back rooms while we're watching *Idol, Hockey, and Bull Wrestling.
ZZZZZZZZ zzzzzzzzzz ZZZZZZZZZ
Oh, and - I AM sorry...
>>Thanks, GwNorth, great commentary
Thank you...it seems I want the voters in Quebec to SAVE Canada. I doubt one could create such irony in fiction.
pk
>>A bright, cold-blooded disciple of several Leo Strauss disciples teaching at his Alberta university. Sounding extraordinarily like a right-wing republican (Republican?), he speaks for Alberta energy interests, who are in turn joined as siamese twins to the U.S. energy goons (see the current Bush cabinet).
This is exactly what he is and probably the best description of his politics that I have read.1
He has got to go, and I really do not see who will make it so. Spineless is the very word to describe the opposition liberals.
In my teens and twenties i was vehemently opposed to Pierre Elliot Trudeau, growing up in the west as i did.
But that sort of leader is what we need today.
Who is this Prime Minister of ours?
A bright, cold-blooded disciple of several Leo Strauss disciples teaching at his Alberta university. Sounding extraordinarily like a right-wing republican (Republican?), he speaks for Alberta energy interests, who are in turn joined as siamese twins to the U.S. energy goons (see the current Bush cabinet). And yes, he is surrounded by Christian fundamentalists who got themselves elected to Parliament and who form the core of this Frankenparty. The old Alliance Party which effectively hijacked the old Progressive Conservative Party and renamed itself the Conservative Party, silencing or expelling the more progressive (or at least the more humanistic) tories, has its roots among Christian Heritage types out west.
But don't underestimate him as a mere bushie bootlicker; he is a true believer. Bush and Blair and Howard may disappear but he has his mission to carry out and will see it through to the bitter end.
He operates silently and resolutely beneath the surface of the body politic, resisting opposition and silencing his own ministers, mocking efforts to bring important issues back on the radar for public discussion (including deep integration with the U.S., the shift in the Canadian military from peacekeeping to warring, the need for a national energy policy, etc.) and shrugging off every effort to get rid of him (with our weak Liberals and shameless Bloc Québécois propping the Conservatives time and again because they aren't ready to face the electorate). He erupts only periodically to spurt venom (as with the Canadian U.N. officer murdered by an Israeli missile and the Canadian child soldier interrogated by the U.S. military while he lay in their prison with a gaping stomach wound --sleep deprivation came later, I believe-- and in opposing Kyoto and unconditionally supporting Canadian mining interests that are raping the planet).
This Mr. Herpes.
Har Davids, this is NOT a personal attack just a question, isn't Holland having a steadily rising climate of intolerance towards, Muslims, one group that has been attacked are the TURKS, just wondering because since I'm on a mission to find a decent NEW country to make my own I would like an HONEST opinion before I pay 9 grand for a ticket. Please believe me this is for information NOT A PERSONAL ATTACK, okay? Thanks, man.
Harper just wants to run with the big dogs whether it's right or wrong.
...and nobody is critical on the attack of the USS Liberty. You have to wonder about any "democracy" that would torture a 15 year old boy and his country of citizenship that would allow it.
Thanks, GwNorth, great commentary.
I've recently come to the CONclusion that the CONservative parties in most nations are really "Siege Mentality" parties.
The media gets enough people scared about something or some things, and the rational platforms of regular peace-time politics become naive lunacy in the eyes of naive lunatics.
It's hard to see how Harper can adopt a stance of belligerence toward anyone. Oh, wait! I hear the Canadian navy just got some new sails.
The worse things get, the more reactionary people become, the more conservatives get into office. I think that comes from a punishing puritan mindset.
Anyone who's ever raised a child knows that the tendency to punish, like that of gentleness, is a carried forward in the child. Some grandparents can see the result of their mistakes and of good parenting in their children's children.
We can readily see the results of violent puritan tendencies in a society whose leaders are reactionary conservatives. How Harper managed to get by those gentle Canadians is beyond me.
Har Davids----crony Capitalism and ugly skullduggery knows no national borders. It's a cancer infecting the world. But citizens can innoculate themselves by reaching out to other citizens----let the thugs operate in the darkness of their own making, Doesn't mean we have to.
Help your neighbors to help their neighbors. Best innoculant around for what ails the planet these days.
Blessings!
Here in Holland we have another friend of the Bush, our very own PM, so Harper is not an isolated case. Our PM has so far refused to go into the details that made him and his pals decide to become accomplices in the war-crimes committed on behalf of the White House. Unfortunately, our parliament doesn't make too much of point of it. Our seat of Government is in The Hague, not too far from the International Court of Justice, so if Bush c.s. ever show up there, our gang will be there within hours.
Harper is very Intelligent. Dont underestimate him. I have read some of the papers he had written before he became Prime Minister. He is well educated and well read and I disagree with his POV entirely.
I think a lot of Canadians are fooled by Harpers tap dancing. They are convinced he is his own man rather then a lickspittle. I recognized him for what he was when he was in opposition and slamming the Liberals for their refusal to participate in the Iraq war.
Mr Harper pointed out that The US was Canada's largest trading partner and that if we did not join with the US in an attack on Iraq our economy would suffer.
One does not go to war because it will help the economy. That the most ridiculous self serving suggestion I have heard. One does not send troops to be killed in Iraq because the United States might get mad and block Canadian imports.
Everytime I go back to Alberta I try and convince the folk there just how bad harper is. A few of them come around. There a larger group that are prospering due to that provinces boom and can see no wrong in the man.
I really hope Quebec and Ontario do not put this guy in power again. I doubt many in the West will vote Liberal/NDP tho I grow more hopeful of that here in the lower mainland.
Harpers Strategy seems to be to capture rural seats in Ontario, count on his Western base and then bribe Quebec with "greater powers" to woo the soft seperatists to his side.
Its such a shame that the Party that seems to stand up most for an indendent policy for Canada and Canadians is the Bloc Quebecois, the party of seperatists.
I really think there an opportunity for the Liberals here. Canadians do not want NAFTA, or the NAU or the AMERO and they do NOT want Canada to become a junior partner of the United States.
Harper does not represent Canadians or Canada, he really only represents himself and as a petulant cold fish control freak. Second in line after himself are his religion buddies, pugnacious fundamentalist Religious Righties who use the bible as a weapon. Rumour has it that Harper believes the Rapture will start in Canada and thus he will do anything to promote that eventuality, which includes undying unconditional support for anything Israel does and automatic opposition to any of Israel's enemies perceived or otherwise. He will also support any other Religious Right fundamentalist Oil/Crusader's wars e.g. Bush.
Harper's treatment of Canadian Major Paeta Hess-von Kruedener murder was an absolute disgrace. In typical right wing "blame the victim" style his comment, after the shell-proof UN bunker (alone on a hill for 40 years and emblazoned with UN) was deliberately targeted by a laser guided Israeli bunker buster, was "what was he doing there?". His job as a UN Observer you idiot and it's a pity you can't do yours which is standing up for Canada.
Harper has trashed Canadian sovereignty and replaced it with his band of religion freaks.
My cousin, who lives in Toronto and follows politics closely, tells me Harper is absolutely as great a moron and closet throatsticker as Bush. Well, the Australians got rid of their Bush ass licker; perhaps the Canadians will too. We, on the other hand, are about to elect John McCain whose weird, stiff smile reminds me so much of Boris Karloff in "Frankenstein" . . . just before he throws the little girl into the lake to drown.
See also Robert Fantina's article entitled Bush's Last Yes-Man.
Canada's problems with a spineless and complicit "official opposistion" may not be quite so pronounced as in the U.S., but they're bad enough. On the plus side, at least it is a parliamentary system where other parties can exert some significant influence as in the case of Alexa McDonough's New Democrats.
Canadians can call for a parliamentary vote of no confidence on Harper, demand an election, and get a PM who isn't a Bush lackey. I hope the do! I know no Canadians who like Harper, and I know many Canadians.