Graeme Decarie
Well-Known Member
Brace yourself. This is long. And vicious. I wrote it for my July 27 blog.
Today (July 26) there was an infuriating letter in Letters to the Editor for the Moncton Times and Transcript. It was especially irritating because it reflects the views of over 75% of the Canadian population.
It attacked the Canadian Supreme Court foro awarding 10 million dollars in damages to Omar Khadr. It's a vicious letter written in ignorance of Canadian law, international law, and in ignorance of the principle we told our veterans they were fighting for in World War 2. (Remember that when some twit of a politician says on Nov. 11 that we remember their sacrifice and the principles they fought for.)
We don't. We never have.
1. Omar Khadr, whatever you think of him was a Canadian citizen. Canada is a free country. He's allowed to have whatever politics he has.
2. He was legally in Afghanistan.
3. The U.S. military was NOT legally in Afghanistan. a. There is no evidence that Afghanistan had anything to do with 9/11. Indeed, all the signs are that our good friends in Saudi Arabia were behind it. In any case, the American invasion had nothing to do with 9/11. The decision to attack Afghanistan was made some four years BEFORE 9/11. (Check Project for the New American Century. The early plan to attack Afghanistan was no secret - except, perhaps, to the ace commentators of the irving press.
Afghanistan was no possible threat to the U.S. That means the invasion was illegal under international law. Also remember this on Nov. 11 - The US did not seek UN approval. In fact, it ignored the UN as it has in most of its invasions. Think of that when you remember what our veterans died for.
The official figure for Afghan civilians killed in the illegal American invasion is about 30,000. The reality is almost certainly over a hundred thousand.
Afghan Civilians | Costs of War
So there was Khadr, like him or not, who was legally in the country with a building full of people who were attacked and murdered by U.S. troops. (Yes. Murdered. That's what it's called in an illegal war.) Khadr, badly wounded (and only fifteen years old) was captured.
Did he kill an American? I don't' know. The US made him confess to it, but only by extended torture. (Also illegal.) He was also (illegally) imprisoned for years. I don't know whether he killed anybody. But what would you do if you were illegally attacked by U.S. soldiers and everybody around you was killed?
Stand up and sing God Bless America?
And he was kept in prison for years after though he was never found guilty of anything. (Torture doesn't count in a democratic legal system.)
The Canadian government knew all about this from the start. It had a legal obligation to protect a Canadian citizen. And it didn't lift a finger for years. That's why a court in a democratic Canada ruled in favour of Khadr. And democracy, by the war, is one of those little things our veterans fought for.
Instead, a majority of Canadians are reacting to the illegal American mass murders in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria as cheerleaders. (Incidentally, all those wars were fought without UN approval. On Nov. 11, remember that. A UN to prevent war is one of the things our veterans fought for. But instead of standing up for what they fought for, most Canadians are wagging their little tails like the colonial poodles they have become.
And there is going to be one hell of a price for that. The British still kiss up to a U.S. that deliberately impoverished Britain after World War 2. But the rest of Europe is getting restless. The U.S. has effectively destroyed the UN. It sees itself not as a leader of the world, but as the ruler of the world.
And it can't do it. For a start, the U.S, for all its wealth, has only 4% of the world's population. And the American people don't want these wars. That's why the U.S. army relies on mercenaries (hired killers). In any case, any world war this time would almost certainly go nuclear.
If you want to remember our war dead of 1945, do it by demanding that our government preserve what those soldiers, sailors and airmen were told they were fighting for.
A footnote to this is the American approved and assisted mass murder of 200,000 Maya people by the Guatemala army. When the Catholic Church in Guatemala triedd to defend the Maya people, priests, nuns and lay missionaries were murdered, too.
One of those killed was a lay missionary from New Brunswick. The Canadian government knew all about it; but it made no attempt to protest on the behalf of murdered Canadian citizen. The news media of North America never mentioned that mass murder. (with the exception of a brief reference in the New York Times almost 30 years later.)
To this day, the irving press has never had the integrity to tell us about that lay missionary, not even when his body came back to New Brunswick for burial.
And why were all those people murdered? It was because they were becoming angry at the brutal treatment and the environmental damage they were suffering at the hands of Canadian and American mining companies.
________________________________
But we probably won't change our thinking. Us humans are like that. We think in pure emotion, in prejudice, in bigotry. We all do. In 2,000 years, the message of Christ has never been able to get past our prejudice and bigotry. (And our churches have rarely tried very hard to get it past those.)
When we think of bigotry, prejudice, greed, mass murder, illegal aggression, the use of armies to help the wealthy loot the world, we automatically think of Hitler. Loosen up. Most of us are like that. Thus the British Empire, the Spanish Empire, the Portuguese Empire, the Dutch Empire, the French Empire - and the American Empire. They were all Nazi.
Yes, I quite understand that the rulers of China and Russia are very similar in that respect. That's why we cannot afford to go on allowing the destruction of the UN and of the principles that so many Canadians died for.
__________________________________________________________________________________
Today (July 26) there was an infuriating letter in Letters to the Editor for the Moncton Times and Transcript. It was especially irritating because it reflects the views of over 75% of the Canadian population.
It attacked the Canadian Supreme Court foro awarding 10 million dollars in damages to Omar Khadr. It's a vicious letter written in ignorance of Canadian law, international law, and in ignorance of the principle we told our veterans they were fighting for in World War 2. (Remember that when some twit of a politician says on Nov. 11 that we remember their sacrifice and the principles they fought for.)
We don't. We never have.
1. Omar Khadr, whatever you think of him was a Canadian citizen. Canada is a free country. He's allowed to have whatever politics he has.
2. He was legally in Afghanistan.
3. The U.S. military was NOT legally in Afghanistan. a. There is no evidence that Afghanistan had anything to do with 9/11. Indeed, all the signs are that our good friends in Saudi Arabia were behind it. In any case, the American invasion had nothing to do with 9/11. The decision to attack Afghanistan was made some four years BEFORE 9/11. (Check Project for the New American Century. The early plan to attack Afghanistan was no secret - except, perhaps, to the ace commentators of the irving press.
Afghanistan was no possible threat to the U.S. That means the invasion was illegal under international law. Also remember this on Nov. 11 - The US did not seek UN approval. In fact, it ignored the UN as it has in most of its invasions. Think of that when you remember what our veterans died for.
The official figure for Afghan civilians killed in the illegal American invasion is about 30,000. The reality is almost certainly over a hundred thousand.
Afghan Civilians | Costs of War
So there was Khadr, like him or not, who was legally in the country with a building full of people who were attacked and murdered by U.S. troops. (Yes. Murdered. That's what it's called in an illegal war.) Khadr, badly wounded (and only fifteen years old) was captured.
Did he kill an American? I don't' know. The US made him confess to it, but only by extended torture. (Also illegal.) He was also (illegally) imprisoned for years. I don't know whether he killed anybody. But what would you do if you were illegally attacked by U.S. soldiers and everybody around you was killed?
Stand up and sing God Bless America?
And he was kept in prison for years after though he was never found guilty of anything. (Torture doesn't count in a democratic legal system.)
The Canadian government knew all about this from the start. It had a legal obligation to protect a Canadian citizen. And it didn't lift a finger for years. That's why a court in a democratic Canada ruled in favour of Khadr. And democracy, by the war, is one of those little things our veterans fought for.
Instead, a majority of Canadians are reacting to the illegal American mass murders in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria as cheerleaders. (Incidentally, all those wars were fought without UN approval. On Nov. 11, remember that. A UN to prevent war is one of the things our veterans fought for. But instead of standing up for what they fought for, most Canadians are wagging their little tails like the colonial poodles they have become.
And there is going to be one hell of a price for that. The British still kiss up to a U.S. that deliberately impoverished Britain after World War 2. But the rest of Europe is getting restless. The U.S. has effectively destroyed the UN. It sees itself not as a leader of the world, but as the ruler of the world.
And it can't do it. For a start, the U.S, for all its wealth, has only 4% of the world's population. And the American people don't want these wars. That's why the U.S. army relies on mercenaries (hired killers). In any case, any world war this time would almost certainly go nuclear.
If you want to remember our war dead of 1945, do it by demanding that our government preserve what those soldiers, sailors and airmen were told they were fighting for.
A footnote to this is the American approved and assisted mass murder of 200,000 Maya people by the Guatemala army. When the Catholic Church in Guatemala triedd to defend the Maya people, priests, nuns and lay missionaries were murdered, too.
One of those killed was a lay missionary from New Brunswick. The Canadian government knew all about it; but it made no attempt to protest on the behalf of murdered Canadian citizen. The news media of North America never mentioned that mass murder. (with the exception of a brief reference in the New York Times almost 30 years later.)
To this day, the irving press has never had the integrity to tell us about that lay missionary, not even when his body came back to New Brunswick for burial.
And why were all those people murdered? It was because they were becoming angry at the brutal treatment and the environmental damage they were suffering at the hands of Canadian and American mining companies.
________________________________
But we probably won't change our thinking. Us humans are like that. We think in pure emotion, in prejudice, in bigotry. We all do. In 2,000 years, the message of Christ has never been able to get past our prejudice and bigotry. (And our churches have rarely tried very hard to get it past those.)
When we think of bigotry, prejudice, greed, mass murder, illegal aggression, the use of armies to help the wealthy loot the world, we automatically think of Hitler. Loosen up. Most of us are like that. Thus the British Empire, the Spanish Empire, the Portuguese Empire, the Dutch Empire, the French Empire - and the American Empire. They were all Nazi.
Yes, I quite understand that the rulers of China and Russia are very similar in that respect. That's why we cannot afford to go on allowing the destruction of the UN and of the principles that so many Canadians died for.
__________________________________________________________________________________
