The shame isn't only Obama's

Andy Worthington writes about the kangaroo court that is dealing with Omar Khadr in Guantánamo Bay.


Prosecuting a Tortured Child: Obama's Guantánamo Legacy

From the most important thing - that he was fifteen years old at the time - to his untreated injuries, torture, evidence that was revisionist, to say the least, retroactive laws drawn up after to cover what happened before and the attempts at a plea deal to subject him to even more time for a crime he was not old enough to, or no one is even sure he did, commit, the whole shameful episode is all there.

But the shame isn't only Obama's. There was not a peep out of the Canadian government either, which follows a deplorable trend under Stephen Harper's Conservative minority government to simply abandon Canadian citizens abroad if they happen to be the wrong colour (anything but white), the wrong sex (anything but male), the wrong religion (only Judaeo-Christians need apply) or less than stunningly wealthy. If you have one or more of these marks against you, you're out of luck.

On second thought, being stunningly wealthy will go a long way towards having the other drawbacks ignored. 

A small sample here:

Abousfian Abdelrazik

Brenda Martin

Suaad Mohamud Haji

Harper insists that the U.S. government has a right to continue to do what it does, in spite or our laws, our constitution, or that Canada is a signatory to the Geneva Conventions and to the U.N. Declaration on the rights of the child. The law seems to be of no concern to him except when it applies to someone else's supposed violations of it.

Canada voted against the UN Goldstone report resolution

Well done, Canada. By such short-sighted policy, you have put our country in grave danger and are now supportive of war crimes.

Harper and his cronies have put the rest of us in the august company of Israel, Nauru, Panama, Micronesia, Macedonia and the United States.

I'm so proud.