Thursday, October 23, 2008

Letter to Harper


To the Gulf Island Driftwood,

Prime Minister Stephen Harper,

Victoria Times Colonist

CBC Television

David Berner’s Blog

I have just finished watching the CBC documentary of the upcoming trial of Omar Khadr, a child soldier and Canadian citizen, who is to be prosecuted by the U.S. Army Justice Department at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in November for an incident that occurred when he was 15 years old.

It is obvious from the details presented that the US Army has a vested interest in the outcome of this trial. These details include evidence of torture during interrogation, as well as re-writing the reports of US officers who were present at the incident in Afghanistan. In View of this, it is blatantly obvious that in this case, US Army justice is no justice at all. But what is astounding to me is the fact that in six years the Canadian government has not intervened on behalf of this underage Canadian citizen. In fact, our Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, has allowed this travesty of justice to proceed contrary to the actions of all other foreign governments in similar circumstances. The only Canadian contact I can confirm was a taped interview with Khadr by two unnamed Canadians, the outcome of which obviously did nothing but increase the accused’s feelings of hopelessness.

In conclusion, I believe this is a shameful precedent that could put all Canadians abroad in jeopardy. I hope it is not too late to take remedial action!

Sincerely,

A.G. Geoff Cue

480 Vesuvius Bay Road

Salt Spring Island, B.C. V8K 1K7

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Harper and his neocon thugs don't give a crap about this. Here we have a boy captured in a religious war (indeed this whole middle East fiasco is a religious war) and now will be martyred by the US Army.

Please do not teach the rights or wrongs of the Afghani war and certainly the huge number of innocents slaughtered by both sides should give us pause for concern. We are just as guilty as they.

It's time to return the American religious prisoners to their countries of origin, and rethink this shameful episode of American history.

He may be guilty of many things, but the Americans have lost their moral advantage with Gitmo torture.

What really has happened is that any American soldier captured by 'the other' side will now, quite legally subject to torture.

What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.

Anonymous said...

Let's not forget the previous Liberal governments of Cretien and Martin did nothing for Khadr either.
As for captured American soldiers being tortured, that has been going on in both Afghanistan and Iraq since day one, and none have been returned alive.

David in North Burnaby BC said...

"Let's not forget the previous Liberal governments of Cretien and Martin did nothing for Khadr either."

anonymous and his fellow travelers would prefer we all did.