Just remember.

It actually does apply to all (you tend to forget that) but does not mean we support terrorism.

As usual snert

You can't understand why debate shouldn't be 'personal'.

I'll just flag your post as objectionable and leave it at that.

The veiled suggestion that I've been defending Khadr, or supporting terrorism is offensive.

That wasn't veiled.

It was scarfed

Not Canada

"No one is 'defending' Khadr - merely suggesting that he has not been treated with justice and in accordance with legal rules and equitable principles."

But then it is not our Canadian idea of these things that will prevail in his case, because his parents threw him 'out there' to the wolves outside the gate. Now I know everyone will say we are no better, because of Maher Arar, but, again he put himself 'out there' because of business. Canada can and will protect those who are unequivocally 100% solid Canadian citizens, fair-haired, blue-eyed, well-healed, and preferably a child of one of the founding nations, which, curiously, do not include the people who lived here first of all those who are here now.

Everyone else can either bully or buy themselves some measure of protection from the vultures. May the Gods help those who have neither coin nor color nor a big ethnic mass to throw around. Better hide in a hole, so the devils won't see us. Our doomsday has already arrived, and the sun is high in the sky.

I wonder

dorothy

Are we, here in Canada, that much more backward than Tony Blair's Britain, Angela Merkel's Germany or John Howard's Australia?

I doubt it.

Those countries have not permitted their nationals to rot in American jails and worked diligently to get them out and bring them home to 'some kind of justice'.

Is the anomaly merely a result of Khadr's ethnicity?

Or is there something else going on here in Canada?

I had little good to say about the Liberal government in Ottawa but, in fairness, I'd have to say that I doubt this outrage would have continued (in terms of Harper's supine pose before the American behemoth) if Paul Martin were still the Prime Minister of this country.

Other than that, I don't disagree with your point of view although I'm not quite as disconsolate about the future as your last paragraph indicates you are.

Yes, Sir, there is.

"Is the anomaly merely a result of Khadr's ethnicity?

Or is there something else going on here in Canada?"

Indeed!

It's called risk management, a word I have lately learned to know and scorn, because it is mis-used to cover up plain old gutlessness.

We Canadians as a whole use many different approaches to solve our problems and make our way, but standing on our own feet and working from scratch are far, far down on that list. We have this damnable tendency to look to big brother or someone or something in the sky to tell us what to do. Especially if that one or those ones are holders of a bag of goodies we would like to partake of. So, to not risk our place in the sun, such as some people see it, we do as we're told, including shutting up when we think it prudent to do so.

I think of the old adage, that if a nation sets anything higher than its freedom, such as money, comfort, or what is understood as safety, then it will not only lose its freedom, but also those benefits for which it was willing to sacrifice it. Don't remember who said that, but it has stuck with me.

Canada sees no particular worth in freedom, but had to have it crammed down its throat, and some people are still fretting over the high-handed action of patriating our constitution. In schools here, you do not work hard for your marks, you have your momma bake a cake and befriend the teacher. We are all in the business of bringing our hopeful cakes to the big guy next door and reckon he will let something good trickle back to us, so we don't have to work too hard and make too many headachy decisions.