For Omar Khadr

We spent our youths in such different ways.

When I was sleepy from staying up late,
You were half-mad from sleep deprivation,
When I was being interviewed,
You were being interrogated,
When I was threatened with failure,
You were threatened with rape,
When I had clever words,
You had tears,
When I was kicked,
You were shot.

When I complained about my government,
About a search here and a frisking there.
You were betrayed by that government,
Its treason against you:
That it had sworn never to let a child,
Be treated like a soldier.

"He's not a soldier!"
Said their sages,
"So his deeds are a crime,
And he deserves no protection."

"He did it on the battlefield"
Said the same,
"So we will not try him,
As a civilian.

Or even as a human being."

When I lashed out in anger,
At the bare-handed boy,
They called it "self-defense."

When you struck out in fear,
At the armed soldier,
They called it "murder."

Not unfathomable for them,
To be blinded by vengefulness and spite,
But 40 years?
As if you had crossed an ocean ,
To make war upon them.
As if you were more
Than a boy.

Not equal in the eyes of God are we,
For how can the one who suffers,
Be equal to the one who is free?

But despair is not a pious trait,
For one day God will decide your fate,
And you will walk into the sun,
Their gates and cages will rust and seize,
And you will finally be free.
And waiting for you will be crowds,
Thronging to see you,
And I among them,

Cheering.

Conversation with a Muslim South of the Border

Based on a true story.

". . .So what else is new?"

"Not much. I might be coming down there sometime soon."

"Oh really. In my neck of the woods?"

"Yeah. I'll come and survey potential targe- - er, I mean, visit."

"That's not funny!"

"I'm laughing."

"You're an idiot. Echelon's listening."

"Well, all I can say is: 'Jihad, bomb, Sheikh bin Laden, Satan, fertilizer, ammonium nitrate, death to America!'"

"Shut up!"

"Now Echelon's listening!"

"You don't know how things are down here."

"Canada's not that different."

"It's different enough. We have Echelon down here. We have warrantless wiretaps. I don't have citizenship!"

"Relax. They aren't going to come after you just for keywords."

"They've come after people for less."

"Listen, if things have already gotten that bad - to the point where you have to watch what you say over the phone - then it's too late. They're coming for us anyways. They're coming for us anyways, and the only question we have to ask is whether we want to live these last days as free men, or whether we want to live them as cowards, waiting for them to come for us. -- I don't think things have gotten that bad, though."

"That's easy for you to say from Canada."

"Maybe. Maybe not."

Captives

In 2003, Newsweek published this story, full of mistakes and/or lies.

Today, Aafia Siddiqui has been confirmed to be in American custody, and may have spent the last 5 years as the mysterious and mentally disturbed "Grey Lady of Bagram." The whereabouts of her 3 children, who disappeared on the same day as her, are still unknown.

Some actual journalism (consisting of more than taking dictation from government officials) was done by Katherine Osment of Boston Magazine.

What happened to Aafia Siddiqui and her children that day is anyone's guess. Siddiqui's mother, Ismet, claims that a few days after Siddiqui's disappearance, a man on a motorcycle arrived at her house in a leather suit and helmet and told her Aafia was being held and that she should keep quiet if she ever wanted to see her daughter and grandchildren again.

A report in the Pakistani Urdu press said that Siddiqui and her kids had been seen being picked up by Pakistani authorities and taken into custody. Even a spokesman for Pakistan's interior ministry and two unnamed U.S. officials confirmed this in the press. Several days later, however, Pakistani and American officials mysteriously backtracked, saying it was unlikely that Siddiqui was in custody.

Today she stands accused of shooting a US soldier with his own gun, having miraculously reappeared in Afghanistan.

The lies are maddening.

----------

On another note, I came across this from a friend who is currently attending the 17th International AIDS conference in Mexico City.

http://www.iranfreethedocs.org/

Since I am unfamiliar with the background, I cannot vouch for the content or the claims being made, except to say that I agree with this statement:

"The Iranian government must demonstrate that the current allegations are credible and ensure that the Alei brothers have access to legal counsel,” said Joe Amon, Director of the Health and Human Rights division at Human Rights Watch. “And they must recognize that these charges stifle the country’s efforts to effectively address AIDS and to serve as a model for the region."

. . . and that HRW (who have yet to steer me wrong) have also issued a statement to similar effect. For whatever good it might do, I signed the petition (and encourage you to consider it).

If you are the praying sort, please remember Dr. Siddiqui and the Alei brothers in your heart.

The allegations are NOT serious

There is considerable disagreement in this country between the Harper Konservatives and well, all the decent people, about what to do about Omar Khadr. The decent people find it beyond comprehension that the government would not be lobbying for the release of an abducted Canadian citizen. The Harper Konservatives think that the "established process" (as I heard one spokesman put it on the radio yesterday) should run its course, even if that involved having a fifteen year-old be sleep deprived prior to interrogations, and held at facilities notorious for abuse and murder on the part of the abductors. Incidentally, 2 U.S. Supreme Court rulings an 1 Supreme Court of Canada ruling have all declared the "established process" to be illegal.

Curiously, though, everyone seems to agree that the allegations against Khadr are "serious" - when this is raised, no one seems to quibble with it. "Of course the allegations are serious, but we have to do protect our citizen," say even those who are sympathetic to Khadr.

Are they though? What's he accused of? Throwing a grenade at US forces in Afghanistan, that killed one soldier. Never mind that the claim is itself dubious (which is to say, baseless), we are using standard American combat procedures here:

1) We go to 3rd-World country.
2) We drop bombs all over the place.
3) When we run out of things to bomb, we go in and shoot people.
4) Anybody who shoots back is a terrorist.

But who in Canada can be trust to explain the realities of combat to the bleeding-heart Canadians, clamoring for Khadr's release?

CanWest Global's flagship rag, the National Post, rises to the challenge.

And who do we find "reporting" for that rag? None other than Stewart Bell, author of such scholarly works as Cold Terror: How Canada Nutures and Exports Terrorism Around the World and Martyr's Oath: Apprenticeship of a Homegrown Terrorist. Forget "The Mozlems are Coming!" Apparently, Canada's REAL problem is "The Mozlems are Going!"

I have met Mr. Bell. To be charitable, he has spent too much time investigating one issue, and his approach has become rather blinkered. I won't say what I think of him when I'm not being charitable, but for him the word "terrorism" includes only violence committed by dark-skinned evil-doers, acting without the blessing of the US government.

From Bell's interviews with Sgt. Moris, who was blinded by that grenade:

"I haven't had a chance to look at it," Sgt. Morris, who lives in Utah, said of the video, "but I guess my thoughts are that if I'm ever in trouble, that's a bunch of defence attorneys that I'd like.

"They don't seem to be doing a whole lot of lawyering work. It's mostly PR work. And so it's kind of troublesome that the other side of the story has to be continually told in the media just to counter what the lawyers are trying to do in public."

Fortunately, courageous reporters like Stewart Bell are telling that story, giving hope and comfort to all those with paranoid delusions.