Double Disgrace

“The fact that a foreign state paid a bounty for the apprehension of a Canadian citizen abroad and that Canadian officials were aware of it at an early stage is also a matter in which the public would have a legitimate interest.” - Canadian Federal Court Justice Richard Mosley

From Dawn and the Globe and Mail.

It's unfortunate to see the Pakistani Army reduced to being bounty hunters for the U.S. of A., chasing down Canadians.

Meanwhile, Abdullah Khadr's brother spends his 6th year imprisoned in Guantanimo Bay, where he has been since he was 16. Canada is the only non-Muslim-majority country with a citizen in Guantanimo Bay. For Stephen Harper, though, some of us are more "Canadian" than others.

The implications of this sort of thing are far-reaching. Most people know that Benazir Bhutto was assassinated earlier this year, but don't know what set the stage for the political crisis that still grips the country. It started when a certain Chief Justice began demanding that the Pakistani government produce people whom it had "disappeared" without charge, again in the name of the "War on Terror." I have written before on what followed.

The political deadlock over the judiciary in Pakistan today is therefore a direct product of the role that the Pakistani government has been pressed into since 2001, which its military arm is only beginning to escape from - the bounty hunter captures Canadians, but he kills Pakistanis.