Tuesday, July 18, 2017

Stephen Harper and the Treason of the Cons



When Stephen Harper stumbled into the night after his humiliating election defeat at the hands of Justin Trudeau, I thought it would be a long long time before we saw or heard from him again.

And for almost two years that seemed to be the case, as he kept a very low profile, or only came out after midnight.

But now the Omar Khadr settlement has roused him from his crypt.

And he's back and as ugly as ever.



Not just claiming he had nothing to do with the size of that settlement, which is both laughable and monstrous at the same time.

But also clearly demonstrating that he cares more about the hurt feelings of an American soldier, than he cares about the human rights of a young Canadian. 

Upset about the Liberal government’s $10.5-million settlement with Khadr, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s predecessor picked up the phone Wednesday and called American soldier Layne Morris at his home in Utah.


Even though Harper tortured that child soldier for years, by keeping him in that hell hole called Guantanamo, instead of repatriating him like other countries did their prisoners.

And both Harper and Layne Morris seem to have conveniently forgotten what happened at Khadr's kangaroo trial. 



Prosecutors said Khadr, who is now 21, was the only person alive at the compound (which had been hit by U.S. air strikes), and so was the only person who could have thrown the grenade that fatally wounded Speer.

On Monday, reporters attending the tribunal were handed a packet of pretrial motions by a spokesperson for the Office of Military Commissions, which included previously classified testimony by an unnamed witness who said Khadr wasn't the only living person at the scene, and may not even have been in a position to throw a grenade at all.

When the Pentagon mistakenly released information it was trying to cover-up, and surprised everyone including Layne Morris.

The revelation shocked a former Green Beret, who was blinded in one eye during that 2002 firefight. "Everyone had told me from the get-go that there was only one guy in there," Layne Morris told the Toronto Star from his Utah home.

And from the testimony of OC-1, the soldier who shot the wounded Khadr in the back, in what was clearly a war crime, one really has to wonder whether one can trust anything Morris says, when so much was covered up.



“He told the judge, the firefight is what he would refer to as a clusterfuck. He enters the compound, shoots one man in the head, sees Omar with his back to him and facing a wall – Omar is screaming from his injuries from the bombing – and OC-1 shoots him twice in the back. OC-1 then exits the alley. In doing so he hears a grenade being thrown. He does not see who threw it.

He (Morris) claimed he was partially blinded in one eye by shrapnel from the grenade which killed Speer even though he was airlifted out with a bleeding nose hours before Speer was killed. Morris retired at 40 and has since been a media favourite for providing testimony against Omar, a child and man he never met.

And when Morris accuses Justin Trudeau of treason.



“I don’t see this as anything but treason,” said Morris. “It’s something a traitor would do. As far as I am concerned, Prime Minister Trudeau should be charged.”

Even though Trudeau couldn't have acted in a more decent and Canadian manner.

“When governments violate Canadians’ fundamental rights, there have to be consequences and we hope that the message going forward to all future governments is: you can not ignore or be complicit in the violation of Canadians fundamental rights, regardless of what they did,” said Trudeau.

One also can't help but wonder whether by reaching out to stroke a man like Morris, Stephen Harper is the one who should be jailed for treason...



For putting the hurt feelings of Americans before the human rights of Canadians, and for having violated the laws of human decency over and over again.

And while we're at it, what are we supposed to do with the pseudo "progressives" who keep claiming that Trudeau is worse than Harper?

And by so doing are actively working to advance the interests of this sinister religious fanatic...



Even though Andrew Scheer is also more American than Canadian, and could very well turn out to be even worse than his mentor Harper.

Oh well, I'll deal with those Con collaborators when I return, and expose them for what they really are.

For what seems to be only too obvious from where I stand, is that Canada is in danger of sliding back into another Night of the Living Dead...



What the reaction to the Khadr settlement clearly demonstrates is the bestial nature of the Harper Party.

Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer immediately called the action "disgusting" and a "secret deal" — the latter, of course, playing to the rightist notion that hidden elites plan and plot behind our backs.

He also said, "This payout is a slap in the face to men and women in uniform who face incredible danger every day to keep us safe," when it has nothing whatsoever to do with our military and, if anything, in confirming the rule of law and human rights goes to the very heart of what our soldiers fight to maintain.


Which leads to the greater question of when did Canadian conservatism become this harsh, thoughtless, extreme and — well — American?


And with the next election campaign about to begin in the fall, I won't stand for that.

I know traitors when I see them, or smell them.

And this blog was, is, and will always be.

A proud voice of the Canadian Resistance...

18 comments:

Anonymous said...

Simon, great article. I feel as though this creeper Scheer will be way worse than Harper.
Also, I don't know if you noticed, but Michelle Rempel was on Fox last night trying to drum up outrage right before NAFTA negotiations. Fucking traitor.

Anonymous said...

You left out one important fact: Christopher Speer was white. Do you honestly think that Harper and Scheer would be acting like they are had Speer had black, Hispanic or Muslim?

Anonymous said...

Remember when the Harper Cons whined and snivelled when ANY opposition MP dare criticize them when outside of Canada? They demanded blind fealty back then. Now this prick picks up the phone to publicly fellate this American liar. Fucking thin-skinned, snowflake, chickenhawk. Typical of Harper and his minions.

Anonymous said...

how ironic, the closet coward Harper talking to someone in the military as though he stands in solidarity with them.. When adversity came, Harper showed his true colours by hiding in a closet like a frightened little girl, and the MSM mostly gave him pass on it.

Steve said...

Yeah its treason in the intellectual sense. Trashing your own country to make political hay back home. Shameless

Anonymous said...

I'm not even from Canada, but the prospect of a Trump/Harper (or Trump/Scheer, even Pence/Scheer) partnership terrifies me. Justin is being crucified -- in his homeland of "polite" Canada, of all places -- over doing the right thing for a child victim of America's longest and arguably most unjust war. Wouldn't you know it, Canada gets as their leader a floppy-haired bohemian hippie feminist born on Dec 25 who adores his mother and welcomes the stranger. But he fuddle-duddled once again, angering the masses by asking them to take the planks out of their eyes, their fingers out of their ears, and other blockages out of their posterior orifices (the latter, albeit, in the politest way possible). But as usual, humanity keeps proving over and over again that they are Just Not Ready™.

America wasn't ready for John and Bobby or Jimmy and Barack either. Now it looks like even Canada is being dragged down to the same level as their southern neighbor of Mar-a-Gehenna, complete with the drunken orange elephant stomping around and crushing the mouse (or moose). Wow. We really can't have nice things -- or nice people -- can we?

Jaundiced Eye said...

My take on Khadr: by every measure of ordinary citizens' opinions I've encountered, by far most support the court decision to compensate Khadr, whether on comment boards, radio phone-in shows, social occasions, or at the coffee shop. Sure, a lot of leeway, one way or another, appends to this commentary, but all agree that the Constitution trumps any of that, and that the willful state violation of the Constitution in Kahdr's case warranted the compensation to him, as it would and should to any citizen so victimized.

Those who put---and even measure---partisanship ahead of rights guaranteed in the Constitution consist of the usual political suspects in the withering nominal party of the right and, conspicuously, MSM editorial. Added together as they rightly should be (FTP), they're still shrinking as each other's proxy.

Their hatefulness isn't registering as prosletyzation, but rather appears to be the kind of support-group reassurance and mythologizing of their "cause" which increasingly takes on tones of the "redoubter" movement, so-called in the States where it assumes overtones of Mormon mythology: tactical withdrawal to a divinely revealed redoubt where the cystic righteous may recuperate from supposed injustices done to them, and prepare for the grander strategy of eventual restoration to their self-appointed heroic dominion.

It's said, within their remote wagon lager, that the blessed feast will be served and best eaten cold.

Simon said...

Hi anon...thanks, I shouldn't be blogging because I'm supposed to be on holiday, but the way the Cons are politicizing a human rights issue is simply disgusting. Trust me, Scheer does have the potential to be worse than Harper, more on that when I get back. And yes, I did see that Michelle Rempel has disgraced herself again. If anybody still thought she had any class, now they know better...

Simon said...

Hi anon...I don't know how the Cons would have reacted if Speer had been black. But I'm pretty sure that if Omar Khadr had been blond and blue-eyed he would have been repatriated about one month after he was shot...

Simon said...

Hi anon...I feel the same way you do. The Khadr settlement has nothing to do with any Americans, and everything to do with the rights of a child soldier being repeatedly violated by his own government. But then the Harper Cons are now the Trump Cons and capable of anything...

Simon said...

Hi anon...yes it is ironic isn't it? Harper liked to pose as a Great Warrior Leader, but I thought the Battle of the Closet had laid that myth to rest. All I can think is that his pathetic new campaign is just an attempt to drum up business in the U.S. For he was always more American than he was Canadian...

Simon said...

Hi Steve....you said it. Trashing your own country to score cheap political points is absolutely shameless, and if there is any justice should haunt him forever...

Simon said...

Hi anon...it is indeed a depressing situation. A decent prime minister is being attacked for doing the right, decent and Canadian thing. But don't worry, the more Canadians understand why the government had to pay Omar for violating his rights, and safeguarding our own, the sooner this foul storm or stench in a tea cup will dissipate. The religious fanatic Scheer and his creepy Cons are only digging their own graves, and we are going to bury them...

Simon said...

Hi Geoffrey....well said, and I completely agree with your reasoning. I believe a lot of Canadians resented having to pay such a large settlement, but the more they understand who is to blame, and how the payment will serve to protect Canadians from any government that violates their rights as egregiously as they did those of Omar Khadr, most of the sound and fury will disappear as quickly as a morning mist. And when the right-wingers overplay their hand, as they always do, the issue will instead combine to bite them in the ass..

Anonymous said...

The great oily Messiah needs extra income to keep up with the Bushes so in true Con fashion he has to scavenge for any political road kill he might find. Unfortunately he is not alone which begs the question. How many Con Buzzards can be fed on the tortured remains of one child soldier? I suspect not many so unlike Buzzards that only scavenge, they are desperate to create more road kill in a world that seems rife with opportunity.
RT

hinofan said...

Thanks for putting the facts about Omar Khadr's capture out there.
Harper has a nerve playing again to the zombie con mob.
Another of his many crimes against Canada was the dismantling of the Canadian Wheat Board which supplied the Port of Churchill with grain shipments which kept Canada's ONLY Arctic port viable.
Now OmniTrak , the US corporation that leases the rail line to that port, is begging the provincial and federal governments for repair money after "1 in 200 year" floods last spring damaged some of the line rendering it non operable.
Apparently the line does not generate enough revenue to maintain it after those grain shipments halted.
It kind of makes our claim "From Sea to SEA to Sea" a bit awkward.
For all Harper's talk of Arctic sovereignty he even inadvertently bungled that with his sell off of the Canadian Wheat Board.
A head's up for Saturday when the Virgin Cowboy unites the Right in Alberta.
Have a deep fried Mars Bar for me.

jrkrideau said...

I was a little taken aback by the amount but first abandoning a 15-year-old Canadian citizen to be tortured by a foreign power and then acquiescing in the torture by sending intelligence agents to interview a tortured prisoner is not exactly good behaviour by our government.

And we need to pay for the sheer vindictiveness of the Harper Government when Khadr finally got repatriated. Anyone with a shred of intelligence—that is, not a Con— could see that the entire US military tribunal mock trial was rigged. Heck, there were probably more kangaroos in Cuba than Australia during that farce, err, tribunal.

BTW, in following some of your links I found Dr. Sageman's letter https://freeomarakhadr.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/dr-sageman-letter.pdf regarding the "expert" witness who testified about Khadr's mental state. I had, earlier, read the "expert's" testimony and realized that it was total garbage but it is nice to has a real expert confirm just what bit of scum the "expert' is.

Anonymous said...

The Rebel is trying to raise a million dollars for the Speer kids. Where is Sleeping Giants on this one? Surely they can get Indiegogo to shut down the fundraising campaign from the Wacist Webel!