Hudson Jones

What's next? Saudi Arabia condemning the U.S. for the wage gap between men and women? Maybe Venezuela will condemn the U.S. for irresponsible government spending? Or Iran will condemn the U.S. for media censorship?

In taking the first step to understand the Israeli Palestinian conflict, many immediately realizes that they must very carefully navigate this highly contentious ground, in fear of being mislabeled anti-Semitic. The mere questioning of Israel and its political agenda can lead to aggressive attacks, leaving one momentarily stunned and confused. This type of rhetoric, commonly used by Zionists, has its foundation in “collective victimhood”, an extremely effective means of ignoring and denying political and social responsibility. Jewish Zionists, as claiming to speak on behalf of all Jews, assert that their historical suffering and the continued prejudice against Jews world-wide places them in a position through which they must maintain and protect their Jewish nation at whatever costs they deem necessary. Unfortunately, this ideology creates the distorted mentality that Israel has ultimate political immunity and that any attack against Israel is an attack on all Jewish people. By looking at the psychology behind “collective victimhood”, one can gain a more comprehensive understanding of what is often happening when someone accuses you of anti-Semitism.

Why are there so many people in here who are against the rule of law and our charter?

Agreed.

There are thousands of cases where people have been given a sum of money by the government when the government was complicit in their rights being violated.

This is not a reward for his actions. This is a reward for his rights being violated. If the Canadian government did not fuck up and was not complicit in his rights being violated, there would be no payout + the millions that has been spent in legal fees. This is not about how we feel, but about what the law says. The Canadian government was complicit in the violation and now the taxpayers will have to pay for it. If this dragged on any more, the payout would have been larger and the legal fees would have been more.

Khadr was paid $10.5 because Trudeau had no choice. If Trudeau had waited any longer, the civil suit would have led to a larger payout + the millions more in legal fees that the taxpayers would have had to pay. People need to stop whining about the inevitable and be happy that the amount paid ended up being less than what it would have cost if this dragged longer.

Sure. I guess we can all claim anything we want on here. I realize you have a response to every comment. It doesn't make what you say, correct. I don't have the patience to sit here and take apart your comments. This is torture and what you're trying to excuse, against a 15 year old: While he was at Guantanamo, Omar was beaten in the head, nearly suffocated, threatened with having his clothes taken indefinitely and, as at Bagram, lunged at by attack dogs while wearing a bag over his head. “Your life is in my hands,” an intelligence officer told him during an interrogation in the spring of 2003. During the questioning, Omar gave an answer the interrogator did not like. He spat in Omar’s face, tore out some of his hair and threatened to send him to Israel, Egypt, Jordan or Syria — places where they tortured people without constraints: very slowly, analytically removing body parts. The Egyptians, the interrogator told Omar, would hand him to Askri raqm tisa — Soldier Number Nine. Soldier Number Nine, the interrogator explained, was a guard who specialized in raping prisoners. Omar’s chair was removed. Because his hands and ankles were shackled, he fell to the floor. His interrogator told him to get up. Standing up was hard, because he could not use his hands. When he did, his interrogator told him to sit down again. When he sat, the interrogator told him to stand again. He refused. The interrogator called two guards into the room, who grabbed Omar by the neck and arms, lifted him into the air and dropped him onto the floor. The interrogator told them to do it again — and again and again and again. Then he said he was locking Omar’s case file in a safe: Omar would spend the rest of his life in a cell at Guantanamo Bay. Several weeks later, a man who claimed to be Afghan interrogated Omar. He wore an American flag on his uniform pants. He said his name was Izmarai — “lion” — and he spoke in Farsi and occasionally in Pashto and English. Izmarai said a new prison was under construction in Afghanistan for uncooperative Guantanamo detainees. “In Afghanistan,” Izmarai said, “they like small boys.” He pulled out a photograph of Omar and wrote on it, in Pashto, “This detainee must be transferred to Bagram.” Whether we want to described him as a "terrorist" or a "child soldier," he was and is a Canadian citizen with rights. And, as determined by no less than the Supreme Court of Canada, the Canadian government was complicit in the violation of those rights.

His family took him abroad. He didn't have control over this. His father did. Why argue otherwise?

You have every right to go into a rant without showing any facts. Khadr was put into a situation where he had no control. Just like child soldiers you see in Africa. For a so-called lawyer, it's interesting to see how you try to devalue the law and instead replace it with emotional rants. And so what? You have? What is your point anyway? What does this have to do with our commitment to our laws and the charter? Why do you promote breaking our laws?

If it was Khadr's father, okay. But Khadr was a child soldier who confessed under torture.

The widow and family of Christopher Speer have been awarded $134-million (U.S.) by a U.S. court in a ruling alleging Khadr killed the American soldier and partially blinded another. That Speer was killed while serving his country is a tragic loss. But why would his family be entitled to such a massive sum? Speer was killed in battle, he was not murdered in his bed. If Speer’s loss is worth $134-million, why wouldn't the deaths of every one of the Canadian soldiers killed in Afghanistan be worth the same?

To call Khadr a terrorist or murderer is ludicrous in the extreme – the incident that led to his capture was clearly a firefight with distinct combatants on both sides. Nobody was out to terrorize anybody.

You just said you believe in "Law and Order". You either do or you don't. It sounds like you are being selective.

It was more than just sleep deprivation. Regardless, I'm sure you know this: UN torture report condemns sleep deprivation among US detainees In a review of the human rights record of the US, the first of its kind since 2006, the world body’s committee against torture has slammed the country for its ongoing violations of international treaties. Link I was responding to BushCheney's earlier comment about his support for UN resolutions. But that's okay. With your "non-binding" comment, it's obvious that you're here to condone torture of children. Much like you have done in the past when this was brought up: Israel Tortures Palestinian Children.

I thought you supported UN Resolutions. UN Resolutions and charters do not recognize "illegal combatants" and would certainly not support imprisoning and torturing a child. Inconsistency.

Oh? Suddenly a give a shit about UNSC Resolutions? What was Khadr then? A combatant? A child soldier? Or something else someone made up to excuse taking a child into prison and torture?

The title of this thread is either disingenuous or it's made out of ignorance. There was no "payoff". Canadian courts ruled three times that the Canadian government broke the law when it came to handling Khadr. Trudeau had to clean up Harper and Martin's shit. The question is whether or not people will be able to understand what really happened or continue with the wrong narrative that August and some others keep repeating. The Conservatives don't need any specific reason to dislike Trudeau, besides the simplistic US vs THEM corner they've pit themselves in. I suspect that Trudeau's brand will be damaged among some of the groups who supported him. He has failed to deliver a few key promises, like: 1) electoral reforms, 2) fixing the environmental assessment process that Harper gutted, 3) phasing out $3 billion+ fossil fuel subsidies

Khadr’s chief 'interrogator' was Joshua Claus. Who is Joshua Claus? In 2005, Mr. Claus accepted a plea bargain before a court martial, where he admitted to forcing water down a detainee’s throat, twisting a hood over his head until he choked, and to abuse of an Afghan taxi driver who died in custody from his injuries. Mr. Claus was discharged from the army. During his testimony, when asked whether he shone excruciatingly bright lights in Mr. Khadr’s eyes after surgery on those eyes, whether he put a bag over Mr. Khadr's head and choked him, whether he threw him off a hospital stretcher hours after major surgery, whether he bound Mr. Khadr’s hands over his head and hung them from the ceiling for hours, whether he subjected him to prolonged sleep deprivation and stress positions, whether he threatened Mr. Khadr with rape in a U.S. prison by “big black men,” Mr. Claus mostly shook his head, or smirked and replied that he couldn’t remember. What would you confess if you got to hang out with Joshua Claus? Especially if you are a child? Another thing that bothers me about the approach some are taking is the strange double standards many have. Why is the U.S. military allowed to kill people, like Khadr, but Khadr and the others he was with are not allowed to? Did Speers kill anyone during the fire fight? Would he be charged for it if he did? What about the thousands of innocent civilians who have been killed by U.S. and ally military? How many times have they been convicted for murder for killing innocent civilians? The Canadian government should have absolutely apologized to Khadr and the compensation is just a drop for what they allowed to continue. I mean, even after the U.S. said that they are willing to return Khadr, the Canadian government REFUSED to take the child. Canada was complicit in the commission of grave human rights violations against Khadr at the hands of foreign governments, and did nothing to protect him.

Even though I don't agree with kicking them out, this story is not so one-sided. Not sure if you caught the following in the article: “This decision was made after they repeatedly expressed support for Zionism during conversations with Chicago Dyke March Collective members. We have since learned that at least one of these individuals is a regional director for A Wider Bridge, an organization with connections to the Israeli state and right-wing pro-Israel interest groups.” “The Chicago Dyke March Collective is explicitly not anti-Semitic, we are anti-Zionist,” the statement added. “The Chicago Dyke March Collective supports the liberation of Palestine and all oppressed people everywhere.” And this: March organizers also posted a message from a Jewish marcher who said she was saddened that the Dyke March was “being labeled as anti-Semitic.” “I want to speak to other Jews and say that firstly — saying you’re ‘not Zionist’ as a way to justify an allegiance to something or to not be critical of Zionism is not the same as being anti-Zionist, and is actually a position of neutrality which means being uncritical of the state of Israel,” Carrie Kaufman wrote. “It is very important that American Jews understand how this symbol and the idea that white European Jews are entitled to Israel have been used to fuel a colonialist state where Palestinian people are robbed of their rights, dignity, and lives on their own land.” If Zionism cannot support a Palestinian State and human rights for Palestinians, then it's understandable why some people would disagree with the ideology. If you're going to trample all over another group of people to have a home for a specific group of people, then what you're doing is wrong.

The boogyman is always the excuse to go in there and blow shit up. Communists? Terrorists? There is always an excuse. It's too bad there are so many who fall for the excuses and continuously try to cover the atrocities that are committed by West's foreign policy, which is highly influenced by the military industrial complex, oil companies and foreign governments like Israel and more recently, Saudi Arabia. I think we should leave these people alone. Give them some time and let them figure shit out. When we prop up dictators and blow shit up, creating chaos, we obstruct development of economy, science, human rights and culture in general. We have been pushing development and cultures back by generations with our actions in the Middle East in the past century. These countries never get a chance to flourish and we, the West are complicit in that.

Al Jazeera is one of the best news sources out there. Besides all the awards they have won for journalism and broadcasting, you just have to look at who hates them to know they must be doing something good to be pissing off these actors: Governments of Saudi Arabia, Israel, Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Mahmoud Abbas, ISIS, Neo-cons, Al Qaeda, etc. Here is a link to the list of awards won until 2015. They've won several awards at the New York Festivals, including broadcaster of the year. They also won the big prizes at The National Union of Journalists this year. They only knock on them, in my opinion, is that they self-censor when it comes to the Qatari government.

The way the corrupt Clintonite Nancy Pelosi and the Israeli Fifth Column Chuck Schumer have sat upon DNC and choked life out of it Bernie Sanders is barking up the wrong tree --this party is irredeemable--the high-profile special election in Georgia’s 6th District is a wake up call-- but is Sanders waking up? Or is he too busy signing ridiculous petitions that UN is too harsh on Israel!

We weren't really fighting ISIS before. In fact, ISIS never existed until we (the barbarians) went into Iraq and created the perfect situation for them to come to be. So we created a fire and now, we are unsuccessfully trying to put it out. Also, haha @ praising GWB. That's the icing on the cake.

The barbarians at the door? Whose door? Iraq's door? Libya's door? Afghanistan's door? Sudan? Yemen? Syria? Bolivia? Iran? Vietnam? Korea? Yes. Those barbarians are always at some door.