A burger? oh, the national culinary shame...

[fajrdrako]

Further good news about the return of Kevin Yourdkhani to Canada. He's the nine-year-old Canadian who was held in a 'detention centre' in Texas for six weeks.

Comments

[darthhellokitty.livejournal.com]

What a mess all around! Even if the parents screwed up with phony passports, the boy should've been allowed to go to relatives or family friends back in Canada. Why punish him?

Yet another way my country makes itself look stupid... You'd THINK we'd done enough of that to last YEARS!

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately there seems to be no limit to the ways a country can screw up, and it seems that the bigger and more powerful a country can be, the bigger and more disastrous its screw-ups.

There are nine year old boys in the world in worse situations than Kevin's - not too many of them Canadian, I hope - but this seems so preventable, one of those things that just should not have happened.

[benbenberi.livejournal.com]

It's just a shame there isn't a similar happy chapter-ending for the other children, equally innocent, who are still trapped there.

I hate the things that are done in my country's name. Darnit, we're supposed to be the Good Guys.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

It's just a shame there isn't a similar happy chapter-ending for the other children, equally innocent, who are still trapped there.

So true. It doesn't matter who they are or why they're there or what their stories are - they shouldn't need to be there, they shouldn't have to suffer that kind of conditions. Kevin was lucky to have Canadian citizenship and a good lawyer and a publicity.

we're supposed to be the Good Guys.

It used to be that I had some faith in that - that the US, though maybe not perfect, stood for the right sorts of things. It' disillusioning to see how far things have decayed, so fast.

[duncanmac.livejournal.com]

It's disillusioning to see how far things have decayed, so fast.

No kidding. Some of this has been going for a while ... remember My Lai and the Watergate scandal? What bothers me is that, if something like the Watergate scandal occurred nowadays in either the US or Canada, the press would meekly bow to a government coverup (or so my cynical mind suspects).

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

remember My Lai and the Watergate scandal?

Yes, of course, and so it has always been, but I see a huge difference. Those events were treated as anomalies - the law was broken, they were huge scandals leading to indictment.

Now? Incarceration without trial is legal. Torture of prisoners is legal. It's normal operating procedure - no legal problem if the victims are not American citizens, or if they are American citizens, no problem if they are 'a possible terrorist threat' or possible collaborators with those who are terrorist threats... and no need to define "terrorist threat".

There's where I see the big difference. They don't even bother to try covering it up, because it's all part of their policy. Nothing covert about it. It's all in the name of the greater national good, whatever word they use for it - national security or anti-terrorism or military necessity.