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.
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).
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.
no subject
Date: 2007-03-24 03:16 am (UTC)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).
no subject
Date: 2007-03-24 01:25 pm (UTC)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.