Omar Khadr's Sister, Zaynab Khadr, on Hunger Strike, Parliament Hill, Canada

I spoke with Omar Khadr's older sister Zaynab, today on Parliament Hill. She is on the seventh day of a hunger strike until the Canadian government makes a formal request to the United States government to demand the repatriation of Omar Khadr
(عمر أحمد خضر) to his home in Canada. To it's shame, Canada is the only country in the world that has not asked to have it's nationals in Guantanamo Bay returned.

Even if Khadr is guilty, which is doubtful, he was 15 years old at the time of the alleged (he has never been convicted) offence. Under the Child Soldier Protocol, which both the United States and Canada have ratified, combatants under age 18 cannot be held criminally responsible. The Protocol requires governments to help child soldiers who must be helped to recover and reintegrate into society. It does not specifically bar prosecution of child soldiers but says they should not be subjected to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, and that they cannot be subjected to life imprisonment without possibility of release. The United States government is seeking life imprisonment for Khadr in a trial which will take place this fall.

I asked her if she was in communication with her brother and she said they can send letters, but it takes a long time and that they are censored. She told me that she would remain on the hill, "as long as it takes".

We will be following this story as it develops so check back soon to read more.

Click here to visit the Khadr families blog and to read Zaynab's thoughts on her hunger strike.

Click here to read "The Unending Torture of Omar Khadr" in Rolling Stone magazine

Update: CBC television will be airing a documentary tonight (Oct. 16, 2008) on the upcoming trial of Omar Khadr.

Update 2: I visited Zaynab again today. She is in good spirits but a little tired and weak. She has not been spoken to by any official, although a few good Canadians took it upon themselves to suggest that she "go back where she came from", not knowing or caring that she, as she told me, was born in Ottawa, so is "as home as I will ever be". She did say that most people were friendly and kind. As we talked she was making simple black felt ribbons with the name "Omar" in white. Zaynab told that me she is afraid that Omar will spend the rest of his life in prison.

Is Civil War Coming to America?

Are the people who support Sarah Palin any different? No, the crowd of Palin supporters in the video below represents the absolute worst of America, the bottom feeders, the creationists, haters, bigots, and maniacs. What struck me is the obvious lack of intellect of the people in the video. I wonder how many in that mob could actually define the word "terrorist" let alone "socialism"? There have always been idiots and yahoos in politics, what's new is the way the Palin/McCain ticket is pandering to them in an apparent attempt to create the conditions for social unrest in America. The title for this post is deliberately provocative, but it is a genuine possibility. Given the apparent seething, roiling hatred we see in this video, I cannot see Obama having any success in his presidency. It is obvious that from the day he takes office he will be under constant vicious attack from people that I can only describe as genuine enemies, not political foes, not opponents, but enemies. The only question is when will the real violence begin?


Update:

I didn't think it could much worse than the hatred and stupidity evinced in the videos above, but it gets worse... The only other question I have, is why do we have to hear about this stuff from Al Jazeera and not CNN?

John McCain's "serious but so far undisclosed ailments"

According to the erstwhile journalist Eric Margolis, a close friend of McCain's has revealed that McCain has a serious undisclosed illness. Completely unsurprisingly, given the control the oligarchy has over the MSM, you will be hard pressed to find another reference to this report in the corporate media - this despite the fact that the health of a Presidential candidate, is an important issue. Now if his choice for VP was someone competent, serious and intelligent, the fact that he will probably die in office -- might not be so troubling. But as has been amply documented elsewhere, Foxy Palin is an intellectual lightweight, has no relevant experience and has extreme religious beliefs -- there is also very troubling evidence of corruption and a strong tendency toward authoritarianism.

Foxy's relative merits aside, it is bizarre in the extreme that roughly half of America is considering McCain as President. We live in an increasingly complex, technological world, yet McCain does not use a computer! I could not imagine running my business or even my personal life without a computer, yet McCain wants us to believe he can run the country/planet using quill pens, tom tom drums, and carrier pigeons!

McCain's gaffes about the "country"of Czechoslovakia et al, his history as a Viet Cong mouthpiece, (his VC nickname was "Songbird"), his health, his history as a member of the Keating five, and his untreated Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome are extremely troubling, in fact they should be giant red flags to any thinking American. And now we have this interview with Spanish television that shows a man not fit to run a hardware store.

Prosecute George Bush for Murder -- New Site Sends Bugliosi Book to Federal Prosecutors

Vincent Bugliosi, the man who prosecuted Charlie Manson, says in his new book, "The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder" that any Federal DA who has a soldier in his district who has been killed in Iraq, has a perfectly good case for murder given that buhs lied America into war. Unsurprisingly, no DA in America has had the decency, sense, or the gumption to do so. Fed up with this lack of action, Bob Alexander has set up a web site where you can buy a copy of Vinnie's book and have it sent to one of the 2700 federal prosecutors in America in the hope, (faint?) that one of them will get up on their hind legs and take a run at it. It's farking brilliant. We'll see what happens.

If you want to contribute -- please visit the site. Your $15 may be the $15 that finally brings a monster -- who is in the same league as Pol Pot and Saddam Hussein... to justice.

http://prosecutegeorgebush.com/

*UPDATE*
Sept. 20, 2008

Vermont Candidate Pledges to Prosecute Bush

By Greg Guma, Maverick Media, Toward Freedom

Charlotte Dennett, who entered the race for Vermont Attorney General this week, readily admits that it will be an uphill battle. But the Vermont Progressive Party’s candidate does have one thing going for her – an issue with the potential to mobilize voters upset about the Iraq War. At her first press conference, sitting next to renowned prosecutor and author Vincent Bugliosi, she pledged to prosecute George W. Bush for murder if elected and appoint Bugliosi as a special pros.ecutor to take on the job

http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/36085

No Politics today, just Maniacs

Have you ever wanted to say "screw it" and jump off a really high cliff into some whitewater - just to see if you live?

Maybe you've had the impulse to run across a freeway, blindfolded, at rush hour? These guys didn't just dream about it they did it.

They jumped into the darkness and they lived - even though they probably shouldn't have. Are they nuts? Are they stupid? Are they too young to know that they can die? You bet! But for a while they were more alive than most of us will ever be.


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Mike Malloy's Anti-Obama Rant

Paul Peete at HuffPo wrote the following about some comments that Mike Malloy made on his radio show...

"The first traitor to the Democratic Presidential nominee with a national microphone made his move to support McCain and urge others to do so. On his radio show , billed as "Speaking Truth to Power," Mike Malloy abandoned all progressive logic as he spent his entire show in a rant against Barack Obama to the amazement of listeners and those who have heard him push for Obama's election. Citing Obama's vote in favor of the FISA law and change of heart on allowing off-shore drilling, Malloy said that Obama would not be able to bring about the change that he has championed and that those who follow him through eight years of failure will allow the Republican fascism to point to that failure as evidence that the government the Republicans have put in place by the Bush/Cheney cannot be undone.

To satisfy his predominantly progressive audience's need to have him not completely go GOP, Malloy stated that he wants Americans to elect a Democratic Congress so that they can have a veto proof majority for, in his reasoning, the President does not pass laws and does not declare wars. So where has he been burying his head while Bush/Cheney set in motion all of the predicates for the current energy gouging and war on a nation that neither attacked us, nor had the capability of doing so.
I never heard of Paul Peete, but I know Mike Malloy, and he is no "traitor" to progressive or liberal causes. His comments about Obama are NOT being correctly interpreted by Peete -- I assume deliberately or as a consequence of his lack of mental acuity.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Malloy is simply taking the long view -- something that the justifiably disillusioned yet over-excited liberal dreamers seem incapable of doing. Obama will fail, and he will fail on many levels, this is his intended role in the great American political psycho-drama as written by the oligarchy.

When I say fail, I mean fail in the sense that he will NOT bring about change, there is no "hope", in fact, I have not heard him say anything that makes me think that there will be change -- nor has he said anything that would give me "hope" -- unless you consider his promises to support Israel unconditionally and to bomb Iran and Pakistan unless they bend to his will, hopeful.

Americans are being suckered again. Obama will change nothing, the depth, breadth and extent of the problems facing America, exceed his capacity to correct, even if we accept the dubious premise that he actually wants to.

Electing McSame with a Dem majority in the House and Senate -- as Mike Malloy suggests, is in fact the best way forward; it's the long view, it's the smart approach -- it is not "traitorous" Mr. Peete, have you even listened to single hour of Mike Malloy's show?