Right to a Fair Trial, Whenever It Suits You

I suppose when you're an aging white woman who can cry on demand, you are afforded more privileges than an Arab-Canadian who has lived out his teenage years in captivity. Of course, like the schoolyard bully in gradeschool, Canada was in more of a position to throw its weight around, and move Brenda Martin out of the country where she was actually afforded a fair trial, bring her home, and bail her out. But when the other bully on the playground is bigger and older than you, you just sit back and do what they tell you so you can keep up your rep.

The U.S. is at the point now where they have to keep their war-criminals prisoners of war 'enemy combatants' (the first two terms would seem to have actually given those people rights on an international level) locked away just to keep those who used to in fact just go about their lives taking care of their families and livelihoods from going and perpetrating acts of revenge against a nation that has locked them away for years with no recourse of any kind. I know I'd lose some of my passivity if I were locked away for 6 years with no just cause, and no way of defending myself.

I'm not saying these people need to be handed get out of jail free cards, as some of them may have indeed had ties to terrorist organizations, but the President of the United States in January, whether it be Obama, Clinton, or even McCain need to stand behind some kind of policy to deal with the prisoners like those at Guantanamo to expedite the trial process, and come into line with signed international treaties on the treatment of prisoners of war, as well as the treatment of child soldiers, for argument's sake, like Omar Khadr.

Steady as She Goes

I've been semi-busy making steady progress on the renovations, while dropping more money than I'd initially expected. In the end it will be worth it though for having insulation in some of the walls, setting it in a class nearly of its own compared with the rest of the house. The rest of the walls in time too will need to be torn down and insulation put in. With the old plaster walls it'd be too difficult to simply cut holes and have a company blow in loose fill insulation and patch up the walls so that they looked like the original again, which is both a pain in the ass, and an expensive proposition.

But with the closet already lined with cedar, and drywall hung from the ceiling, and the walls to go tomorrow, I can see the daylight. Some mudding, sanding, and trimming this week, and then with any luck painting next weekend, and I can move back into some normalcy.

In more relevant news, 6 more Canadians were killed this week, with another 4 injured this morning, in continuing the mission that we were never sent in the first place to do, but coerced into by the Bush administration's own 'sweet' talking. And of all the most ridiculous things I've seen written, Harper has the audacity to say that 'now is not the time to politicize the mission'. On the contrary, it is the absolutely most critical time to politicize the mission and have the opposition make an actual assertive move to bring Canadians home from a war that never truly was about keeping the peace. Instead of sitting on their hands, passing motions of 'desire' to have troops moved out in 2009 or beyond, some action needs to be taken. The deaths of more soldiers shouldn't be cause for us to hush up and unquestioningly accept the bullshit that's fed to the people, and in particular the soldiers of this country, it should be cause for outcry. Or, we could just don our favourite cowboy hats and boots and head on down to the Calgary Stampede for some boot-scootin', and forget that whole 'Afghanistan' thing. Yee-haw!