CSIS Director Richard Fadden Patronizes Canadians
November 3rd, 2009 § 2 Comments
Richard Fadden, the newly appointed director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), recently stated that the Canadian media portrays terror suspects as “quasi-folk heroes” and that some Canadians wrongly believe that the Canadian government is “overreacting” when subjecting people to terror charges and policies. In his first public speech as the director, Fadden accused Canadians of being sympathetic to terror suspects while being too hard on their own government:
Almost any attempt to fight terrorism by the government is portrayed as an overreaction or an assault on liberty. It is a peculiar position, given that terrorism is the ultimate attack on liberties. If terrorists believe in anything, it is nihilism and death, and they are equal opportunity oppressors.
This is a curious claim to make, especially considering Fadden’s law degrees, without providing any supporting evidence. In response one could also argue that the Canadian government has done an outstanding job of attacking civil liberties on its own (see the case of Maher Arar who was tortured in Syria for more than 1 year after Canadian authorities erroneously informed US authorities that he was a terror suspect) while using Canadian tax dollars to pay for its mistakes when they could have been used to build better hospitals and more schools (Arar was given 10 million dollars in a settlement). Perhaps the Harper government’s decision to also spend more than 1.3 million Canadian tax dollars in “legal fees” to fight Judge James O’Reilly’s ruling that Canadian citizen Omar Khadr should be returned to his country of birth (Canada) and tried here is another reason why some Canadians don’t see eye to eye with their government.
Khadr was just 15 years old when he was apprehended in Afghanistan (badly wounded) after a firefight and ultimately taken to Guantánamo Bay prison where he sits to this day, now 22 years old. He was accused of throwing a grenade that killed a US soldier though the veracity of this claim has been repeatedly challenged by his lawyers. Unfortunately for Khadr and perhaps fortunately for people like Fadden, he has yet to be formally sentenced. Instead he has matured from a boy into a man in America’s most famous offshore detention centre (he also spent time in Bagram Theater Internment Facility which is also slowly rising in notoriety) with the Harper government’s blessings. The following is a short clip of one of Khadr’s meetings with a CSIS agent.
Contrary to what Fadden would like Canadians to believe, this is not a creation of the supposedly pro-terrorist Canadian media (an absurd accusation on its own), but one of the few instances where the public was allowed to see what transpires between a CSIS agent and a terror suspect. Khadr has repeatedly alleged that he has been subjected to both mental and physical torture and lifts up his shirt in the clip to show his deteriorated body (0:49) while crying. This clip is less than 10 minutes long but incredibly difficult to watch. Just imagine, Khadr has been enduring this and far worst situations for the past 7 years.
Earlier this year Canadian Justice O’Reilly declared that
the ongoing refusal of Canada to request Mr. Khadr’s repatriation to Canada offends a principle of fundamental justice and violates Mr. Khadr’s rights under s. 7 of the Charter.
O’Reilly ruled that the Harper government should request the return of Guantanamo Bay prisoner Omar Khadr to Canada because
Canada had a duty to protect Mr. Khadr from being subjected to any torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment, from being unlawfully detained, and from being locked up for a duration exceeding the shortest appropriate period of time. While Canada did make representations [to the U.S.] regarding his possible mistreatment, it also participated directly in conduct that failed to respect Mr. Khadr’s rights and failed to take steps to remove him from an extended period of unlawful detention among adult prisoners, without contact with his family. Canada had a duty to take all appropriate measures to promote Mr. Khadr’s physical, psychological and social recovery.
In response the Harper government is fighting with all its might to keep Khadr in US custody and Fadden is patronizing Canadians for refusing to consume his self-serving propoganda by the spoonful. This case is just one of several deplorable decisions made by the current government which mimic and in some ways surpass the notoriety of the Bush Administration policies with regards to its frivolous “war on terror.”
Is it the Canadian media that tells stories in a way that makes Canadians sympathetic to terror suspects or is it the government’s own actions against them (us)? You be the judge.
Unfortunately, as canadians, we are stuck with Harper and his gang for a while….and it appears he could get a mojority if elections were to be held. Since he has a minority gov. he can’t do all that he would want, thank god. But what he does get to do is scary enough. He would love to reign as supreme leader and answer to no one…
Harper is an extremist.