You know what’s most depressing about this story?

If you ask most Canadians…or just about anyone in the world who followed this story - to summarize the Meher Arrar story, they’ll tell you that an innocent Canadian was imprisoned and tortured in a Syrian prison because of the collusion of over-zealous American and possibly Canadian officials.

And what is the key learning drawn by this American report?

“The Arar case underscores a greater concern for the United States: the presence in Canada of numerous suspected terrorists and terrorist supporters.”

I can’t recall a time when the words “Go Fuck Yourselves” sprang more readily to mind.

The Bush regime doesn’t want friends; it wants sycophants.

“You’re either with us, or you’re with the terrorists.” Remember? There is no room in this view for legitimate differences of opinion or policy.

On the (slightly) brighter side, I’m sure there are similar reports coming out of the US State Dept. on every other nation friendly to the US, even the UK. Because, after all, none of us are sycophants, and the Bush regime is deranged.

Ya know what, Ti? I’m optomistic. Bush and his cronies only got voted in by very small majorities. Maybe they even stole those elections; who knows for sure?

In either case, I don’t think they speak for most of the American people. And given the stink of corruption I genuinely think they are on their way out. To prison, preferably. And I think the American people will do this.

Granted, I am, by ancestry, an American. My mother’s people came to Nova Scotia from Connecticut in the 1750s. My father’s mother’s people came here in 1776. I think we are all in the Americas working on one grand experiment in democracy, and even though the supposed grand democracy to the south gets sidetracked from time to time, they are a significant part of this grand experiment.

In my lifetime I expect to see the presidents of the US, Venezuela, Cuba, Brazil, Mexico, and the prime minister of Canada, all on the same stage, shaking hands and (hopefully) drinking beer together.

This is but a hiccup in history. It’s important to fight the hiccups, or you die. But I have a supply of paper bags that will keep the pulp and paper industry afloat for the forseeable future. :-)

“Canada does not have a problem with illegal immigrants and does not have problem with terrorism, international or…domestic”

Read Cold Terror by Stewart Bell. Then get back to me. You do not know of which you speak.

I can’t claim to have read the whole book. I’ve read several pieces excerpts, and Bell was widely interviewed following its publication. I had a few impressions:

- that Bell points to some realities of which most Canadians are largely ignorant: that there are Canadian organizations and communities with links to terrorist organizations. (That’s been the case for decades: there have been fundraisers in Catholic Church basements for various “benevolent organizations” in Ireland directly linked to the IRA for years.) If anyone is stupid enough to believe that Canada has no terrorists or terrorist connections within its borders, they should probably read it. (If they’re that stupid, however, they may need help).

- Having said that, I felt that that Bell, a National Post reporter, is a bit of an ideologue who was capitalizing on public fear. Some of the assertions I did read were poorly supported, or based on vague, undefined, or suspected “connections”.

….”poor asserted” sb “poor supported” Either too much coffee or not enough.

It’s an excellent strategy, though, similar to that adopted by the Chretien Government to help address child poverty in Canada: simply revise the terminology to exclude large parts of the problem area, and hey presto - problem solved! You can eliminate much of what’s wrong with US foreign policy by simply rewriting your definition of terms like “torture”, “civil war”, “terrorist”, “prisoner of war”, and so on: and it’s much easier than actually changing your policy.

I’m not buying that there are any more terrorists in Canada than there are right here in the good ol’ Hew Ess of A. That said, we are still a wee bit jumpy after 9/11. Surely, you can empathize with what that did to the national psyche. Imagine the same thing happening to Ottowa and Toronto.

The immigration problem in this country is very real, although it’s not a problem from our northern border, but the southern. It’s a huge strain on the infrastructure. The illegal immigrants get free medical services and free education, but pay no income taxes. It makes the taxes higher for the rest of us, to pay for the services for which we are not even eligible. Then, there is the problem of uninsured motorists. My son has had two MVAs with illegal immigrants (both of which were the other driver’s fault). Neither had insurance or a driver’s license. Guess whose insurance goes up?

I don’t have any solutions, but I think I could do better than Congress and the White House have. I have a great deal of sympathy for the immigrants. Most of them are just desperate for better lives for their families. We have to find some way to bring them into the mainstream.

1- Project New American Century was written in 1997
(”Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event — like a new Pearl Harbor.”)

2- stolen elections in 2000 (florida)

3- sept 11, 2001
(president bush writes in diary that night “the new pearl harbour has happen”)

4- within hours of the attacks bin laden is identified as the mastermind of the attacks, but has always denied it

5- bush regime demands the talibn to hand over bin laden, the taliban says it will, but requires proof that osama bin laden orchestrated the 9/11 attacks, bush refuses invades afghanistan

6- 1 year later, the bush regime invades iraq, scott ritter, chief u.n weapons inspecter, the downing street memo, leaked cia agent were all red flags that the bush regime was lying

7- no wmd’s in iraq

8- 2004 elections stolen (ohio)

9- the united states/ mexican border is WIDE OPEN
(just how serious about security are they?)

9/11 is a fraud, and this security issue is just to scare us into accepting the national id card, and accept a total big brother police state

the terrorist hate us for our freedoms–so we must give up our freedoms?–what bullshit

canada’s immigration system, what about the millions of people that cross over the u.s mexican border illegally?
if al cia duh was such a threat would the bush regime do something about that?