Canada's Shreiking Meemie

I just read a piece in the Toronto sun about Khadr, the Canadian child-mujaheddin who has been growing into adulthood in Gitmo for the last 8 years. The writer of the piece, one Ezra Levant, wonders why anybody could be feeling the least bit bad about Khadr since, according to Levant, he's been the recipient of all things good while he's been staying in that Caribbean workers' paradise. Levant would have us believe he's been molly-coddled, not only by overly kindly guards who attend zealously to his religious strictures in regard to prayer and feeding, but by the Canadian government's department of foreign affairs who send him regular "care packages" at taxpayer expense along with goodies provided by an admiring family. This little terrorist has had too many treats.

Levant describes the idyllic life  of  Khadr and his ilk, with opportunities for exercise, if they wish, and expensive high-fashion athletic footware, but also nintendo and electronic time-wasters laid on by caring Marines. No doubt he's an accomplished 'killer' at "COD5 Modern War".

How all this is known unto Ezra is probably due to his exposure to 'Fox-think' in the bastion of freedom. To round-off his little piece, Ezra spits out one last sunflower shell in the form of the arcane knowledge that the IEP that killed the first Canadian to die in Afghanistan was assembled by another 'child-terrorist'. How does he know that? The man is truly amazing.

How did Ezra get to be so smart, you might ask. Well, that was due to his upbringing. Ezra is the grandchild of Russian Jewish emigrants who homesteaded out to the Canadian west to find a new life. Whatever their new life was about, Ezra managed to attend Jewish school  and later took his degree in law from  the U. of Alberta. At a young age he developed a negative sensitivity for those who might get an easier (free?) ride due to their 'special' circumstances. This offended Ezra so much that he led the charge to overturn some civil rights and equal-opportunity nonsense the university had started. Ezra became a poster-boy for the reactive right. Lashing out to restore a sense of real social value and the natural aristocracy of the smart.

This led Ezra to configure himself as a 'conservative thinker' - he dislikes anything 'special' - like unions, Quebec, or anything east of Winnipeg. He wants government to get rid of those hindrances to progress - like the minimum wage, universal health care, public pensions and subsidized education. Ezra might very well hallucinate that Canada could add 10 new stars to the 'spangled banner' not to mention a few territories and a whole whack of cheap resources that the 'talented' could better manage in lieu of the socialists. One might almost think he aspires to join the constellation of holy hebrews who wag the dog in Washington. Along with all this arcane baggage, Ezra holds a little bit of a hate for such as Khadr.

It could be because of all the free medical and dental care he has received at Gitmo. It could be because Khadr's family have piled on the Canadian haywagon much as did gran-bubbi, only with far more public assistance (an unnecessary social innovation in them days) . Or it could be that Khadr's gotten all this notice and press about being the youngest terrorist to be 'tagged' by America. Or, finally, it could be that Khadr seems, to this point, to be a far more sympathetic character than some pudgy prick of a western lawyer. At least Khadr had the moxie to bounce back from a USAF bomb strike, a SF assault and three of their best in his back. Not only that, cheeky bugger, he had the fearful temerity to, reputedly, toss a hand grenade that, supposedly, killed a "medic" and all-round nice-guy and dad who happened to be in the assault squad that day.

To Levant, this is all chapter and verse - even though there are members of the assault squad who deny the 'conventional wisdom' of the 'action report' - twice written and filed months late. Khadr is guilty because he was caught on a video tape miraculously found on the battlefield afterward, and because he 'fessed-up' to 'friendly' American guards, one of whom was discharged for beating an innocent Afghan taxi-driver to death. Levant is right only in saying, in his blog, "Canada's little terrorist is as good as done."

Khadr can't not be found guilty - there's an empire at stake.

If there's anything that we shouldn't be 'crying' for Khadr about,  it is that he has such antagonists as Ezra Levant. I'd like to think that when Khadr thinks of his God taking revenge on his persecutors that he's thinking of assholes like Levant. We should be crying for ourselves, for, all too often, that 'revenge' falls on the innocent, not the bigmouths who might truly deserve it.