Derrick O'Keefe's blog   Omar Khadr's plight part of Canada's
scandal of war and torture  | January 11, 2010 Omar Khadr's
plight part of Canada's scandal of war and torture  Amnesty
International is holding an important event in Vancouver today
on the case of Omar Khadr. It starts at 5:45 p.m. with a vigil
in Victory Square (West Pender at Hamilton), followed by a forum
at 6:30 p.m. at SFU Harbour Centre, 515 West Pender Street
(Segal Room). I will be one of the speakers at the forum, and so
I thought I would share here a few thoughts on Khadr's plight.
Torture is not a blemish on an otherwise humanitarian
intervention in Afghanistan. Rather, it has been -- along with
indefinite detention and sundry other violations of
international law -- part and parcel of the war from the
beginning. This is not primarily the result of mistakes, or of
bad apples among the occupying forces or their Afghan relays.
Torture and other violations of civil liberties are, in fact,
the age-old tools of imperial domination. Contra