<strong>Written By:</strong> N Say
<strong>Date:</strong> 2004-07-28 09:10:00
<a href="/article/231048160-canada-amp-iran">Article Link</a>

<P> Graham condemned the justice system of Iran, declaring that "under all human rights codes, under all international law standards, this should be a public trial with the right of the family to be present to assure that justice is done. Justice will not be done behind closed doors in Iran. It's a complete rejection of the rule of law." <P> Yes, Iran should have a transparent, public trial with due process. Yes, the man responsible for the brutal murder of Kazemi must face justice. Yes, the Iranian trial is a politicized sham. <P> However the Canadian government's response is no less so. Bill Graham is in no place to point fingers at other governments, accusing them of seeking "justice behind closed doors," or rejecting the "rule of law." <P> The Canadian government is using the Kazemi case as a convenient cover for its diplomatic game with the United States and Israel, whose now openly stated priority is to isolate the government of Iran before a mandated "regime change" in 2005 or 2006. Canada's unstated priority is to maintain access to US markets for our exports (2). Canada is playing its part once again, by giving the whole US operation a humanitarian gloss. <P> Note that there is one standard for Iran, and quite a different one for other torturers and murderers that abuse human rights; our allies in the "war on terror." Canada maintains close diplomatic and trade relations with the United States and Israel which detain, torture and execute innocents without trial as a matter of course. <P> Canadians who truly want justice for all victims of state violence should stop and ask themselves some questions. If our government is so principled, why not apply one universal standard of moral outrage and recall our American and Israeli ambassadors over ongoing atrocities in Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo? What if Kazemi had died at the hand of Israel, like Rachel Corrie died? Would we have pulled our ambassador? What if it had happened in Haiti, where Canadian troops now support a death squad regime? <P> etc <P> <a href="http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=11&ItemID=5928">http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=11&ItemID=5928</a>

   

Yet another Vive article that is on the front page of Google News Canada Way to go!<p> <p>---<br>"History does not repeat itself, but it does rhyme" Mark Twain <br />
"The greatest price of not participating in politics is being governed by your inferiors." Plato

   

And it is even a truthful article on Canada's official
hypocrisy that made it...

   

That article is full of B.S. Comparing our allies to the Iranian regime is stupid and the writer knows it. An Iranian writer would never be heard from again if he wrote anything similar inside Iran - but in the U.S., a loudmouth schnook can get an entire feature length film made that attacks their president, and now he's a multi-millionaire - it's not hard to see the difference, a child could. Israeli citizens have conducted mass protests against the Prime Minister, Iranians would be shot or disappeared for such actions. The immaturity of some these rants that get published demonstrates a gross lack of consideration, thought, knowledge and a closed mind - the only thing showing is the writer's ego.

   

I agree, it's embarassing that an article like this made the front page of Google News Canada.

   

I like how you have a Stalinist/Nazi-style conception of freedom of speech. As crazy as it may sound to you, you can't seem to even allow these sorts of questions to be asked. (Interesting that you couldn't come up with a response to that guy's questions either) Maybe you should move to North Korea, or Iran or China (or the USA) if that's the kind of attitude you have towards the government. & of course in the USA people aren't "disappeared" (yet) if they break the rules, but there are still consequences for people who break the rules; why don't you email Noam Chomsky & ask him why his wife went to grad school...?

---
"George Bush has declared the war on terrorism to be the cause of his generation. The cause of Canadian sovereignty will be ours." - John Godfrey, MP for Don Va

   

Vive users who post this drivel are largely uniformed and ignorant. Iran is violating international law and Canada is taking them to task on it. This isn't an issue about isreal or the US, it's a issue about iran and their flagrant repudiational of principles of international law. Canada's stance on isreal and the US (whatever you contend that position is) doens't weaken its objective in getting Iran to respect international law in the treatment of dual nationals. You invocation of a completely different issue into the debate is a classic argumentative fallacy.

The opinions on this site are so academically medicore it is almost laughable.

   

The US is hardly perfect, but you're comparing US society/the US legal and administrative system to that of North Korea, Iran or China? Get real. You have no idea what you are even saying. Your statements cheapen the real struggles for freedom that are occurring in those countries.

   

For many of those who contribute to this site, the only valid interpretations of world events are ones that result in the US being the villain. It doesn't matter what kind of mental gymnastics it takes them to reach this conclusion.

All that matters to them is that US or its corporations are declared the bad guy in every situation. No other interpretation or judgement will do. And in the spirit of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend", anyone who finds themselves in opposition to the US on any issue finds friends among left-wing Canadian nationalists.

   

OP commentatory here. Now don't get me wrong, I would call myself a liberal or 'lefty,' and definitely a Canadian nationalist. But some of the repetitive nonsence, some of of either lacking in critical thought or simply being inaccurate garbage, being spewed by the same posters on this site makes me swirm in my seat.

And when posters start comparing the US to North Korea or China, well that's really crossing a pretty stupid line. As far as I know, the US doesn't haul its citizens to concentration camps or starve its citizens (North Korea), nor does it literally shoot people down for expressing their opinion (China). The US is no angel, and corporatism is a disturbing matter, but when this type of rhetorical nonsence seems to get the nod by all the regulars on vive, I don't know how they can concomitently expect anyone to take any of their opinions seriously.

It seems that anything the Canadian government does is wrong. It helps a dual national who was MURDERED in Iran, well somehow Canada is playing to the US-Isreal Anti-Palestine conspiracy. Iran is all of a sudden a super country and Canada should just leave the poor Iranians alone. Huh? Send troops to help stabilise and keep the peace in war torn Haiti, and all of a sudden Canada is helping to overthrough governments by the evil US fascist corporate alliance. Huh? One cannot help but shake one's head at the BS coming out of vive of weeks past.

   

As the author of the story in question, Stephen Kerr I’m glad I sparked off a debate. Too bad it is so one sided and of such a poor quality.

I think the last poster, indeed most missed the point, or else chose not to get it, setting up several straw men which against which they conveniently joust.

I never compared the USA to North Korea or China. Such comparisons would be useful however, given that the USA has attacked both countries on their own territory, while China and North Korea have never attacked the US. Look it up.

I never claimed that the Iranian state was “super.” Iran is a very young, dynamic society, yet it must be portrayed as a monolithic “totalitarian society” a la Bush, in order to demonize and infantilize its people as unable to govern themselves, and justify a regime change there.

In my story, I write the following: “Yes, Iran should have a transparent, public trial with due process. Yes, the man responsible for the brutal murder of Kazemi must face justice. Yes, the Iranian trial is a politicized sham.” Iran must respect international law. However so too should the Canadian state. My point is that Canada does not, except when it suits as in the Kazemi case, and so its preaching is false and a pretense. This reduces the Kazemis and the Arars who justly seek redress for the violence of the state to pawns in the state’s game. That’s the real obscenity here.

The standards we set for our own behaviour and that of our allies are rather more lax than those we set for regimes which happen to be our “enemies” or who sit atop certain resources we and our powerful trading partners covet. (Iraqi oil, Afghan opium poppies and pipeline routes, Haitian low wages etc.) We allow ourselves or our proxies to torture and indiscriminately kill (Iraq, Afghanistan Yugoslavia, Haiti, etc…) innocents for the profit of our corporations and our relations with other states. We select “regimes” that need to be “changed” and when it is convenient for us to condemn their barbarous acts we do so. (Where was the outrage in 35 pt bold type while the Canadian state supported Talisman’s operations in Sudan?) I am not defending barbarous acts of other states – such as the brutal murder of Zara Kazemi - here, but rather the unequal and rather convenient (for the powerful and rich) standards that some (their lapdogs in the media) apply to them. It is precisely the question of this convenience which should concern honest intellectuals. Our convenient condemnation of the barbarism of others is merely a cover for our own barbarism. Condemning the barbarism of the Iranian regime is a no-brainer. It’s tougher to take a hard look in the mirror. One can choose to look or not.

Those who want to take a look should get the recent report on gross human rights violations in Haiti from the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti to see what kind of foreign policy Canada supports. Thousands of people have been massacred since the Canadian sponsored coup d’etat against the democratically elected president Aristide. That’s the blood of others on our hands.

Until we stop a) making weapons that kill for profit b) using those weapons to kill for profit, c) invading other countries and overthrowing their leaders to take over their resources and labour markets d) maintaining profitable relationship with other nations that do #s 1-3 (USA, Israel, UK, etc.) e) stop abusing human rights here in Canada – our government should shut up and stop making self serving statements and pointing fingers at the evil that others do.

As for the terrorism of our government and its (not my) allies, Israel and the United States, UK, Australia, there is a rich documentary and historical record out there of

1. The detention of innocents, citizens and non-citizens, without due process of law
2. The willful killing of innocents, including peaceful political protestors against all domestic and international law
3. The fact that the foundation of all of these colonial or imperial states rests on an unspoken (and hence unspeakable) platform of race war and genocide against indigenous peoples, which explains why nationalists, Canadian, American, Australian, British and Zionist so eagerly leap to the other’s defence.

I urge readers to go out and discover that documentary record, and draw their own conclusions.

On the question of Canadian nationalism: Of what significance is the citizenship of a person? None. Can a passport contain my humanity? I say it cannot. My country is the world, and my people are humanity. I am definitely NOT a Canadian nationalist, but an internationalist, though I am luckily stuck with a Canadian passport by a happy accident of birth. However the system which imposes an unequal regime of passports, boundaries and races on inherently equal people is fundamentally unjust, primitive, reactionary and anti-democratic.

I reject that system. I invite my readers to do the same.

SJK

   

You are still equivocating between the Western countries and the totalitarian regimes of the East. While it is true that innocent people have been wrongly imprisoned here in Canada and even killed by Western governments due to miscarriages of the justice system, that is completely different than the kind of injustices visited upon 'dissenters' or unlucky ethnic groups within totalitarian regimes. North Koreans are literally starving to death, Iranians are routinely imprisoned and actually tortured by their government - not just humiliated - killed. While it is certainly true that humiliating prisoners is reprehensible, disgusting behaviour, it is also true that the Americans have taken legal action against the perpatrators and it looks like there will be some form of punishment meted out, unlike Iran where government murderers walk free. That's just one example.
You make it sound as though Canada or its troops are complicit in committing some sort of genocide in Haiti - that is totally ridiculous.
You refer to the displacement of Aboriginals as a 'crime' that dare not speak its name - well hello! read a newspaper - Aboriginal issues both here and abroad are published all the time and you're quite free to 'Google' anytime you like, there's a lot out there.
It's your attitude towards your fellow Canadians that is offensive.