Ya, But Did She Smuggle In A Bottle Of Bass Ale.....

....With Her Laptop?

RunningWithTheDevils
DetailsInTheNarrativeVille

Ms. O'Malley is Liveblogging the Omar Khadr hearing at the 'Parliamentary SubCommittee For Human Rights' this afternoon.

And believe me, all snarkolepsy settings have been set to minus infinity when I say that her stuff is the real thing.

Why?

Because she's giving us real context, at least as she sees it, as the real thing is actually happening.

Here's just a snippet....

1:36:43 PM
And here he is: Jason Kenney. He points to what he sees as a contradiction between (lawyer for Omar Khadr) Kuebler’s written submission and presentation - something to do with rehabilitation versus due process in Canada. But it just isn’t, really. The two things Kuebler is recommending aren’t mutually exclusive, but that doesn’t stop Kenney from quizzing him on what charges Khadr could face in Canada. Kuebler reminds him he is Khadr’s lawyer, so it wouldn’t be appropriate for him to make suggestions on other possible crimes of which his client could be convicted.

Jason Kenney has been adjusting his tie for the last four minutes. I wonder if he’s listening to what Kuebler has to say or if he’s just running through lines in his head.

1:40:24 PM
Kenney doesn’t think much of the comparison of Khadr to the child soldiers of Sierra Leone, but Kuebler handles it well; he points out that age isn’t the only issue, nor is coercion - whether at gun point, or via family pressure.

If Khadr is a “victim”, Kenney wonders, who should be prosecuted for that crime? Wait, huh? I mean, I sort of get what he’s saying, but even if his father was deemed responsible, as Kuebler points out, he’s dead.

1:44:28 PM

The trouble with extra-shortened five minute question slots is that almost no MPs are capable of asking anything with less than a minute of preamble and that tends to eat up a lot of time. Serge Ménard, the wily Bloc Québécois MP who interrogated Mulroney, is the exception. He actually gets into a back and forth, which is far more likely to produce new information.

1:47:44 PM
A good point from Kuebler: Canada doesn’t have to take on the existence of Guantanamo Bay, or the legitimacy of the War on Terror, in order to request justice for Omar Khadr. It kind of depresses me how he keeps reminding the committee that Khadr simply won’t be acquitted by military tribunal. It’s just not going to happen. It must be rough on him, too - Keubler, that is - to know the game is rigged against his client from the start. Then again, there’s something awfully appealing about seemingly lost causes, and it does feel pretty damn good when you suddenly win.....

Now go read the whole thing because it is really, really, really good, not to mention the fact that, apparently without even trying, it gives you a sense of the bigger picture with respect that all that went off the rails almost immediately after the GWOT train left the station.


OK?

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Bass Ale was Hunter Thompson's quasi-legal contraband of choice when he dead-blogged (ie. wrote the realtime narrative three weeks before it was published) the Watergate hearings........ On second thought, Ms. M. probably had a can or two of Red Bull in her bag instead.


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