I was never a huge Justin Trudeau supporter, nor am I at the present time.  With that said, I have developed a grudging respect for him stemming from the comments he made following the Boston Marathon bombing. 

Up until now, I rarely gave Trudeau much thought.  My sentiments, admittedly far from objective, were based on an assumption that Trudeau’s popularity was due solely to residual Trudeaumania.  In other words, I felt that Justin Trudeau’s rise to political stardom was resultant of riding on his father’s coattails rather than any real ability to lead the nation.  I mistook him for a fluff candidate, not really capable of pulling it off. 

In the aftermath of the Marathon bombing, Trudeau made the following statement.

“Over the coming days, we have to look at the root causes.  Now, we don’t know now if it was terrorism or a single crazy or a domestic issue or a foreign issue, but there is no question that this happened because there is someone who feels completely excluded. Completely at war with innocents. At war with a society. And our approach has to be, where do those tensions come from?

Yes, there’s a need for security and response, but we also need to make sure that as we go forward, that we don’t emphasize a culture of fear and mistrust. Because that ends up marginalizing even further those who already are feeling like they are enemies of society.”

As expected, Mr. Trudeau was thoroughly castigated by wannabe warmonger, resident King of Sussex Drive, Lord of the Manor, PM Stephen Harper.  Mr. Harper stated in response to Trudeau,  “when you see this kind of action, when you see this kind of violent act, you do not sit around trying to rationalize it or make excuses for it or figure out its root causes”. 

Surprisingly, I wholeheartedly agree with Mr. Trudeau’s brutally honest statement.  If the United States government spent a little more time on retrospection and a little less time on threatening or actually waging war upon other nations, they would have fewer enemies, hence would face less threats to national security.  If those elected to office would begin representing the interests of the people, rather than the veracious appetite of the industrial military complex, the world, in fact, would be a safer place. 

As demonstrated by the Boston Marathon bombing, the United States’ war on terror certainly doesn’t keep the nation any safer. The overtly broad characterization of radical Islamization as the fundamental agent of terrorism is desultory and the security of the nation will continue to be at risk. Trudeau voiced the one question demanding an answer. What underlying festering wound causes human beings to distort a religion in order to invoke terror upon a civilian population?”  The United States very well understands the composition of this specific catalyst that once unleashed triggers a domino effect setting in motion a terrorist plot. Acknowledging what fuels terrorism and anti-American sentiment, would force the United States to acknowledge its’ own culpability, an unacceptable proposition to Eisenhower’s greatest fear, the industrial military complex.

Failure to honestly assess what drives terrorism and lay it at the doorstep of radical Islamization is as about as effective as treating a severed aortic artery with a Band-Aid. It would be prudent to actually address the elephant in the room, rather than assigning the all too convenient label, radical Islamization.  From the standpoint of those elected, reflection and self-awareness fails to serve their own self-interest.  Perpetual war will not survive anything beyond a cursory, superficial glance at the underlying etiology of terrorist threats that nation faces.

Since 9/11, the effort spent on retrospection pales in comparison to the costly effort expended upon aggression.   Attributing the root cause to radical Islamization is superficial and ineffectual.  Rather than curbing threats to the nation, is has an inverse effect on the intended result.  Assigning primary causation of terrorism to a religion practiced predominantly by 1.2 billion peaceful people only polarizes us and further marginalizes the already marginalized.  Adding the qualifying modifier “radical” to the religion of Islam doesn’t alter the inference of Islam as the underlying element to terrorism and it certainly doesn’t make friends.  One only has to look at the immediate aftermath where thousands of Muslims were rounded up and detained without due process to understand this.  State sanctioned terrorism as witnessed in North Pakistan via drone strokes, along with the actions of governmental agencies in post 9/11, paralleled with increased Islamophobia evidenced on the Internet, news media, lobby groups, websites and bloggers fails to delineate the word Islam from the words “radical” Islam. Any human being victim to injustice, hypocrisy, and violence by a government that claims to lead with these very principles (and tends to hold the bar much, much higher for others than they do for themselves), yet is guilty of violating these same said of the principles can easily be manipulated towards the very thing we rail against.  It begs to question what transforms the non violent into human beings willing to murder innocent civilians?  Is the radicalization of these people metastasized by those who recruit members via the bastardization of a religion giving moral cause to resultant violence as part of a political agenda or are the war mongering actions of the United States government perpetuated upon other human beings responsible?

At the beginning of April, my youngest son turned eleven.  I am amazed by how much changes in eleven years, from a totally dependent human being to an increasingly self-reliant individual.  4,015 days – a lifetime.

For Samir Naji Al Hasan Moqbel, the same eleven years is a world of difference, a world of hurt.  He has been imprisoned at Gitmo for longer than my child has lived, without charges, without trial.  For him, nothing much has changed and I would imagine the time has crawled by with every minute being creeping up like a long awaited event.  That's 1,440 minutes in a day, 5,781,600 minutes a year of futility, hopelessness, despair.
My son was astounded with every new discovery whether it be a bug, sand or the first snowflake, everything was an event, life was full of promise.  Samir Naji Al Hasan Moqbel discovered how hopelessness was a bottomless pit, it was the gift that kept giving and giving, robbing one's dreams, future, and life. 

When seconds marking time are noticeable and painfully endless, torture is no longer required.  When in each and every second one prays for death as a viable alternative to life,  to end one's human suffering, to affect change regardless of the outcome, we have done much more than commit murder.  We have effectively killed the spirit of a fellow human being, robbed them of their soul leaving behind an empty vessel locked within a black hole of despair.

At Gitmo, as it is so fondly referred to, an estimated 40 detainees are non violently protesting their questionable, illegal imprisonment through self imposed hunger strikes. 

" Last month, on March 15, I was sick in the prison hospital and refused to be fed. A team from the E.R.F. (Extreme Reaction Force), a squad of eight military police officers in riot gear, burst in. They tied my hands and feet to the bed. They forcibly inserted an IV into my hand. I spent 26 hours in this state, tied to the bed. During this time I was not permitted ,to go to the toilet. They inserted a catheter, which was painful, degrading and unnecessary. I was not even permitted to pray."

Adding insult to injury, not only the last shred of dignity is annihilated, a seriously religious man is denied the fundamental, basic human right to pray, "the longing of the soul", extinguishing the little that remained.

Let's make no mistake, Samir is not being painfully force fed stemming from some misguided belief in the sanctity of human life.  I am certain that his jailers, the military and American government would be more than happy with the deaths of Samir and his of co-detainees.  They are an embarrassment to the most powerful man in the world, the man who became the first African American President of the United States, Barack Obama who swept into office in 2008.  It is bad enough to imprison human beings denied due process, but how would it look if the "greatest democracy" in the world have the proceeds of the "war of terror", men without charged of any crime, die through their own will.

18,980 days, 27,331, 200 minutes and 1,639,872,000 seconds have passed, along with the death of hope and change.  I believed in hope and change.  I believed in the restoration of democratic governance, a return to the rule of law.  To Samir Naji Al Hasan Moqbel and his co-detainees, there  are things worse than death.

We face significant challenges that will impact the nation for decades, perhaps centuries to come.  The economy is not undergoing any significant improvement nor will it.  The cited increase in employment represents a clever, yet inaccurate picture established through the distortion of raw data.  Why would employment surge when the nation willingly gave away the store via NAFTA?  We, as a nation, no longer make anything, while choosing cheap Chinese imports where not only the standard of living is extremely poor, the workers are exploited to the point where employers install suicide nets atop buildings.  The only winners in that game are the Corporate set, that of the 1%.

Issues effecting this election cycle, the US was still engaged in Afghanistan over a decade after its initial assault, Gitmo remains open and civil liberties and constitutional rights became codified.  We are less free today than yesterday, yet we failed to note the occasion.  Rather than honest discussions about the direction of United States foreign policy, we heard rhetoric about Iran, the alleged existential threat to the existence of the State of Israel, the State that exemplifies all things evil and their single-minded purpose to obtain a nuclear warhead.  There has been no concrete evidence that Iran is pursuing nuclear weaponry.  Even if Iran did arm itself with a nuke, what are they going to do with it?  They are within striking distance of a nuclear superpower in its own right.  The US presence surrounding Iran is extensive.  Ehud Barak, official within the Israeli government, stated that if he were Iranian, he too would want a nuke.  Hasn’t it occurred to anyone that the amped up Israeli/US rhetoric about a strike on Iran, the palatable US presence that almost completely encompasses Iran might possibly want a nuke for themselves? Who actually is threatening whom?  This too dominates the conversation.  It seems we need to have an enemy.

While DOMA and Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell are issues both fiercely debated across the nation, we failed to note that we were partaking in drone strikes on people whose names we don’t even know.  We defined the validity of target, people we were legally entitled to kill based on their gender and age.  In Northern Pakistan, the United States government considers any adult male to be a militant, thus a valid target.  I believe in marriage equality for all and firmly believe that no one should ever have to hide or pretend to be something their not in order to prevent making others uncomfortable.  It certainly is an important issue.  My point though is that by now, we should have evolved to the point where same sex marriage was a fait accompli and no one cares whatsoever if an active soldier is gay or not.  

We can claim the powers to be are idiots, but they certainly have accomplished what they set out to do, to distract us.  While we bickered over things talking head Michele Bachmann claimed, or statements made by socially sluggish Mitt, or even ridiculous and yes, offensive, statements uttered by Todd Akin, they held shiny objects up to distract us while redefining the core beliefs of the nation, the fiber which held us together –  now forever changed.

Any self respecting Republican still hoping for that watershed moment, a wish for a return to a time prior than the hijacking by the tea-party, days before Michele Bachmann's bastardization of American history, Sarah Palin's geographical confusion paired with the coming to life of the English language and Mitt's social developmental disability, need to admit defeat. It ain't going to happen Duckie.

The latest demonstration of GO-Bagger stupidity was by Susan Collins, the resident idiot of the great state of Maine. She was more than perturbed when she was delayed her dinner with "the President"  as the parents of the Newtown shooting victims were 45 minutes late. Susan seemed to have gotten her panties all rolled up in a ball.  She told Mike Allen of Politico, "the Newtown families were VERY late for their meeting with me. I felt a moral obligation to talk with them. I kept the president of the United States waiting. I mean, how rude is that of me? But I explained to him later that the reason I was 45 minutes late for his dinner was the Newtown families were late — very late — getting to my office, and I just could not leave without talking to them. And he was very gracious about it."

Susan was worried because she kept the President waiting (a man she claimed couldn't eat lobster at a GOP hosted event because his beefeater – the guy who samples the King's dinner to ensure it isn't poisoned – wasn't with him) and he would think her rude? WTF Susan, wake up and smell the coffee. I am sure the President doesn't think you're rude, he knows you're an idiot.

This is the same woman who is most likely going to vote for background checks, yet will vote against any new bans on assault weapons, because “I don’t think you prohibit the manufacture of a rifle because of the way it looks”. Any proposed bank on the assault weapon isn't about how it looks, but of what it is capable of doing. You were meeting with Newtown families and I am certain they can tell you that any proposed ban on assault weapons has NOTHING to do with its' appearance, but everything to do with the 20 dead kids and 6 dead adults. 

Note to any self-respecting Republicans, run, change your name and hide out in some nondescript town and hope against all hope that no one will discover your secret, that you were a Republican. With the addition of Susan Collins to the insano-brigade it is clear and evident that the GOP will never recover.