We are not the U.S.' clean-up crew

Canada refuses U.S. request to accept Chinese Muslims from Guantanamo

Once in a great while, Harper actually does the right thing.

These Guantanamo Bay prisoners, who have been found innocent, cannot go home (for reasons I will expound on in a moment) but the U.S. doesn't want them either. So, Obama requested that Canada take them... but Harper refused to help the U.S. dump its self-created Gitmo problem on someone else, and for this I have to applaud him.

Some Canadians have a "send 'em back!" attitude toward these prisoners. But this problem is not as not that simple for a number of reasons... not the least of which is that many of these prisoners would be wrongfully persecuted a second time if they were sent back to their country of origin. In addition, many of them weren't in their home country at the time of arrest precisely because they were trying to escape wrongful persecution there.

This is a problem of the U.S.' own creation so the solution needs to come from them too. If these prisoners have been found innocent, then the U.S. needs to take them in, compensate them for the atrocities committed against them, give them counselling to help them overcome the trauma they endured, and provide full services to help them integrate into American society. Expensive? Yes! Messy? Yes! But it is the right thing to do for anyone who is wrongly convicted and brutalized. And it will teach American politicians and voters to think twice about this idea that it's okay to flout U.S. and international laws and run roughshod over human rights as long as you feel justified in doing so. This lesson is long overdue. I lived in the U.S. for many years - so I know from whence I speak. I have many American loved ones, don't get me wrong... but a lot of Americans need to smarten up.

You don't create a disaster of this magnitude and then dump it on someone else's doorstep. You made your bed, now sleep in it.

And don't think we missed the irony that a mere 2 weeks ago the U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security was wrongfully accusing Canada of letting the 9/11 terrorists into America, and now here's the U.S. President asking us to take people they deem unfit to stay on their soil. Unbelievable.

Good on ya Harper, for telling them where to stick it.