Canadian abondoned in Kenya, while gov't officials go MIA and do nothing

The story of Canadian citizen Suaad Hagi Mohamud trapped in Kenya is shameful enough, but the pathetic reaction of Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon and Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan simply adds insult to injury.

Here’s what happened.

Back in May, Mohamud – who lives in Toronto – was visiting friends and family in Kenya. When it was time for her to come home, airport officials in Nairobi said that Mohamud’s passport photo did not look like her, claiming that she was an imposter.

Even after Mohamud showed all of her ID – including other government documents, even a drugstore loyalty shopping card – Kenyan officials said Mohamud’s lips in person didn’t match those in her passport photo. (Some reports say the photo issue was a ruse, and really, Kenyan officials wanted a bribe. The silliness of the claims even had Kenyan officials ruminating that Mohamud was her own twin sister.)

When Mohamud’s case was then handed over to Canadian officials in Kenya, they did nothing. Mohamud’s Canadian passport was cancelled, she was charged with criminally falsifying her identity, and thrown in jail.

In order to end the ordeal, Mohamud volunteered for a DNA test to prove her identity and to show that she is indeed the mother of her teenage son (who was back in Toronto).

Even after the DNA result, Mohamud wasn’t free to come home, since her passport was cancelled. So she remained a woman without a country.

Finally last week, she was issued an emergency passport and allowed to travel home.

During this entire ordeal, the Canadian government did nothing – NOTHING – to help a Canadian citizen held hostage in a foreign country.

Van Loan – who as public safety minister is the Canadian equivalent of U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano – dodged reporters and did nothing. Now, he has the nerve to announce a study to determine what went wrong. What went wrong? Mr. Van Loan, YOU are part and parcel of what went wrong.

Cannon – who as foreign affairs minister is the equivalent of U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton – then commissioned his own inquiry. Are these people serious? Just look in the mirror – there’s your answer.

Worst of all was Prime Minister Harper who, instead of aiding a Canadian in distress in a foreign land, gave this advice to all Canadian would-be travelers: “The Government of Canada does not control affairs in other countries. We do our best to aid those who are in various forms of difficulty, but ultimately we're not the sovereign government once people leave our territory.”

In other words, you are SOL. And this was the same week that former U.S. President Bill Clinton went to North Korea to rescue two American journalists. The contrast is startling.

This week, Harper not only said that his government would not apologize to Mohamud, but that he only learned of her case last week – even though it’s been making news for three months! This is as sad as Bush getting that memo about Osama bin Laden plotting to bomb the U.S., and then deciding to go golfing.

So what happened here? No need to wait for CYA government commissions. Either the Canadian government, as run by Stephen Harper’s Conservatives, doesn’t care about Canadian citizens once they leave the country, or the Canadian government, under Harper’s Conservatives, only cares about some Canadians. Mohamud, after all, is a woman of color who was born in Somalia.

A letter to the editor in the Toronto Star even put it this way: “If hyphenated Canadians decide to go to obscure places in the world, they should do so at their peril.” (Ironically, the letter writer’s last name was McKenna, pegging him as a hyphenated Irish-Canadian.)

This is a sentiment that seems to permeate the highest levels of the current Canadian government. And a government that is so willing to toss one of its innocent citizens aside like this has clearly lost the right to govern.

FREAK OF THE WEEK: Vice President Joe Biden

This week, the FredBlog shines its freaklight on U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, who demonstrated that swine flu can lead to foot-in-mouth disease.

I’ve been hearing from readers who are concerned that too many Freaks of the Week are Republican and/or Conservative. Well, rest assured that the FredBlog does not discriminate. A freak is a freak regardless of ideology or political party.

That brings us to Vice President Biden, who has a history of saying the most stupid thing ever. This past week, he did not disappoint.

While being interviewed on NBC’s “Today” show, Biden raised the swine flu alert to red. In a fit of swine flu madness, Biden said, “I would tell members of my family – and I have – I wouldn’t go anywhere in confined places now. It’s not that it’s going to Mexico in a confined aircraft where one person sneezes, that goes all the way through the aircraft. That’s me.”

As if that weren’t bad enough – grammatically and otherwise – he continued: “I would not be, at this point, if they had another way of transportation, suggesting they ride the subway. From my perspective, this relates to mitigation. If you’re out in the middle of the field and someone sneezes, that’s one thing. If you’re in a closed aircraft, a closed container, a closed car, a closed classroom, that’s another thing.”

That’s right, folks. Listen to your vice president and DON’T take the subway – even if you live in a big city with no car and use the subway to go everywhere, including work. Better to go without a paycheck than have someone at the other end of the train sneeze.

Oh, and – according to Mr. Biden – don’t send your kids to school, either. All those “closed classrooms” can be tricky to navigate. And it’s a good thing Biden said something because parents had NO IDEA that their kids could catch something from other kids at school.

Can we please get some perspective here? The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta has confirmed about 135 cases of swine flu in 18 U.S. states – and most of the cases have been mild. The World Health Organization estimates about 800 cases globally, most of them in Mexico.

Now let’s look at the normal regular everyday flu. Again according to the CDC, every year approximately 5 percent to 20 percent of U.S. residents get the flu, and more than 200,000 people are hospitalized for flu-related complications. About 36,000 Americans die on average each year from the complications of flu.

So, Mr. Biden, can we please stop the fear mongering?

Of course, politics being politics, various members of the Obama administration went on the air to tell the American people what Biden MEANT to say.

Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said, “I think … what the vice president meant to say was the same thing that again, many members have said in the last few days, that is, if you feel sick, if you are exhibiting flu-like symptoms – coughing, sneezing, runny nose – that you should take precautions, that you should limit your travel. … I’m telling you what he meant to say.”

Reporters laughed, with good reason.

That didn’t work, so the administration brought out a bigger gun – Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano (no stranger to freakiness herself). She said, “I think the vice president, if he had, if he could say that over again, he would say if they’re feeling sick they should stay off public transit or confined spaces because that is indeed the advice that we’re giving.”

That’s all well and good, Ms. Napolitano. But that’s not what Biden said. In fact, he specifically said in that interview that he was not talking for the administration, but for himself and his family. So all of this handwringing doesn’t take away from the fact that the vice president speaks before he thinks.

MORE SWINE FLU FREAKINESS

While I’m on the subject, another freak move this past week was the decision of some organizations and governments to change the name of “swine flu” to “Mexican flu.”

One of the reasons for the change was that pork producers were offended that the name unfairly targets their products. Still others – like the Israeli government – changed the name because any reference to pigs is offensive to both religious Jews and Muslims.

So we don’t want to offend the pigs and the religious, but it’s fine to call it “MEXICAN flu”? I guess it’s OK to offend Mexicans.

Also, pork producers want to make it clear that you cannot get swine flu from eating swine. But can you get Mexican flu from eating a Mexican? No one is saying.

Obama’s security czar needs a lesson in Canada

It’s bad enough when some no-name member of Congress from Texas clings to the xenophobic falsehood that the 9/11 terrorist attackers snuck into the United States through Canada. But when the president’s Homeland Security Secretary is equally misinformed, Obama, we have a problem.

First off, let’s clear the air once and for all. The 9/11 hijackers did NOT – repeat, did NOT – enter the United States by way of Canada. In fact, they entered the United States LEGALLY. So if dumbass American bureaucrats want to fix the problem of foreign terrorists on American soil, start with fixing your own immigration system and stop blaming the Canadian border.

That said, it is a shameful embarrassment that Janet Napolitano – President Obama’s security czar – would stoop to the same disingenuous level of blame Canada.

All this came to a head Monday night when Napolitano gave an interview to the CBC, Canada’s public broadcast network. First she said, “To the extent that terrorists have come into our country, or suspected or known terrorists have entered our country across a border, it has been across the Canadian border.”

Never mind the fact that she’s just plain wrong, the CBC’s Neil Macdonald then asked, “Are you talking about the 9/11 perpetrators?” And unbelievably, she said, “Not just those, but others as well.”

NOT JUST THOSE? Are you kidding me? Napolitano – Obama’s handpicked choice to “keep America safe” – is either knowingly lying or sadly ignorant.

The next day, Napolitano tried to correct the error by saying that she “misunderstood” the question. Um, Ms. Napolitano, the question really wasn’t all that confusing.

So she went from blame Canada to blame the media. Real helpful.

In her follow-up statement, Napolitano said, “I know that the September 11^th hijackers did not come through Canada to the United States. There are other instances, however, when suspected terrorists attempted to enter our country from Canada to the United States. Some of those are well known to the public – such as the Millennium Bomber – while others are not, due to security reasons.”

Two things are troubling about her statement: First, it was Canada that HELPED stop Ahmed Ressam from crossing the British Columbia/Washington state border and foiled his supposed plan to blow up the Los Angeles airport back in 1999.

Secondly, that was one incident. Oh, Napolitano says there are others that she can’t talk about for “security reasons.” That not only is very Bush-ian, but how can we trust someone who would so easily revert back to the horribly wrong 9/11-Canada connection.

But even more troubling were Napolitano’s comments during that CBC interview that she wants a “real border” between the United States and Canada. “I know that the pattern at the Canadian border has been informality.” Napolitano – a former governor of Arizona – also sees no difference between the Canadian and Mexican borders.

This is pathetic.

First of all, the border between the United States and Canada is indeed REAL. Just ask all those people who line up at the border –sometimes for hours at a time – to cross it in order to work or shop or play tourist. To listen to Napolitano, you’d think the crossings at places like Detroit and Niagara Falls are lawless free-for-alls. And as an American living in Canada, trust me, Ms. Napolitano, it’s a REAL BORDER!

But perhaps most troubling is that she sees no difference between America’s borders with Canada and Mexico. The U.S.-Canada relationship is primarily one of business and trade, and the treatment of the border needs to reflect that.

In Mexico, the issues are illegal immigration and illegal drugs, so it makes sense that there would be a different policy on that border. To punish Canada because of the sins of Mexico is shortsighted and, frankly, offensive.

Sadly, Canada’s wandering Conservative government seems to be more than willing to give Napolitano a pass. Napolitano’s equivalent in Canada – Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan – seemed unconcerned when he said, “I don’t believe that there’s an effort to change the level of security at the Canadian border.”

Is he on crack? It’s already happening.

If Obama was being honest a few months ago when he said he “loves Canada, then he needs to put his Homeland Security Secretary on notice that such gross mistreatment of the United States’ strongest ally will not be tolerated.