Censorship by omission

Gary Mason has a scary op-ed on A5 of today's Globe on Canada's troubles with China.

To hear Mason tell the tale, little rule-of-law Canada was diligently following the rule of law when Uncle Sam sent over an extradition request for Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou. Being the rule-of-law nebbishes that we are, we of course immediately acquiesced to the American request, because... well, rule of law, don't ya know!

So now we're being bullied by the cowardly Chinese, who bully us because they fear the actual real bully in the schoolyard, Uncle Sam.

While Mason has a point about who the real bully is in this scenario, he says not a word about the foundational issue behind this controversy, ie the alleged crimes committed by Meng. According to Washington's interpretation of "rule of law," they get to make up laws unilaterally and can then prosecute anyone on the planet for violating them. In this case, they claim that Meng's employer, a Chinese company, violated US law by doing business with Iran, contrary to US sanctions.

This is an aspect of the case seldom mentioned in the Globe and Mail's many stories on the matter; the legality and morality of the American sanctions on Iran. It is blithely assumed that it's 100% hunky-dory for the Trump regime to make stuff up and expect the rest of the world to cave to its demands, and watch out if they don't!

Folks who fail to fall in line are at risk of being apprehended at a Canadian airport, because in Canada, we're all about the rule of law.