I’m haunted by pictures of Stephen Harper and George W. Bush, playing the buddy thing and smiling for the camera in Cancun, Mexico last week.

If that wasn’t enough, read this week’s Throne Speech “this Government is committed to supporting Canada’s core values of freedom, democracy, the role of law and human rights around the world”.

Sounds suspiciously like a George Bush line to me. The speech goes on to characterize “Canada’s relationship with the United States as our best friend and our largest trading partner”.

The United States is clearly our largest trading partner and we share a long and mostly friendly relationship with the people of that Country.

We need to build on this relationship but we should not be publicly associating with George W. Bush. This is a man who even now is being investigated in his own country as a possible war criminal. This is a man who some in his country are talking about impeaching.

This is a man who ignores the laws of his country by ordering illegal spying on the American people. This is a man who conspires with his Vice President and senior staff to unmask an undercover CIA operative because her husband disagreed with his claim that Iraq was buying yellow cake uranium to make nuclear weapons.

This is a man who condones the unlawful confinement of prisoners in Guantonamo without access to legal counsel or the right to be heard in open court. This is a man who, directly or indirectly condones the torture of prisoners. This is a man who lied to his own people and to the world in order to justify his invasion of Iraq.

The United States was traumatized by 9/11 and with good reason. On September 10, 2001, George W. Bush, newly elected President of the United States had no raison d'étre. He had been narrowly elected by virtue of a questionable outcome in the State of Florida. His brother was Governor of Florida. The day after 9/11, George W. was energized by his new “War on Terrorism”

A number of the 9/11 terrorists, perhaps a majority were from Saudi Arabia. Within a day or two of 9/11 a bunch of Saudis were secretly flown out of the United States. Some of them were Osama Bin Laden family members.

At the time of 9/11, there was a man being held in a U.S. prison by the name of Zacarias Moussaoui. He was subsequently charged and convicted for conspiring with Osama Bin Laden terrorists in the attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon. During his trial, he claimed that his mission was to fly into the White House.

Earlier this week, a jury in Alexandria, Virginia, across the river from Washington D.C., ruled that his role in the conspiracy his lies to the FBI and the possibility that if he had revealed the 9/11 conspiracy, it might have been prevented, made him eligible for the death penalty.

U.S. Government prosecutors will soon recreate the whole 9/11 thing for the jury. They will bring dozens of family members and survivors of the 9/11 tragedy to testify against Moussaoui and to convince the jury to pronounce the death penalty. If the jury buys the prosecutors’ arguments and delivers the death penalty, it will risk the possibility of turning Moussaoui into a martyr for terrorist groups and that has profound implications for the world.

In Islamic tradition, martyrdom means dying in a way that deserves paradise. A jury spooked by the audio and video images of 9/11 may lose its ability to recognize the implications of martyrdom. If the jury votes to put Moussaoui to death, Osama Bin Laden terrorists could seize on his execution as reason for more terrorism and as propaganda to boost recruitment of new terrorists. Let’s hope the jurists are wise enough to put the man in prison for life where he would fade from public consciousness and cheat the goals of martyrdom.

I can’t leave the United States without mention of border-crossing documents that will be required by the U.S. as early as January 2008. To cross the border into the United States, Canadians will need a passport or some yet to be designed “smart card”. The same will be true for Americans returning to the United States from Canada. This could be become a major trade barrier, particularly in respect to the flow of tourists.

I don’t have a problem with it because I have a passport and travel with it all the time but thousands of Americans who have traditionally been welcomed to Canada as tourists do not have passports and might not be willing to pay the $100 or so dollars to get one for a trip to Canada. Stephen Harper has already acquiesced to the passport initiative so we can expect no help from him.

Noticeably absent from this week’s Throne Speech was any mention of the Kyoto Accord, climate change or global warming although there is passing reference to a “reduction in pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.

That puts the Government in sync with the U.S. Administration which has forbidden Scientists doing climate research for the U.S. Government from talking to the media or to the American public about global warming. Sounds like Harper’s relationship with the Canadian media.

Prime Minister Harper would be well advised to keep his distance from President George W. Bush.

This man appears to be soiled goods.

Atlantic Insight is a published Blog inventory of opinion articles published weekly in New Brunswick's print media as written by W.E. (Bill) Belliveau, who is a resident of Shediac, New Brunswick, and business owner operating his Moncton-based marketing consultancy, Bell Strategic.