Power shutdown
IN “Canada needs a foreign spy agency“Wesley Wark warns us that when we imagine foreign intelligence agents, we should not imagine Jason Bourne or James Bond. I agree, but we don't need to look so far from home for inspiration for what Wark has in mind. Some of the cruelest and most scientifically unhelpful forms of abuse committed under MKUltra occurred on Canadian soil. At McGill University, agents drugged civilians with hallucinogenic and narcotic drugs in search of new forms of torture and Perhaps we should instead take as an example the Central Intelligence Agency agents (both named and anonymous) who facilitated the assassination of Patrice Lumumba, the former prime minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, in 1961, or the Canadian agents who played a role in right-wing coups in countries such as Guatemala, Bolivia and Iran, Wark seems content to perpetuate the fantasy of espionage as. Rudyard Kipling made it a spy novel. Kim as they say, “great game.” If it is a game, it is because the lives of other people and the democratically elected governments of other countries are being played with. Maybe next time we'll need the Canadian Henry Kissinger.
Tom Thor Buchanan
Toronto, Ontario
Legacy of shame
In his article about Guantanamo Bay: “Where cruelty matters(July/August), Michelle Shepherd captures the atmosphere of a naval base. I, too, traveled back and forth between Joint Base Andrews and Guantanamo Bay as lead counsel for Mohammed Nazir bin Lep, one of the Southeast Asian military commission prisoners. It has been a four-year legal odyssey for me and our defense team. Nazir was tortured for three years and then held without trial for two decades. It was his torture, like that of all other indicted detainees, that was correctly described by John Baker, the commissions' former chief counsel, as Guantanamo's “original sin.” There is no way around this glaring fact, no matter how much the United States government has tried and is still trying to evade and justify it. While I am deeply proud of the work our team did as we stood up to this violation of human rights, when I think about this period, the dominant emotion I feel is sadness. It is sad to know that state-sponsored torture will forever be part of our national heritage. As Shepard noted, terms like “enhanced interrogation techniques” and “slips” are not only “dizzying” but downright misleading. This kind of cynical play on words has given authoritarian regimes hard work throughout human history. Part of the purpose of propaganda is to create the impression that everything is fine. There is nothing normal about military commissions except the abnormality itself. We desperately need a truth and reconciliation commission on torture. And this is also sad: knowing that we will never find the courage to honestly admit what we have done or demand responsibility for it.
Brian Bouffard
Fort Worth, Texas
Behind the grave
From the age of eighteen to twenty-four, I worked in cemeteries, restoring historic tombstones. I'm pretty sure this job will go down in history as the best job I've ever had. Ellen Himelfarb”The dearly departed approach death creatively” highlights the growing shortage of available plots in old city cemeteries, partly due to urban expansion and land shortages. The reason I enjoyed working in these cemeteries so much is how beautiful they are. Most of them are covered with trees older than the inhabitants of the soil. They are dotted with headstones and flat markers made from materials from around the world (and the odd early twentieth century zinc marker). These are public places. Quiet, well shaded, good benches, old stones. These are mature parks. It would be a shame if the city absorbed these spaces, which have not changed much with their appearance. Build more cities, build more cemeteries.
Kipp McDonald
Hamilton, Ontario
Fast Letters to the Editor: November 2025 first appeared on Walrus.
