[BRIEF NOTE] Omar Khadr is doomed
Jul. 15th, 2008 04:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rfmcdonaldListening to CBC Toronto's 3 o'clock hourly news program, I was surprised to hear excerpts from a February 2003 interrogation of Canadian Security Intelligence Service of Omar Khadr, a Canadian citizen who has been held at the Guantanamo Bay prison facilities since his July 2002 capture by American forces following a firefight. It made for compelling listening as, against a background of Khadr (then 16) crying, a CSIS interrogator tried to soothe him with bromides like "I understand this is stressful" and "Just relax a bit". I laughed so hard at this that I lost my breath. (Video excerpts available here at the website of The Toronto Star).
Canada, unlike other Western countries like Britain and Australia, hasn't bothered to try to retrieve Khadr from Guantanamo but has instead opted to leave him to be tried by the United States government under fairly unfair conditions. Part of this might be due to the ideological complexion of the current Canadian government under the Conservatives, although it should be noted that the first two years saw the other major political party, the Liberals, at the helm. Part of this might be due to the behaviour of the surviving members of the Khadr family, who have given interviews condemning Canada as a corrupt and evil country and have been heavly involved in radical Islamism (Omar's father died in the American invasion of Afghanistan, while his brother is now a paraplegic as a result of his involvement in that same conflict).
Regardless, the video excerpts have attracted a lot of international attention, with journalists like Paul Lewis at The Guardian and, perhaps surprisingly given that paper's sympathies, Jonathan Kay at the National Post calling attention to the matter. Kay makes the point that Omar Khadr's neglect by the Canadian government is unconscionable, given that he was a child soldier who was raised by his parents to believe in violent Islamic, that if, in fact, he actually did kill a US medic (there's some doubt on that, since it might have been another jihadi or even another American soldier who threw the grenade) he was doing so in the middle of a firefight, and that in any case denying him appropriate medical intervention or threatening him with rape aren't exactly accepted penological methods.
All that aside, Khadr has been abandoned to the wolves. The Canadian government is not going to try to retrieve him. Here's to hoping that the military tribunals transcend their reputations, I suppose.
Canada, unlike other Western countries like Britain and Australia, hasn't bothered to try to retrieve Khadr from Guantanamo but has instead opted to leave him to be tried by the United States government under fairly unfair conditions. Part of this might be due to the ideological complexion of the current Canadian government under the Conservatives, although it should be noted that the first two years saw the other major political party, the Liberals, at the helm. Part of this might be due to the behaviour of the surviving members of the Khadr family, who have given interviews condemning Canada as a corrupt and evil country and have been heavly involved in radical Islamism (Omar's father died in the American invasion of Afghanistan, while his brother is now a paraplegic as a result of his involvement in that same conflict).
Regardless, the video excerpts have attracted a lot of international attention, with journalists like Paul Lewis at The Guardian and, perhaps surprisingly given that paper's sympathies, Jonathan Kay at the National Post calling attention to the matter. Kay makes the point that Omar Khadr's neglect by the Canadian government is unconscionable, given that he was a child soldier who was raised by his parents to believe in violent Islamic, that if, in fact, he actually did kill a US medic (there's some doubt on that, since it might have been another jihadi or even another American soldier who threw the grenade) he was doing so in the middle of a firefight, and that in any case denying him appropriate medical intervention or threatening him with rape aren't exactly accepted penological methods.
All that aside, Khadr has been abandoned to the wolves. The Canadian government is not going to try to retrieve him. Here's to hoping that the military tribunals transcend their reputations, I suppose.
