Omar Khadr — Bring Him Home
| 7/19/2008 | Posted by Patti under Afghanistan, Middle East, War on Terror |
I have been watching this situation with Omar Khadr for some time now, not really sure where I land on what should happen with him. The more information that comes out about him, the more I find myself troubled on several levels with his case. If you don’t know who Omar Khadr is, he is a Canadian born Muslim captured in a firefight in Afghanistan in 2002 and held at Quantamano Bay. He is the only westerner still in captivity there and the youngest, being just 15 at the time he was captured. To read more detail about Khadr, have a look here.
My short opinion on him, is that he’s a Canadian citizen and a child at the time of his capture. He should have been brought home and should still be brought home. To steadfastly refuse to do so in the face of unchallenged evidence that he’s been subject to physical and mental abuse and the process by which he is about to be tried is being weighted more by politics than any attempt at justice is to deny a Canadian his birthright.
It has not been proven that Khadr threw the grenade that killed Speers, who was trained as a medic but was engaged in the fire fight. He wasn’t with the troops as a medic at the time of his death. There has been allegations that reports filed after the battle indicated that the fighter who threw the grenade was killed and that the writer of the report was ordered to change the wording from ‘killed’ to ‘engaged’ which doesn’t define the final status of the person throwing the grenade.
There has also been suggestions that Speers was killed by an American grenade tossed into the compound during the fire fight. One witness report that the defense had to fight for stated that Khadr was found on his knees with his back to the action taking place when the witness entered the compound and that he was shot in the back.
I rather doubt the truth will be known. In the chaos and confusion of a fire fight, even those present may not know for sure what happened, including Khadr.
I have been rather ambivalent about Khadr’s plight and considering his young age, I maybe should not be so. I find the whole process through which he’s been held and the treatment of him by both his American captors and Canadian officials disturbing.
How long are we willing to sit back and observe as fellow Canadians are subjected to violations of Canadian and International law? Will we wait too long and gradually those treatments that are being visited upon people believed to be part of the “enemy” gradually ingrained into our system until Canadians of any walk of life can be subjected to this treatment merely because the government deems them to be a ‘threat’?
When we start to surrender rights and freedoms out of fear of ‘them’ we open the door to governments to infringe even further. Americans are beginning to see this as some of the horror and fear of 9/11 starts to draw back into memory and they start to take stock of how their government has changed the rules of ‘justice’ to fit what the result is they wish to attain.
This is rather evident when you review the makeup of the ‘court’ that is prosecuting Khadr. When men of conscience have questioned the process and the rightness of it, they have been replaced and/or officially silenced. When a country like the USA or Canada starts down a path like that, it sends out signals to countries less inclined to a strict rule of law and justice. Signals that are not good.
There is no clean, black and white solution to this issue. Should Khadr be brought home to face Canadian justice? As this drags on and I see the lack of justice he’s had to this point, I’m leaning more and more towards, yes he should. If he will be tried without political interference here.
The bigger issue is, this young man has been physically and mentally damaged. Raised and indoctrinated into a family, religious and ideological culture that was hostile to the west, in particular to the Americans. Since his capture, I don’t believe he has had any treatment that would induce him to forsake that upbringing. No matter where he ends up, the biggest issue is going to be can he be reached? Can he be salvaged and become a functioning member of society?
That waits to be seen. This young man and those like him are the West’s problem that must find resolution if peace is ever to have a hope.
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