michelemichele

EDITORIAL
TheStar.com | Opinion | Canada's role in Gitmo grilling
Canada's role in Gitmo grilling
Jul 16, 2008 04:30 AM
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There is a surreal quality to the images broadcast around the world over the past 24 hours of Omar Khadr's 2003 interrogation in a Guantanamo Bay holding cell.

True, there are no visible torture scenes in this first glimpse of the notorious detention camp run by the U.S. military, no inmates being "waterboarded" to simulate drowning. Rather, what truly jolts the Canadian viewer is the realization that the whimpering from a despondent inmate, and the questions from a manipulative interrogator, come not from Americans or other foreigners, but from an entirely Canadian cast. All under American auspices.

Apart from a CIA minder, the participants are our own people – all speaking with an eerily familiar Canadian intonation while playing out their roles on an American stage, in a camp erected on Cuban soil: We see and hear an accused Canadian citizen, his CSIS interrogators and a foreign affairs official who duly reported back up the chain of command in Ottawa.

A child soldier wounded and captured at age 15 after being dumped in Afghanistan by his radical father, Khadr languished in a U.S.-run military prison while the Liberal government of the day played along – and then played dumb. After its half-hearted requests for consular access to Khadr were rebuffed, Ottawa decided that if it couldn't beat the Americans at this game, it would join them, by sending Canadian interrogators to grind him down.

The Canadians apparently never laid a hand on him in Gitmo. They didn't have to, knowing that the Americans had first softened him up with weeks of mental torture through sustained sleep deprivation. In this good cop-bad cop routine, the Canadian interrogators were willing partners with the Americans, complicit in the abuse of a prisoner who would likely never be found guilty of anything in Canada.

Indeed, it took the intervention of Khadr's legal team in a Canadian court to force our national spy agency to back off the interrogations, and to require the release of the videotapes this month. His lawyers clearly expect the compelling images of a distraught and sickly Khadr, under interrogation at age 16, to stir Canadians' compassion as much as their sense of natural justice. The question is how our politicians will act now that Canadians know what Ottawa has known all along.

The Liberal government of the day failed to protect Khadr in 2003. How much longer can Prime Minister Stephen Harper defend this discredited line when even the American presidential candidates have disavowed Gitmo. Every other Western national in Gitmo has been repatriated at his government's insistence. Why not Khadr?

TheStar.com | Opinion | Canada's role in Gitmo grilling

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lrrp

I'm kinda torn in all of this. What exactly are US soldiers like my brother supposed to do? The bullets fired from a kid's rifle are no less lethal are they? An IED placed by a child makes you just as dead, and they are getting paid to do this. This is a direct consequence of madrasas teaching weapons instead of math.

Its not like there's a sign outside Baghdad and Kandahar saying "Welcome to the infidel killing zone, under 18 not permitted." In this country we can charge a child as an adult if the crime is heinous enough. Ask any Columbine or VT parent about the deeds kids are capable of, and what the punishment should be.

I understand one of the judges has been dismissed from the case, and the fact bushco tortured this kid is wrong on several levels. But, at the same time, there is a witness who puts the kid there and directly implicates him into this situation. For whatever else he may be, he is still an enemy combatant...child or not. When you jump into the mosh pit, don't be surprised when you get some scars because of it.

I'm glad I don't have to make that call, but I gotta say, if someone is shooting at me, or trying to blow me up, I take that kinda personal. I expect the soldiers to do what they have to in terms of self defense, if that kid didn't have any idea of the consequences of his actions, that's on him. He picked up the weapons, he made the stand, he made his choice. I imagine he regrets that choice, but it's too late for that medic isn't it?

michelemichele

The US has kidnapped a Canadian citizen, suspended his human rights, held him without laying charges and without trial.

I continually hear that the US shouldn't be 'policing the world'. Is this not also another example of America doing just that (and with Canadian complicity, I must add)? Do we condone torture?

He has no rights at all. I won't even begin to enumerate other aspects of this case (age, info from questionable sources) because it all comes down to the first paragraph.

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lrrp

[quote=michelemichele;223802]The US has kidnapped a Canadian citizen, suspended his human rights, held him without laying charges and without trial.

Said citizen was using an explosive weapon against US forces while not in uniform and should have been shot on the spot as a spy according to the Geneva Convention. Would that have been the more desirable outcome? Personally, I think bush is a war criminal and should be tried, but that dosen't make this kid any less guilty of what he did...

michelemichele

There have been no charges and no trial, or do you convict on the presumption of guilt?

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lrrp

He was seen by a witness doing the deed. As much as I might like to investigate every engagement that goes on, I don't see how we could. If a guy is shooting at me, I take it to mean he wants to kill me, I don't need a judge to tell me it's ok to shoot back. Throwing him in gitmo was wrong...and everything that happened after the engagement shouldn't have, no disagreement there.

Is my brother now supposed to stop the firefight and say "Ok, all underage participants must leave the field of battle now." ?

michelemichele

Jesus Christ.

"A witness" is enough to justify a CIA kidnapping, holding without charging, without trial, and in Guantanamo Bay: we know quite a bit about that installation, don't we?
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The crux is what you say in your next sentence:Thank you
No, your brother would have to fire back on the field or he'd be dead in no time.

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lrrp

I see...so the fact the kid killed a medic makes no difference, we'll just let that little bit go then.

michelemichele

I seem to be speaking in Michelese, maybe someone else can get through to you.

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lrrp

I seem to remember asking if killing the kid on the spot was preferable, are you saying it is? That's all I'm asking...