Omar Khadr, that terrorist scum just got a 10.5 million dollar payout from the loony leftist Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. OMG! What is this world coming to? How about that thing called fair, and just. My first reaction was scornful to see money, tax payer money, going to a terrorist. Or is it? We all know the facts about his life and how he killed American troops in Afghanistan. Right? How he was in Gitmo, Guantánamo Bay, Cuba for years then tried, convicted by pleading guilty to all charges and finally shipped to Canada. Right? But is that all? In fact, knowing any of this, is hardly knowing anything at all.
Khadr was a child soldier. Big deal, you might think, but it is a big deal. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, Article 38, states: “State parties shall take all feasible measures to ensure that persons who have not attained the age of 15 years do not take a direct part in hostilities.”(link)
Khadr was captured at the age of 15, which means he had been a child solder in battle, used by father who was killed in the same firefight that Omar was captured in. If the father had been captured alive, the father would have been found guilty of a war crime of using his son to fight this battle, even if convicted of nothing else. Yet for all these indisputable facts, Omar was captured and sent to Gitmo as a prisoner of war, except they were not called that and given none of the protections normally offered to prisoners of war. There he was forced to endure ten years of torture by incompetent CIA agents, called Enhanced interrogation techniques, where the Washington Post on December 12, 2008, called these harsh interrogation policies that “disgraced the nation and undermined U.S. security.” (link) Where Senate Intelligence Committee report on CIA torture concluded that torturing prisoners did not help acquire actionable intelligence or gain cooperation from detainees and that the program damaged the United States’ international standing. (link)  Khadr after ten years of pain, suffering and torture broke and confessed to anything they wanted him to say. Canada under Stephan Harper’s government sent in CSIS agents into Gitmo to “Help.” A mind shattered, a body broken beyond measure, he confessed to his crimes and was sentenced to more time in jail. What was his crime that he confessed to? In a firefight, in the war zone called Afghanistan; i.e. both sides would be trying to kill the other side, Omar allegedly tossed a grenade at an American soldier who was carrying a peace banner, planting hope and spreading universal love and friendship… No, the American soldier, who was armed and ready to kill him in the heat of battle would have been a legitimate target of war where solders kill one another without it being called a war crime. War means men and women die. But did Khadr even toss that grenade? Evidence is weak and in the heat of battle the eye witness report is questionable as the person only concluded it was he, Khadr who tossed the grenade. He did not witness it himself. So rather than being fact, it was assumed to be true, meaning the weakest of circumstantial evidence. (Link)   Yet, the pundits will screech, he confessed. Yes, he did after ten years of torture to get out of a living hell hole, he confessed. And the value of that confession is in the paper it is on, for use in bathroom breaks that he was not allowed the luxury to take while being so tortured. Finally transferred to Canada, where a more just outcome, based on the rule of law, not the jingoistic passion fueled by the right wing rhetoric of the USA, where they are on their third President and Gitmo is still a prison, he, Khadr was released from prison. He sued the Canadian government for 20 million dollars. Even to be released his case had to travel to the Supreme Court of Canada where the lower courts found Canada have violated international law, and the Supreme Court of Canada found the Harper Government have violated his Charter rights. (Link)  Just how many violations of international law, Charter Rights and common human decency must one man endure? How long must a man suffer incompetent interrogation and torture before we step back and say enough?  Clearly, the answer is still not to be found. The widow of the slain American soldier has a court judgement from Utah against Khadr for 134 million. She had taken legal steps to gain all or some of his money from the government. Clearly this story is not over. The matter is now before the courts and as such no further comment on this matter, until the legality of it all is resolved.
Justin Trudeau did not start this shameful embarrassing matter. He only put an end to it. And we should be grateful someone finally did so to put an end fo the shame of Canada’s behavior to a 15 year old boy.